OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, James (1420-1461)

​BUTLER, JAMES, fifth Earl of Ormonde and Earl of Wiltshire (1420–1461), was the eldest son of James Butler, the fourth earl [q. v.], by Johan, daughter of Gerald, fifth earl of Kildare, and was born on 24 Nov. 1420. He was knighted when very young by Henry VI, and he attended Richard, duke of York, regent of France, in his expedition into that kingdom. On account of his zealous support of the Lancastrian interest, he was on 8 July 1449, during the lifetime of his father, created a peer of England by the title of earl of Wiltshire. In the following year he was constituted a commissioner, to whom the town and castle of Calais, with other French fortresses, were committed for five years. In 1451 he was appointed lord-deputy of Ireland in the absence of the Duke of York, and on the death of his father he was in 1453 appointed viceroy for ten years. In the same year, along with the Earl of Salisbury and other great lords, he undertook the guarding of the seas for three years, receiving the tonnage and poundage to support the charge thereof. On 13 March 1455 he was appointed lord high treasurer of England, and shortly afterwards fought for the king at the battle of St. Albans, when, the Yorkists prevailing, he fled, casting his armour into a ditch. He was superseded as lord-lieutenant of Ireland by the Duke of York, but in 37 Henry VI was restored to the post of lord-treasurer, and next year made a knight of the Garter. Soon afterwards he fitted out a fleet of five ships at Genoa, with which he sailed to the Netherlands against the Earl of Warwick, but returned before the battle of Wakefield on 31 Dec. 1460, in which he commanded a wing of the army which enclosed and slew the Duke of York. On 2 Feb. 1461, along with the Earl of Pembroke, he suffered a disastrous defeat from Edward, earl of March, at Mortimer's Cross, and on 29 March was taken prisoner at the battle of Towton, Yorkshire. He is said to have been beheaded at Newcastle on 1 May following. In the first parliament of Edward IV he was attainted, along with his brothers John and Thomas, and his estates forfeited and resumed. As he left no issue, the earldom of Wiltshire lapsed with him, but he was succeeded in the earldom of Ormonde by his brother, Sir John de Ormonde.
[Stow's Annals; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 235; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, iv. 14-16; Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde (Oxford ed. 1851), i. lxxix-lxxxi; The Ormonde Attainders, by Hubert Hall, in the Genealogist, new ser. i. 76-9; The Barony of Arklow, by J. H. Round, in vol. i. of Foster's Collectanea Genealogica.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, James Armar

​BUTLER, JAMES ARMAR (1827–1854), captain in the army, born in 1827, was the fourth son of Lieutenant-general the Hon. Henry Edward Butler, who had served in the 27th regiment in Egypt, and afterwards as a colonel in the Portuguese army at Busaco, where he was wounded. He was nephew of Somerset Richard Butler, third earl of Carrick. He was educated on the continent and at Sandhurst, and received his commission as an ensign in the 90th regiment in 1843. He served in the Caffre war of 1846–7, was promoted lieutenant in 1847, and purchased his captaincy in the Ceylon rifle regiment in May 1853. He was in England on furlough in the summer of 1854, when the war between Russia and Turkey had just broken out, and since he could not hope to be ordered with the expeditionary force, he set out with a friend, Lieutenant Charles Nasmyth, of the Bombay artillery, to see the fighting. The two friends went first to Omar Pasha's camp at Shumla; but as he did not seem inclined to advance, they asked leave to join the garrison at Silistria, to which the Russian army had laid siege on 19 May. Butler and Nasmyth soon obtained over the garrison the same absolute power that Eldred Pottinger acquired at Herat. The key to the fortress was believed to be the earthwork known as the Arab Tabia, and this work was perpetually bombarded and mined by the Russians, and attacked by heavy columns at all hours of the day and night. Mussa Pasha, the Turkish commandant, was killed, and so was the Russian commanding engineer; but still Omar Pasha would not send help, and when General Cannon (Behram Pasha) did introduce his brigade, he dared not keep it there, and retired within two days. On 13 June Butler had been slightly wounded in the forehead; privation and hard work made the wound dangerous, and on 22 June, two hours before the Russians retired, the hero of Silistria—who deserves the credit, though but a young English captain of twenty-seven, of defeating a whole Russian army—died peacefully without knowing of his triumph. On 14 July, before the news of his untimely death arrived, he had been gazetted a major in the army, and lieutenant and captain in the Coldstream guards.
H. M. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, James (d.1452)

​BUTLER, JAMES, fourth Earl Of Ormonde (d. 1452), commonly called the 'white earl,' son of the third earl of Ormonde [see under Butler, James, second earl], and Anne, daughter of John, Lord Welles, succeeded his father in September 1405, not being at that time of full age. Owing to the care his father had taken in his education, he excelled in learning most of the noblemen of his time. While still under age, he was in 1407 appointed deputy during the absence of Sir Stephen Scrope in England. After the arrival soon afterwards of Thomas of Lancaster, the lord-lieutenant, he contracted with him an intimate friendship, and in 1412 accompanied him on his travels in France. Having attended Henry V in his French wars, he was on his return appointed in 1420 ​lord-lieutenant. In 1422 he invaded the territory of the O'Mores, and pursued his army through the red bog of Athy, when, according to the chroniclers, the sun favoured him by miraculously standing still for three hours. Violent feuds had long existed between the Butlers and the Talbots, and in 1422 Sir John Talbot arraigned the Earl of Ormonde for treason, but the crown and council in 1423 ordered the annulment of all proceedings connected with the dispute. After the death of Henry V, the Earl of Ormonde was replaced in the government of Ireland by Edmund Mortimer, but on several occasions he acted as deputy before he was again appointed viceroy in 1440. Attempts were again made by the Talbots to overthrow his influence, and Richard Talbot, archbishop of Dublin, having been delegated in November 1441 to lay various requests before the king, took the opportunity of representing the advantages that would accrue to Ireland by his removal from office; but notwithstanding this he was appointed lord-lieutenant in 1443. Owing, however, to representations that he was old and feeble, he was dismissed in 1446. In 1447 John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, who had succeeded him as lord-lieutenant, accused him of high treason, but the king dismissed the complaint, and by patent, 20 Sept. 1448, declared that 'no one should dare, on pain of his indignation, to revive the accusation or reproach of his conduct.' He died at Atherdee in the county of Louth, on 23 Aug. 1452. He specially interested himself in history and antiquities, and bequeathed lands to the College of Heralds. By his first wife, Johan, daughter of Gerald, fifth earl of Kildare, he had three sons—successively earls of Ormonde—and two daughters; but by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Bergavenny and widow of Lord Grey, he had no issue.
[Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde (Oxford ed. 1851), i. lxxiv-viii; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, iv. 11-14; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, George Slade

​BUTLER, GEORGE SLADE (1821–1882), antiquary, was the son of Richard Weeden Butler, a surgeon in large practice at Rye, Sussex, by his third wife, Rhoda Jane, only daughter of Daniel Slade, of London and Rye. Born at Rye, 4 March 1821, he was educated at a private school at Brighton, and, adopting the law as his future profession, was admitted a solicitor in Hilary term, 1843. He soon attained considerable business in his native town, where, among other valuable appointments, he held the town-clerkship and the registrarahip of the county court. His 'Topographica Sussexiana,' which originally appeared in the 'Collections' of the Sussex Archæological Society, and was afterwards reprinted in one volume, is a creditable attempt towards forming a list of the various publications relating to the county. Butler also contributed to the same serial many papers on the antiquities of Rye, where he died, 11 April 1882. He had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in March 1862.
[Information from Mr. Slade Butler; Hastings and St. Leonards News, 21 April 1882; Hastings and St. Leonards Independent, 13 April 1882; Law List.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashworth, Charles

1904 Errata appended.
​ASHWORTH, Sir CHARLES (d. 1832), major-general, was appointed ensign in the 68th foot in 1798; lieutenant in 1799; captain 55th foot in 1801; major 6th West India regiment in 1808; major 62nd foot in 1808; a lieutenant-colonel with the Portuguese army in 1810; and served as brigadier-general at the battles of Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, and St. Pierre, where he was badly wounded. He took part in the combat of Buenza and succeeding engagements, for which he was honoured with a cross, and allowed, 14 Nov. 1814, to accept the order of the Tower and Sword from the Prince Regent of Portugal. He attained the rank of colonel in 1814, and major-general in 1825; was nominated a companion of the Bath in 1815; a knight commander on the occasion of the coronation of William IV in September 1831; and died at Hall Place, St. John's Wood, on 13 Aug. 1832.
A. S. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.9 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 187 | i | 26 | Ashworth, Sir Charles: for 1825 read 1830 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Askew, Egeon

​ASKEW, EGEON (b. 1576), divine, was a native of Lancashire. His family was originally of Mulcaster, in Cumberland, and subsequently of Kirby Ireleth, in North Lancashire, at which latter place one Thomas Askew, M.A., was instituted vicar in 1606. At the age of seventeen Egeon Askew became a student of the university of Oxford; he was B.A. April 1597, chaplain of Queen's College 1598, and M.A. June 1600. About the time of the accession of James I, having the reputation of a noted preacher, he was minister of Greenwich, Kent. He was the author of one book only, which was entered by George Bishop on the registers of Stationers' Hall 27 March 1605, said to be by Egeon Acton Askew, of Queen's College. This work is made up of college sermons, and is somewhat scarce. When Dr. Bliss edited Wood, there was no copy in the Bodleian Library; and the copy which Wood saw is wrongly described, being made into two books, after his manner. It was entitled 'Brotherly Reconcilement; preached in Oxford for the vnion of some, and now published with larger meditations for the vnitie of all in this church and common-wealth. With an apologie of the use of the Fathers and secular learning in sermons.' Lond. 4to, 1605. The dedication to King James is dated from Greenwich, 27 April that year. The book shows traces of very wide reading, the margins being filled with references to ancient authorities. Hence Wood described him as 'a person as well read in the fathers, commentators, and schoolmen, as any man of his age in the university.' The second portion of the book is in strict keeping with the style of composition in which he indulged; it is a discussion 'whether Humanitie, i.e. anything beside the words of scripture, be lawful quoad esse or quoad gradum at all, as some deny, or only against adversaries, as some hold, in sermons academical or popular.' It is not known when or where Askew died. Evelyn assured Wood that he did not die at Greenwich.
J. E. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashwood, John

​ASHWOOD, JOHN (1657–1706), non-conformist minister, was born at Axminster in 1657, and was the son of Bartholomew Ashwood [q. v.]. In his youth he was extremely delicate. He was educated by his father, and admitted 'as a member of his father's church.' Soon after he was sent to London, where he was received into the family of the learned Theophilus Gale, who acted as his instructor. Before he began to preach he taught a school at Axminster, and afterwards at Chard. Being driven from the latter as a conscience-ruled nonconformist by high-church intolerance, he determined along with some friends to emigrate to Carolina in January 1683, but was prevented by a sudden attack of smallpox. He then appears to have resided successively at Ilminster, Haveland, and Buckland, until he received a 'call' to Exeter, where, his biographer tells us, he was 'a vigilant and faithful minister for about the space of ten years.' He subsequently returned to London. For about two years he was evening lecturer at Spitalfields, and morning preacher at Hoxton, when he received a 'call' from a congregation at Peckham, Surrey. He died there on 22 Sept. 1706. His 'Life' was for long a favourite fireside companion among devout nonconformists, circulating as a chap-book, viz. 'Some Account of the Life, Character, and Death of the Rev. Mr. John Ashwood,' by Thomas Reynolds (1707). Added to the 'Account' are two very admirable sermons 'preached a little before he died.'
A. B. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashworth, Henry (1785-1811)

​ASHWORTH, HENRY (1785–1811), lieutenant in the navy, was born in London, December 1785. In November 1799 he entered on board the 38-gun frigate Hussar, under the immediate patronage of the first lieutenant, and four years later was serving as midshipman on board the same ship when she was lost on the Saintes, near Brest, on 8 Feb. 1804. Whilst prisoner of war, Mr. Ashworth made several remarkable attempts to recover his freedom; and at last, having escaped from Bitche in December 1808, he succeeded in passing through Germany to Trieste, where he got on board the English frigate L'Unité. In the October following he was promoted to be a lieutenant, and was serving in that rank in the Centaur of 74 guns, on the coast of Spain, when the French took Tarragona, on 28 June 1811, and drove a number of the panic-stricken inhabitants, literally, into the sea. Lieutenant Ashworth had command of one of the boats sent to rescue these drowning wretches, and, whilst so employed, received a wound, of which he died a month later, at Minorca, 25 July 1811.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashworth, John

​ASHWORTH, JOHN (1813–1875), preacher, manufacturer, and author, was born on 8 July 1813 at the hamlet of Cutgate near Rochdale, and was the eighth child of his parents, who were poor woollen weavers. He has himself told the story of his mother manufacturing a 'bishop' (pinafore) for him out of a pack-sheet, from which all her exertions could not wash away the indelible word 'Wool,' which therefore formed his breastplate. The poverty of the family was further embittered by the intemperance of the father, who, however, reformed later in life. John Ashworth had no more education than could be gleaned at a Sunday school, and he married before he was twenty. The union, however imprudent, was a happy one, but he and his first wife had years of struggle with poverty and care. His position somewhat improved, and in 1851, when visiting the Great Exhibition, he formed the resolution of founding a chapel for the destitute in Rochdale, but the proposal was so much discouraged by his friends that he abandoned it for a time, and did not put it into execution until 1858. As minister of this chapel he was brought into close contact with the poorest people of a great factory town. He was a vigorous preacher of the orthodox type, and understanding the people's way of life, and speaking a language which they understood, he gathered a great congregation. He was a liberal in politics, a staunch teetotaller, and an uncompromising advocate for the Maine Law and the observance of the Sunday after a rigid puritanical fashion. He visited the United States and the Holy Land, and for many years had a busy life as preacher, manufacturer, lecturer, and author. He wrote 'Walks in Canaan' and 'Back from Canaan,' and had begun an account of his 'Rambles in the New World' when death overtook him; but his chief work was 'Strange Tales,' followed after a time by a similar gathering of 'Simple Records.' These were printed as separate tracts, and have had a circulation that is to be counted by millions. Some have been translated into Welsh, French, Dutch, Russian, and Spanish. Yet the publisher to whom the first one was offered only undertook to print it on being guaranteed from any risk. These narratives have no literary polish, but are good examples of plain straightforward narrative, and are interesting for the glimpses they give of the life of the poor of the manufacturing districts. They mostly relate incidents that had come to his knowledge during his work amongst the poor. The accuracy of one was challenged, but for most of them sufficient vouchers could be adduced. Ashworth's intimate knowledge of the class ​he describes gives his 'Strange Tales' a value to which most 'religious tracts' have no claim. Ashworth died on 26 Jan. 1875, and was followed to his grave in the Rochdale cemetery by a procession of those amongst whom he had laboured.
[Ashworth's own writings; Calman's Life and Labours of John Ashworth, 2nd edit. (Manchester, 1875).]
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Arderon, William

​ARDERON, WILLIAM (1703–1767), naturalist, born in 1703, went from Yorkshire to Norwich in the capacity of an officer of excise. His scientific attainments secured for him the friendship of several influential gentlemen in that city, who obtained for him the situation of managing clerk at the New Mills. He became very intimate with Henry Baker, F.R.S., to whose works on the 'Microscope' he largely contributed. Arderon was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1745. Notwithstanding the disadvantage of a defective education, he may be regarded as the founder of a school of naturalists and men of science in Norwich. He died 25 Nov. 1767, and was buried in Heigham churchyard, near Norwich. The last letter he wrote was addressed to Henry Baker, and is in these terms: 'My dear friend. When you receive this you may be asured I am no more. I took this interval to take my last farewell of you, which I now do with the utmost affection. A pluresy amongst the many diseases hath laid a heavy hand upon me and is hard to bear. I have finished a life in which I laboured forty years. In which I had some pleasure, but none equal to your correspondence. I have acquired some fortunes which I have left amongst my poor acquaintance without any regard to any thing but merit.' Dawson Turner, after a careful perusal of ​Arderon's correspondence, formed a very high opinion of his merits as a naturalist, and considered him superior to Gilbert White, the author of the 'Natural History of Selborne.'
Arderon is the author of: 1. Numerous contributions to the 'Philosophical Transactions.' 2. 'Remains,' 1745-60; a folio volume of 351 leaves, preserved in the British Museum, MS. Addit. 27966. The contents of this bulky volume are almost entirely on subjects connected with natural history and microscopical science. 3. 'Journals and Observations on Nature and Art,' 6 vols. 12mo, 1742-64; manuscript formerly in the possession of Dawson Turner. 4. 'Correspondence with Henry Baker, F.R.S.,' 4 vols. 4to, 1744-67; manuscript formerly in the possession of Dawson Turner.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Archer, Thomas (1554-1630?)

​ARCHER, THOMAS (1554–1630?), divine, was born at Bury St. Edmunds 12 Aug. 1554, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a fellowship. He took his master's degree in 1582, and in November 1584 became chaplain to his kinsman, Dr. John May, bishop of Carlisle. In 1588 he was public preacher to the university, and in May 1589 was inducted rector of Houghton Conquest and Houghton Gildable, in Bedfordshire. He served as chaplain in 1599 to Archbishop Whitgift, and in 1605 was made one of the king's chaplains in ordinary. In 1623 he made a vault for himself in the chancel of Houghton Conquest Church, and five years later added his epitaph in English and Latin. He kept an obituary of all the eminent persons who died in his time, and also wrote an account (extracts from which are preserved among the Baker MSS. at Cambridge) of the parish and neighbourhood of Houghton Conquest. His manuscripts were lent in 1760 by Dr. Zachary Grey, then rector of Houghton Conquest, to Cole, the author of 'Athenæ Cantabrigienses,' who describes the collection as one of much interest and value. Archer is supposed to have died about 1630, as the obituary notices do not go beyond that date. Cole mentions also a manuscript diary of Archer's, which contained some curious anecdotes.
[Cole's MS. Athenæ; Catalogue of MSS. in the University Library, Cambridge, v. 421.]
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Arden, Edward

​ARDEN, EDWARD (1542?–1583), high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1575, was a probably innocent victim of the rigorous severity adopted by the ministers of Queen Elizabeth in order to defeat the numerous Roman Catholic conspiracies in favour of Mary Queen of Scots and against the protestant sovereign. He was the head of a family that had held land in Warwickshire for six centuries from the days of Edward the Confessor downwards. His father, William, having died in 1545, Edward succeeded his grandfather Thomas Arden in 1563. He kept to the old faith and maintained in his home, Park Hall, near Warwick, a priest named Hall, in the disguise of a gardener. This man, animated with the fierce zeal of his order, inflamed the minds of the Arden household against the heretical queen, and especially influenced John Somerville, Edward Arden's son-in-law. This weak-minded young man had been greatly excited by the woes of the Scottish queen, who had given to a friend of his a small present for some service rendered her when at Coventry in 1569. He talked of shooting the Queen of England, whom he vituperated as a serpent and a viper, and set out for London on this deadly errand. Betraying himself, however, by over-confident speech, he was arrested, put to the rack, and confessed, implicating his father-in-law in his treason, and naming the priest as the instigator of his crime. All three were tried and sentenced to death. Somerville strangled himself in his cell. Arden was hanged at Tyburn (October 1583), but the priest was spared. Arden's head and Somerville's were set on London Bridge beside the skull of the Earl of Desmond.
Dugdale, who quotes from Camden's 'Annals,' says that Arden was prosecuted with much rigour and violence at the instance of the Earl of Leicester, whom he had irritated, partly by disdaining to wear his livery, but chiefly for galling him by certain harsh expressions touching his private accesses to the Countess of Essex before she was his wife. The language of Camden is very outspoken. 'The woful end of this gentleman, who was drawn in by the cunning of the priest and cast by his evidence, was generally imputed to Leicester's malice. Certain it is that he had incurred Leicester's heavy displeasure; and not without cause, for he had rashly opposed him in all he could, reproaching him as an adulterer, and defaming him as a new upstart.' Much interest is attached to the question of relationship between this Edward Arden and Mary Arden of Wilmcote, the mother of Shakespeare, and second cousin of Edward Arden's father. Ingenious writers have not been wanting who trace the poet's consummate portrayal of high-born dames to his gentle blood and the influence of the Arden ladies, his mother and her six sisters who dwelt at Asbies in Wilmcote.
R. H.