OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beaufort, John

1904 Errata appended.
​BEAUFORT, JOHN (1403–1444), first Duke of Somerset, military commander, was the son of John Beaufort, eldest son of John of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford, who was created Earl of Somerset and died in 1409. John the younger succeeded to the earldom on the death of his brother Henry in 1419. He was early inured to arms, and fought at the age of seventeen with Henry V in France. In 1421 the Duke of Clarence, the king's brother, being sent against the dauphin in Anjou, advanced rashly against him with his vanguard, and being surprised as he crossed a marsh was killed, and Somerset, who was with him, was taken prisoner. Speedily ransomed, the latter continued fighting in France under Henry VI, his nearness to the throne insuring him high command. But though made duke in 1443 and captain general in Aquitaine and Normandy, the Duke of York was preferred to him as regent of France. Somerset returned home in disgust and died the next year — by his own hand it is said, being unable to brook the disgrace of banishment from court which his quarrel with the government had brought upon him.
H. A. T.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.20 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 48 | i | 31 | Beaufort, John, 1st Duke of Somerset: after made insert K.G. about 1440 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beauclerk, Topham

​BEAUCLERK, TOPHAM (1739–1780), a friend of Dr. Johnson, was the only son of Lord Sydney Beauclerk and a grandson of the first Duke of St. Albans. He was born in December 1739, and on the death of his father, 23 Nov. 1744, succeeded to the estates which Lord Sydney Beauclerk, a man notorious in his day for fortune-hunting, had inherited from Mr. Richard Topham, M.P. for Windsor. Topham Beauclerk matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, 11 November 1767, but does not seem to have taken any degree.
Whilst there he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Bennet Langton. Beauclerk's tastes were widespread, both in science and literature; his conversation was easy and vivacious, with that 'air of the world' which showed that he had seen much, and knew how to describe what he had seen. But his talents would have passed away without leaving any record behind them had he not sought the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, and been loved by him with signal devotion. From 1767 to 1780 his name and his good qualities are written in the pages of Boswell. He married, at St. George's, Hanover Square, 12 March 1768, Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, two days after she had been divorced from Lord St. John and Bolingbroke, and she made an excellent wife to her new husband. Beauclerk died at Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, 11 March 1780, leaving issue one son and two daughters. His library of 30,000 volumes, housed, as Horace Walpole remarks, in a building 'that reaches half-way to Highgate,' was sold by auction April-June 1781, and was especially rich in English plays and English history, travels and science. A catalogue ('Bibliotheca Beauclerkiana') is in the British Museum. Many of Beauclerk's letters are in the possession of Lord Charlemont.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Ralph de

​ASHTON, Sir RALPH de (fl. 1460–1483), an officer of state under Edward IV, was the half-brother of Sir Thomas de Ashton the alchemist [see Ashton or Assheton, Sir Thomas de, fl. 1446], and the son of the Ashton mentioned by Froissart [see Ashton, Sir John de, fl. 1370]. His mother was Margaret, daughter of Sir John Byron of Clayton. In his seventeenth year he was one of the pages of honour to Henry VI, and at the same early age he married Margaret, the heiress of the Bartons of Middleton, and became the founder of the family that held the lordship there until the last century, when it passed by the female line to the holders of the Suffield peerage. Ralph Ashton was a man of influence, and in the reign of ​Edward IV he held various offices. He was sheriff of Yorkshire, and for his courage at the battle of Huttonfield he was made a knight banneret. When his commander, the Duke of Gloucester, became Richard III, he rewarded Sir Ralph's adhesion to the Yorkist cause by extensive grants of land. In 1483 he was appointed vice-constable of England and lieutenant of the Tower. The date of his death is unknown, but he is traditionally said to have been shot at Ashton-under-Lyne, and the yearly ceremony known as the 'Riding of the Black Lad' is regarded as a commemoration of that event. There is a very full rent-roll or custumal of the manor of Ashton in 1422, in which the various names and obligations of the tenants are set forth. Ralph Ashton is mentioned in a passage which Dr. Hibbert-Ware has explained with much ingenuity, though not with absolute certainty. According to this, corn marigold (Chrysanthemun segetum) grew so extensively in the low wet land about Ashton as to be inimical to the crops, and the lord of the manor had an annual inspection and levied fines on those tenants on whose lands it was seen. This power, delegated to Ralph Ashton and his brother Robert, is said to have been made the pretext of such tyrannical exactions that on one of these visitations the tenants rose in desperation and the 'Black Knight' was slain. Others hold that it was whilst exercising in the northern parts his despotic powers as vice-constable that he excited the terror expressed in the legendary rhyme:—
Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake
 And for thy bitter passion,
Save us from the axe of the Tower,
 And from Sir Ralph of Ashton.
The effigy of the Black Knight is still paraded through the town of Ashton on Easter Monday.
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Robert de

​ASHTON, Sir ROBERT de (d. 1385), civil, military, and naval officer under Edward III, was of the great northern family of Ashton or Assheton, of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the county of Lancaster. The house claims descent from Emma, the daughter of Albert de Gresley, the first baron of Manchester; she married Orm, the son of Ailward, and received from her father as a dowry a portion of the lands he had received from Roger of Poictou. From this union, probably of Norman heiress and Saxon thane, descended Sir John Ashton, who was twice married. The date of the birth of his son Robert is not known, nor are there records of his career until we find him, in 1324, a member of the parliament of Westminster, and afterwards occupying positions of great importance and trust. In 1359 he was governor of 'Guynes' near Calais; in 1362 he was lord treasurer of England; in 1368 he had the custody of the castle of Sandgate near Calais with the lands and revenue thereto belonging; in 1369 he was admiral of the Narrow Seas; in 1372 he was justiciary of Ireland; and in 1373 again lord treasurer of England and king's chamberlain. In 1375 he became chancellor of the exchequer, and held that office until the death of Edward III in 1377, when he was succeeded by Simon de Bureley. The new king did not discard his father's old servant, and in 1380 Ashton was appointed constable of Dover and warden of the Cinque Ports. He died at Dover Castle 9 Jan. 1384-5, and was buried in the church there, to which he had previously presented a large bell. He was twice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth, whose surname is not known, he left a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Eleanor. His second wife was the widow of Lord Matthew de Gomey, and after Ashton's death married Sir John Tiptoft, knt., and died in 1417. Such are the scanty details of the career of a man who, going from a then remote and little-known district, achieved distinction alike in court and camp, by land and by sea.
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Thomas de (fl.1346)

​ASHTON, THOMAS de (fl. 1346), warrior, was the son and heir of Sir Robert de Ashton, and it is remarkable that, although the chief recorded event of his life shows him to have been a man of conspicuous military courage, he does not appear to have received the honour of knighthood, or to have been employed in any of the offices in which his father had distinguished himself. Whilst Edward III was fighting in France, David, king of Scotland, entered Northumberland with a force estimated at 50,000 men, and wasted and pillaged the country as far as Durham. Queen Philippa, the heroic wife of Edward III, marched against the invaders with a force of about 12,000, whom she encouraged to the unequal conflict. Battle was joined at Neville's Cross, near Durham, 17 Oct. 1346, and the result was a decisive victory for the English. Thomas de Ashton, who fought under Lord Neville, captured the royal ​standars of Scotland. Shortly after King David was made prisoner by John de Coupland, variously described as a Lancashire esquire and as a Northumberland gentleman, who was knighted when the king returned from France, but Ashton was still an esquire when, in 1385, he formed one of the retinue of John of Gaunt in his expedition to Spain. William de Ashton, doctor of laws, who was also with 'the serene prince, Lord John, king of Castile and Leon,' was his uncle.
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, John de (d.1428)

​ASHTON, Sir JOHN de (d. 1428), seneschal of Bayeux, was the son of Sir John de Ashton and his wife, Margary Legh. He was one of forty-six esquires who were summoned to attend the grand coronation of Henry IV, in honour of which event they were solemnly admitted to the order of the Bath. He served in the parliament of 1413 as knight of the shire for Lancashire. In 1416 he was with the Duke of Clarence at the taking of Bayeux, and was entrusted by the king with the office of seneschal of the city. There is in the 'Fœdera' a document sent to him by Henry IV from Falaise, commanding him to give special protection to the inhabitants of the religious houses. He was also captain of Hadupais and bailiff of Constance. He was twice married and left many children, of whom the most distinguished were Sir Thomas de Ashton, the alchemist, and Sir Roger de Ashton, of Middleton. Sir John died in 1428.
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Thomas (d.1578)

​ASHTON, THOMAS (d. 1578), schoolmaster, was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1559-60, and M.A. in 1563. He was elected a fellow of Trinity College in that university, entered into orders, and in 1562 was appointed the first head master of Shrewsbury school, which he raised to a high position; there being, while he presided over it, as many as 290 scholars at a time. Among his pupils were the illustrious Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. Camden, in his 'Britannia,' remarks that 'Shrewsbury is inhabited both by Welsh and English, who speak each other's language; and among other things greatly to their praise is the grammar school founded by them, the best filled in all England, whose flourishing state is owing to provision made by its head master, the excellent and worthy Thomas Ashton.' At Whitsuntide 1568 a noble stage play, in which Ashton was the principal actor, was performed at Shrewsbury in connection with the school. It lasted all the holidays, and was attended by a large number of people, including several noblemen and many gentry residing in the neighbourhood. Soon afterwards, however, in the same year Ashton resigned the master-ship of the school. About October 1574 he was sent to Ireland to Walter, Earl of Essex, who despatched him to parley with Tyrlogh Lynogh, and subsequently employed him in confidential communications with the queen and the privy council of England. The same nobleman by will gave him 40l. a year for life, and he was one of the feoffees of the earl's estates. Ashton returned to England in 1575. One of his latest acts was to visit Shrewsbury, where he preached a farewell sermon to the inhabitants. The 'godlie Father,' as he is styled in a contemporary manuscript, then returned to Cambridge, in or near which town he died a fortnight later, in 1578.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Peter

1904 Errata appended.
​ASHTON, PETER (fl. 1546), translated into English, in 1546, the 'Turcicarum rerum Commentarius' of Paulus Jovius, under the title of 'A Shorte Treatise upon the Turkes Chronicles, compyled by Paulus Jovius, byshop of Nucenie, and dedicated to Charles V, Emperour. Drawen out of the Italyen tong in to Latyne by Franciscus Niger Bassianates. And translated out of Latyne into Englysh by Peter Ashton.' In the dedicatory epistle to Sir Rafe Sadler the translator informs us that he has 'studyed rather to use the most playn and famylier English speche the ether Chaucers wordes (which by reason of antiquitie be almost out of use) or els inkhorn termes (as they call them) which the common people for lacke of Latin do not understand.'
A. H. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.9 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 178 | ii | 23 | Ashton, Peter: for (fl. 1546) read (d. 1548), translator, was prebendary of Lincoln in 1542, and died in 1548. (Le Neve's Fasti.) He |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ashton, Thomas (1716-1775)

​ASHTON, THOMAS, D.D. (1716–1775), divine, son of Dr. Ashton, usher of the Lancaster grammar school, was born in 1716. After being educated at Eton, he proceeded in 1733 to King's College, Cambridge, where he made the acquaintance of Horace Walpole. He is the 'Thomas Ashton, Esq., tutor to the Earl of Plymouth,' to whom Walpole addressed his Epistle from Florence (Dodsley, Poems, iii. 75). In a letter to Richard West, dated 4 May 1742, Walpole speaks in high terms of Ashton's success in the pulpit: 'He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel. . . . I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admire them still more when you heard him deliver them' (Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 161). In less than a month West was dead; and in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated 30 June 1742, Walpole encloses an elegy on his death by Ashton. For some time Ashton held the living of Aldingham, Lancashire; in May 1749 he was presented to the rectory of Sturminster Marshall in Dorsetshire; and in 1752 to the rectory of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate. Meanwhile his acquaintance with Walpole had come to an end. Writing to Sir Horace Mann on 25 July 1750, Walpole says: 'I believe you have often heard me mention a Mr. Ashton, a clergyman, who, in one word, has great preferments and owes everything upon earth to me. I have long had reason to complain of his behaviour; in short, my father is dead, and I can make no bishops. He has at last quite thrown off ​the mask, and in the most direct manner, against my will, has written against my friend Dr. Middleton. . . . I have forbid him my house' (Letters, ii. 216). Cole (MS. Athenæ) mentions that Ashton owed his Eton fellowship to Walpole's influence. In 1759 Ashton took the degree of D.D.; in December 1760 he married a Miss Amyand; and in May 1762 was elected preacher at Lincoln's Inn, which office he resigned in 1764. He died on 1 March 1775, after 'having for some years survived a severe attack of the palsy.'
Ashton was the author of a number of sermons, among which may be mentioned 'A Sermon on the Rebellion,' 1745; a 'Thanksgiving Sermon' on the close of it in 1746; a 'Sermon preached before the House of Commons' on 30 Jan. 1762; a 'Spital Sermon' at St. Bride's on Easter Wednesday of the same year. These, with others, were collected in a volume of 'Sermons on several Occasions,' 1770, 8vo. Prefixed to this volume is a mezzotint portrait of Ashton from a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1754 he had an altercation with a methodist minister of the name of Jones, to whom he addressed 'A Letter to the Rev. Thomas Jones, intended as a rational and candid answer to his sermon preached at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate.' He also wrote some pamphlets against the admission of aliens to Eton fellowships.
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bollard, Nicholas

1904 Errata appended.
​BOLLARD, NICHOLAS (fl. 1500?), naturalist, was the author of a work on arboriculture which is often met with in manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is entitled ‘A Tretee of Nicholas Bullard departid in 3 parties: 1 Of gendryng of Trees; 2 of graffynge; the third forsoth of altracion,' Two copies are now in the British Museum (Cotton. MS. Jul. D. viii. ii; Addit. MS. 5467); another is in the Cambridge University Library (Ee. i. 13 ff. 124 a-129). Bishop More and Halph Thoreshy owned copies of the ‘Tretee,’ which has never been printed. Bale states that Bullard was also the author of a treatise called ‘Experimenta Naturalia,’ and that he saw a copy of the work at the house of Thomas Caius at Oxford, but it is not otherwise known. Tanner asserts that Bullard was educated at Oxford.
[Tanner's Bibi. Brit.; Thoresby's Ducatus Leod., ed. Whittaker, p. 83; Cat, of MSS in the Brit. Mus. and Camh. Univ. Lib.]
S. L. L.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.30 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 324 | i | 11 f.e. | Bollard, Nicholas: for two copies read at least five copies |
| | | 10 f.e. | before Cotton MS. insert Sloane MSS. 1 L 92, 122 f. 83b, 686 f. 41 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bolton, George

​BOLTON, Sir GEORGE (d. 1807?), writer on firearms, was preceptor to the royal princesses in writing, geography, &c. He was knighted on 3 April 1799, and died about 1807. He published ‘Remarks on the present defective state of Firearms with an explanation of a newly invented patent Gunlock,’ London, 1795, 8vo.
[Townsend's Calendar of Knights (1828), 8; Watt’s Bibl. Brit.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bolton, James (fl.1775-1795)

​BOLTON, JAMES (fl. 1775–1795), was a self-taught naturalist in humble life, residing near Halifax in Yorkshire, who drew and etched all his own illustrations. He described the plants of Halifax in Watson's History of the Parish of Halifax,' London, 1775, 4to.
His larger works were:
* ‘Filices Britannicæ,’ Leeds, 1785, 4to.
* ‘A History of Funguses growing about Halifax,' four vols. 4to, Halifax and Huddersfield, 1788-91.
* ‘Harmonia Ruralis,’ an essay towards a natural history of British songbirds, ​Stannary, near Halifax, two vols. 1794-6.
* 'A History of British Proper Ferris, &c.,' 1795.
[Monthly Rev. vols. Ixxvi. Ixxix. 1st ser.; vol. viii. 2nd ser.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bolron, Robert

​BOLRON, ROBERT (fl. 1674–1680), informer, was a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He is stated to have been apprenticed to a jeweller at Pye Corner, London, whom, after a twelvemonth, he abandoned to enlist as a foot soldier. On his return to England from the second Dutch war, he happened to visit an acquaintance who was a servant with Sir Thomas Gascoigne, of Barmbow Hall, Yorkshire, and on his recommendation he was appointed manager of the collieries of Sir Thomas. Through his marriage with Mary Baker, formerly a servant in Sir Thomas's household, he also held the lease of the farm of Shippon Hall. According to his own account shortly after his engagement efforts were made, which, through the agency of his wife, herself a pervert, were ultimately successful, to win him over to the Roman catholic faith. Large bribes were then offered to him to engage in the papist plot against the life of the king, but, realising the wickedness of those designs, he resolved to give information to the local magistrates, on whose refusal to act on it, he hastened to London, and made a deposition before the Earl of Shaftesbury. His statements were corroborated by Lawrence Marbury, a former servant of Sir Thomas Gasnoigna. Maybury had, however, been discharged by his master for theft, and Bolron, on account of his having made free with the money received for coals, had been threatened with prosecution by Lady Tempest, daughter of Sir Thomas Gascnigne. The baronet, who had reached his eighty-fifth year, was, in February 1680, put upon his trial; but although the detailed accusations against him made n considerable impression, a verdict was returned in his favour.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bolton, James Jay

​BOLTON, JAMES JAY (1824–1863), evangelical clergyman, was the fifth son of the Rev. Robert Bolton, rector of Christ-church, Pelham, U.S., his mother being a daughter of the Rev. William Jay of Bath. Bolton was born at Southdown College, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire, 11 Feb. 1824. His early years were spent at Henley-on-Thames, where his father was at the time minister of a dissenting chapel. At the age of twelve he went with his parents to America, where circumstances placed his father in charge of an episcopal congregation. He was educated at Dr. Muhlenburg's, College Point, New York, after staying for some time at Brook Farm, New Rochelle, and Pelham. Thence he returned to England and entered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship in his first year, and took his degree in 1848. From 1849 to 1851 he was curate of Saffron Walden, Essex; afterwards he removed to St. Michael's, Chester Square, Pimlico, as curate to the Rev. J. H. Hamilton, and was appointed later to the incumbency of St. Paul's Episcopal Chapel. Kilburn. Here he married, 30 June 1853, Lydia Louisa, third daughter of the Rev. W. W. Pym, rector of Willian, Hertfordshire. Bolton died, aged 39, at the parsonage, Kilburn, 8 April 1863.
Of Bolton's sermons some were arranged chronologically by his brother, and published, with a brief memoir, three months after his death. A second series of 'Selected Sermons' was published in 1866. As a children's preacher Bolton has perhaps never been surpassed. He contributed largely to the 'Family Treasury,' the 'Sunday Scholars and Teachers' Magazine,' and juvenile publications of a kindred tone. He also published 'The Church Missionary Operations vindicated,' 1854; 'Faith's Report to Mourning Parents, or How it fares with Holy Children when they die,' 1855; 'Our Celestial Guest, or Stirring Thoughts about the Holy Spirit,' 1855; 'Beleaguered but Defiant, an exposition of a precious verse,' 1858; 'Life Lessons,' 1862; 'The Yoke lightened, an address to servants' (a posthumous publication), 1873.
[Gent. Mag. ccxiv. 665, 801; Brit, Mus. Catal.; the Record, April 1863; Bolton's Selected Sermons, p. xii, &c.]
J. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bolingbroke, Henry

​BOLINGBROKE, HENRY (1785–1855), writer on Demerara, was born at Norwich 25 Feb. 1785, the son of Nathaniel Bolingbroke. He sailed for Demerara 28 Nov. 1798, and returned to England 21 Oct. 1805. He sailed to Surinam, in Guiana, on 3 March 1807; here he was deputy vendue master for six years, and returned to Plymouth 25 June 1813. On 7 Oct. 1815 he married Ann Browne of Norton. Latterly he was in business in Norwich, where he died 11 Feb. 1855. He published ‘A Voyage to the Demerary,' 1807 (this work was prepared for the press by William Taylor, of Norwich, who rewrote some of the chapters).
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Robberds's Mem. of W. Taylor, 1843, ii. 254 private information.]
A. G.
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Eurybates (Argive)

​EURY′BATES (Εὐρυβάτης), an Argive, the commander of 1000 volunteers who went to the assistance of the Aeginetans in their war with the Athenians just before the Persian invasion. He had practised the pentathlum, and challenged four of the Athenians to single combat. Three he slew, but fell himself by the hand of the fourth. (Herod. vi. 92, ix. 75.) [C.P. M.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Eurybiades

​EURYBI′ADES. [Themistocles.]