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

​EARDWULF or EARDULF (d. 810), king of Northumbria, was son of Eardulf, an ealdorman of Northumbria of royal blood. For an offence committed against Ethelred, king of Northumbria, he is said to have been executed before Ripon Minster, but was miraculously restored to life after being left for dead. A period of exile followed, and on the death of King Ethelred in 796, Eardwulf was recalled to fill his place on the throne. He was consecrated by Archbishop Eanbald I at York Minster on 25 June. Alcuin sent him a letter on his accession, urging him to be a God-fearing king. In 797 Alcuin wrote that Eardwulf would lose his throne because he had put away his wife and taken a concubine. In 798 the party who had placed Eardwulf in power revolted against him. The rebels under Alric, son of Eadbert and Wada the duke, were defeated near Whalley, Lancashire. Eardwulf followed up his victory by executing in 799 Moll, a duke, probably a son of the former king, Ethelred, and in 800 Alchmund, son of Alcred, the legitimate heir to the Northumbrian throne. In 801 Eardwulf threatened war with Cenwulf, king of Mercia, whom he charged with harbouring conspirators against himself, but peace was satisfactorily arranged without bloodshed. Archbishop Eanbald II was blamed by Alcuin for maintaining an armed retinue with which he attacked at times Eardwulf's many enemies. In 808 Eardwulf was driven from Northumbria by a claimant to the throne named Alfwold. He visited the courts of Charles the Great and Pope Leo III, and both strongly sympathised with him. Through the interposition of Charles the Great Eardwulf was restored to his kingdom in 809. He died in 810, and was succeeded by his son Eanred. Some of his coins are extant.
[Dict. of Christian Biography, by the Rev. James Raine; Symeon of Durham (Surtees Soc.), pp. 30, 34, 35, 39, 211; Alcuini Epistolæ, ed. Jaffé, pp. 303, 304, 621, 623; Saxon Chron. s.a. 796 and 798.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockburn, James (fl.1783)

​COCKBURN, JAMES (fl. 1783), colonel 35th foot, commandant at St. Eustatius in 1781, was second son of Dr. James Cockburn, and grandson of Dr. William Cockburn [q. v.], physician-general to the British army in the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns. During a long and meritorious service of thirty-six years, mostly in the 35th foot, of which he was adjutant from 1757 to 1772, he was several times wounded, and fought under Wolfe at Quebec, in the subsequent conquest of Canada, and in the American campaigns of 1775-6, including the battles of Bunker's Hill and White Plains. He was in command at St. Eustatius when that island, garrisoned by detachments of the 13th and 15th foot and a few artillery, was surprised and captured by a small French naval squadron on 26 Nov. 1781. For this he was tried by a general court-martial, held at the Horse Guards 31 May 1783, which sentenced him to be cashiered. He died soon afterwards. Cockburn married Lætitia Little, heiress of the ancient Irish houses of Rossiter and Devereux, and by her had several children. His eldest son, William, succeeded his uncle in the baronetcy and estates of Cockburn of Cockburn and Ryslaw, Berwickshire, and served with distinction in the army in India [see Cockburn, Sir William, lieutenant-general].
Printed copies of the court-martial proceedings, one edition with numerous notes (London 1783), will be found in the British Museum Library. The Egerton MSS. also contain two letters, one from Cockburn to Brigadier Christie announcing the capture of St. Eustatius, and the other from Mrs. Lætitia Cockburn, dated Greenwich, 18 March 1781, to General Vaughan, thanking him for having appointed her husband to the post of quarter-master-general (in the West Indies), an appointment he appears never to have taken up.
[Burke's Baronetage; British Museum Catalogues.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockburn, Patrick

​COCKBURN, PATRICK (1678–1749), Scottish divine, eldest son of John Cockburn, D.D. [q. v.], was born in 1678 at Udny, Aberdeenshire. It is not known whether lie accompanied his father to France as a child, or where he was educated, but he was in Holland in 1705, for on 17 Aug. he received the degree of M.A. from the Edinburgh University, he being then 'in Batavia agens.' Early in 1708 he married Catharine Trotter [see Cockburn, Catherine], and is said to have shortly afterwards obtained the perpetual curacy of Nayland, Suffolk, but he was probably only a temporary curate-in-charge. He went to Nayland in June 1708. The sole reference to him in the Nayland registers is the entry of the baptism on 13 April 1712 of 'Mary, daughter of Patrick Cockburn, curate, and Catharine his wife.' From Nayland he removed to London, where he was curate at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, but soon lost this employment through refusing the oath of abjuration in 1714 (he is not mentioned in the list at the end of Kettlewell's 'Life,' 1718, 8vo). For a time he made a scanty living by teaching Latin at a school in Chancery Lane. On 29 Nov. 1726 (having taken the oath) he was appointed minister of St. Paul's episcopal chapel, Aberdeen (erected 1722). He resigned this incumbency on 1 June 1739. Soon after his Aberdeen settlement he had been preferred to the vicarage of Long Horsley, Northumberland, but did not reside until compelled to do so in 1737. He died on 4 Jan. 1748-9, and was buried on 7 Jan. at Long Horsley. He published : 1. 'A Penitential Office,' &c., 1721, 8vo. 2. 'The Duty and Benefit of Praying for our Governors,' &c., 1728, 8vo (sermon from 1 Tim. ii. 1-4, on accession of George II). 3. 'The Lawfulness and Duty of Praying for our present King and Governor,' &c., 1735, 8vo (in reply to a pamphlet criticising No. 2; there were later pamphlets in the controversy, which Cockburn does not seem to have answered). 4. 'An Enquiry into the Truth and Certainty of the Mosaic Deluge,' &c., 1750, 8vo (defends the universality of the flood). He published also, according to Birch, in the 'Weekly Miscellany,' a 'defence of prime ministers in the character of Joseph.' But Cockburn's chief service to literature was his edition (the 6th) in 1726, 8vo, of Henry Scougall's 'Life of God in the Soul of Man,' with brief preface, dated from St. John's, Clerkenwell, and the addition of Scougall's 'Nine Discourses' (all, but two, previously unprinted) and the funeral sermon by George Garden, D.D. (then first printed), of much moment for Scougall's biography. Garden was Cockburn's uncle, and Scougall his father's first cousin. Cockburn's edition was reprinted, 1735, 8vo, 'the second edition.'
[Birch's Life of Catharine Cockburn, prefixed to her Works, 1751, i. xxxiii sq.; also Works, ii. 206; Watt's Bibl. Brit. 1824; Cat. of Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, 1873, vol. ii.; information from the late David Laing, from Rev. S. Clark, of St. Paul's Chapel, Aberdeen, and from the vicars (in 1873) of Nayland and Long Horsley.]
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockburn, William (1768-1835)

​COCKBURN, Sir WILLIAM (1768–1835), lieutenant-general, only son of Colonel James Cockburn (fl. 1783) [q. v.], who was wounded by the side of Wolfe at the battle of Quebec, and afterwards became quartermaster-general of the forces, was, to quote the obituary notice in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' born 'in a camp' in 1768. About his family and the baronetcy which he afterwards assumed as fifth baronet of Ryslaw and Cockburn, there is much doubt (see Foster's Baronetage, 'Chaos'), but he certainly entered the army as an ensign in the 37th regiment in 1778, when a mere boy. He was promoted lieutenant in 1779, and after serving through the latter part of the American war became captain in the 92nd on 27 April 1783. His regiment was disbanded at the end of the war, and he went on half-pay until 1790, when he received a company in the 73rd regiment, which was then in India. He served through the last campaigns of the first Mysore war in the western army, under Sir Robert Abercromby [q. v.], and when the two armies met before Seringapatam he was appointed acting engineer, and made a valuable survey of the ground, which was afterwards published. He was promoted major in 1794 and lieutenant-colonel on 1 Jan. 1798, and in 1802 he returned to England, and exchanged to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 4th regiment. In 1804 he was appointed inspecting field officer of volunteers in Ireland, and was promoted colonel on 25 April 1808, and major-general on 4 June 1811. In 1813 he was appointed inspecting general officer for the Severn district, and on 19 July 1821 he was promoted lieutenant-general. On 19 March 1835 he died at his house in Lansdowne Crescent, Bath, aged 67. In the latter years of his life he was a prominent supporter of all the local charities of Bath, and was particularly active in founding the Society for the Relief of Occasional Distress, which had been projected by Lady Elizabeth King.
[Gent. Mag. June 1835; notice by the Rev. Richard Warner in the Bath Chronicle, March 1835; and for his baronetcy, Foster's Baronetage, 'Chaos.']
H. M. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockeram, Henry

​COCKERAM, HENRY (fl. 1650), is known only as the author of 'The English Dictionarie, or a new Interpreter of hard English Words,' which was the first dictionary of the English language ever published. It is a small pocket volume, and, as the title indicates, does not profess to contain all the words in the language, but only those which specially require explanation. The second part, which occupies half the volume, may be called a dictionary for translating plain English into fine English, giving the ordinary words in alphabetical order, with their equivalents in the pompous literary dialect affected by writers of his period. Cockeram himself, however, was no admirer of the grandiloquent diction of his contemporaries, but remarks that he has thought it necessary to insert even ' the fustian termes used by too many who study rather to hear themselves speake than to understand themselves.' On the title-page the author is designated only as 'H. C., Gent.,' but the dedication, to Richard, earl of Cork, is signed with his name in full. In this dedication he states that he was a relative of a Sir William Hull, whom the earl had befriended, but he gives no other autobiographical information. The first edition of the book is said to have been published in 1623, and to have contained some complimentary verses by the dramatist John Webster, addressed 'To his industrious friend, Master Henry Cockeram' (Webster's Works, ed. Dyce, p. 378); but these lines were omitted in the succeeding editions. The second edition appeared in 1626, and the eleventh in 1655. A twelfth edition, 'revised and enlarged by S. C.,' in which the second part is suppressed and material alterations are made in the arrangement, was published in 1670.
[Preface and dedication to the English Dictionarie; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockburn, William (d.1529)

​COCKBURN, WILLIAM or PIERS (d. 1529), a renowned border freebooter, resided at the old square tower of Henderland, of which there are still some vestiges, near the mouth of the river Megget, which falls into St. Mary's Loch in Selkirkshire. According to Bishop Lesley, Cockburn of Henderland and Adam Scott of Tushielaw, called the king of thieves, were brought before a great convention of the lords with the king at Edinburgh on 10 May 1529, and having been convicted of theft, reset, and maintenance of thieves, slaughter, and other crimes, were beheaded, and their heads fixed upon the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. Another account ​states that Cockburn was surprised by James V while sitting at dinner, and hanged over the gate of his own tower. The latter version harmonises better with the exquisitely pathetic ballad 'The Border Widow's Lament,' which is founded on the circumstances attending his death, and in which his widow narrates:
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat
I digged a grave and laid him in,
And happed him with the sod sae green.
According to Sir Walter Scott the ballad was long current in Ettrick. The wife of Cockburn on learning his capture is stated to have retreated into the recesses of the Dowglen, to a place still pointed out as the Lady^s Seat, where amid the roar of the foaming cataract she strove to drown the sounds attending his execution. At a spot called the Chapel Knowe, lately enclosed and planted, the grave of Cockburn is still pointed out, marked with a slab sculptured with armorial bearings, and having an inscription, now legible with difficulty: 'Here lyis Perys of Cokburne and hys wyfe Mariory.'
[Bishop Lesley's History of Scotland (Bannatyne Club), 1830, pp. 141-2; Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, under 'Henderland.']
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockburn, James Pattison

​COCKBURN, JAMES PATTISON (1779?–1847), major-general royal artillery, was born about 1779. He entered the Royal ​Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet, 19 March 1793, and passed out, as a second lieutenant royal artillery, 2 March 1795, the dates of his subsequent commissions being as follows: First lieutenant 1803, captain 1806, brevet-major 1814, lieutenant-colonel 1825, brevet-colonel 1837, major-general 9 Nov. 1846. He served at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope in 1795, in the expedition which was sent against Manilla in 1798, but recalled when on its passage owing to the threatening aspect of affairs in the Carnatic, and also at the siege and capture of Copenhagen in 1807. He held the post of director of the Royal Laboratory, Woolwich, from 10 Oct. 1838 to 31 Dec. 1846. As a cadet Cockburn had been a pupil of Paul Sandby, royal academician (who was many years professor of landscape-drawing at the Royal Military Academy), and became a very accomplished artist. During periods of leave from Malta and Woolwich, where he was stationed after the peace, he executed many drawings of continental scenery, which were engraved and published under the titles of 'Swiss Scenery' (London, 1820); ' Views of the Valley of Aosta ' (London, 1822); 'Views to illustrate the Simplon Route' (London, 1822); 'Views to illustrate the Mont Cenis Route' (London, 1822). These drawings supplied the continental 'scenes' for illustrated editions, annuals, and similar works of various descriptions for long afterwards. He also executed the landscapes in Professor T. L. Donaldson's fine work 'Pompeii Illustrated' (London, 1829), which from a preface by the artist appear to have been executed in 1819. A notice in Spohr's 'Autobiography,' quoted in 'Notes and Queries,' 3rd series, viii. 309, suggests that Cockburn was in the habit of using the camera lucida to insure exactness of landscape detail.
Cockburn, who had long been in feeble health, died at his residence, Woolwich Common, 10 March 1847.
[Kane's Lists of Officers R. Art. (revised ed. 1869); Brit. Mus. Cat.; Gent. Mag. new series, xxvii. 350.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Finch, Francis Oliver

​FINCH, FRANCIS OLIVER (1802–1862), water-colour painter, son of Francis Finch, a merchant in Friday Street, Cheapside, London, was born 22 Nov. 1802, and spent his boyhood at Stone, near Aylesbury. When twelve years of age, at that time fatherless, he was placed under John Varley, with whom he worked altogether five years, a friend having paid a premium of 200l. Among his earliest patrons was Lord Northwick, a patron of the fine arts, who employed the youth in making views of his mansion and grounds. Some time after leaving his master's studio the same friend who had assisted in placing him there afforded him the benefit of a tour through Scotland. After his return he doubted for some time whether he should continue the practice of landscape or enter as a student at the Royal Academy. He joined Sass's life academy and produced several portraits, but circumstances drawing him back to landscape-painting he became a candidate for admission into the then newly formed Society of Painters in Water Colours. On 11 Feb. 1822 he was elected an associate, and on 4 June 1827 a member of that society. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817, at that period living at 44 Conduit Street, Bond Street. He married in the spring of 1837, and resided for some time in Charlotte Street and afterwards in Argyle Square, Euston Road. On 10 Oct. 1861 Finch lost the use of his limbs, and died 27 Aug. 1862. He possessed a fine voice, and was a thorough musician, as well as a poet. He printed a collection of sonnets entitled 'An Artist's Dream.' Among his best works may be mentioned 'Garmallon's Tomb,' oil (1820); 'View of Loch Lomond' (1822): 'View on the River Tay' (1827); 'View of Windsor Castle' (1829); 'View of the College of Aberdeen' (1832); scene from Milton's 'Comus' (1835); 'Alpine Scene, Evening' (1838); 'A Watch Tower' (1840); 'The ​Thames near Cookham, Berkshire (1845); 'Ruined Temple, Evening' (1852); 'Rocky Glen, Evening' (1855); 'The Curfew—Gray's Elegy' (1860); 'Pastoral Retreat' (1861); and 'Moonlight over the Sea' (1862). His portrait has been engraved by A. Roffe.
L. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Finch, Heneage (1647?-1719)

​FINCH, HENEAGE, first Earl of Aylesford (1647?–1719), second son of Heneage Finch, first earl of Nottingham [q. v.], was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He left the university without a degree, and entering the legal profession was admitted a barrister of the Inner Temple. His name soon became known as the author of various reports of celebrated trials and other legal tracts; he was appointed king's counsel 10 July 1677, and solicitor-general in 1679, entering parliament as member for the university of Oxford in the same year. In 1686 he was deprived of the solicitor-generalship by James II, and two years later pleaded as leading counsel on the side of the seven bishops. He sat for Guildford in the parliament of 1685, again representing the university of Oxford in the Convention parliament of 1689-90, and all subsequent ones (except that elected in 1698), till his promotion to the peerage in 1703 (Members of Parliament Blue Book, pt. i. see Index). Burnet relates that in the debate on the Act of Settlement of 1701 Finch attempted to alter the clause for abjuring the Prince of Wales into an obligation not to assist him, and pressed his point 'with unusual vehemence in a debate that he resumed seventeen times in one session against all rules' (Burnet, History of his own Time, ed. 1823, iv. 537-8 and note). In August 1702 he was chosen by the university to present a complimentary address to Queen Anne on her visit to Oxford, and in 1703 was created, 'in consideration of his great merit and abilities,' Baron Guernsey, and sworn of the privy council. Burnet remarks that there were great reflections on the promotion of Finch and others, to make, it was said, a majority for the Stuarts in the House of Lords. In 1711 he also became master of the jewel house. On the accession of George I he was raised to the peerage, taking the title of Earl of Aylesford, an estate having been left to him there, with a large fortune, by his wife's father. Besides this new dignity he was again sworn of the privy council, and created chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, which office he resigned in 1716. He died 22 July 1719, and was buried at Aylesford, Kent. He married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir John Banks of Aylesford, by whom he had nine children.
His portrait appears in the print engraved by White in 1689 of the counsel of the seven bishops.
[Collins's Peerage, ed. 1779, iv. 316; Sharpe's Peerage, i. 20; Welch's Alumni Westmonasterienses, p.571; Poynter's Chronicle, 1703, 1711; Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs; Burnet's History of his own Time, ed. 1823, ii. 106, 397; Doyle's Baronage.]
E. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Finch, Robert (1783-1830)

​FINCH, ROBERT (1783–1830), antiquary, born in London on 27 Dec. 1783 was the only son of Thomas Finch, F.R.S. He was educated for a short time at St. Paul's School, and at eighteen was admitted at Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. 1806, M.A. 1809. He was ordained in 1807. and officiated at Maidstone and elsewhere. In 1814 he went abroad, visiting Portugal, ​France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and the Holy Land. For several years before his death he lived in Rome. He died at his residence, the Palazzo del Re di Prussia, in Rome, on 16 Sept. 1830, from malarial fever. Finch had a great love of the fine arts, and studied antiquities and topography. He left his library, pictures, coins, and medals to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and his plate to Balliol College. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a contributor to the 'Gentleman's Magazine' and other periodicals. He married in 1820, when in Italy, Maria, eldest daughter of Frederick Thomson of Kensington, but left no issue.
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Finch, Heneage (d.1689)

​FINCH, HENEAGE, second Earl of Winchilsea (d. 1689), was the son of Thomas, the first earl, whose mother Elizabeth had been created Countess of Winchilsea in her widowhood by Charles I (1628). Heneage, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, succeeded to the title of Viscount Maidstone in 1633, and of Earl of Winchilsea in 1639. He distinguished himself on the royalist side during the great rebellion, providing auxiliary troops (horse and foot) at his own expense, and supplying 'with great hazard' Charles II's 'necessities in foreign parts.' He was a friend of Monck and was made governor of Dover Castle in 1660. Upon the Restoration he was created a baron, by the title of Lord Fitzherbert of Eastwell (from which family the Finches claimed descent), 26 June 1660, and on 10 July was appointed lord-lieutenant of Kent. Early in 1661 he went on an important embassy to Sultan Mahomet Chan IV, and published an account of it the same year. He remained as English ambassador at Constantinople eight years, and on his return journey wrote from Naples to the king a description, which was afterwards printed, of the eruption of Mount Etna. He was reinstated on his arrival in England lord-lieutenant of Kent and governor of Dover Castle, but was, with a long list of other lieutenants, dismissed from the former post in 1687. When James II was stopped at Feversham by the Kentish fishermen, he wrote to Winchilsea, who was at Canterbury, asking him to come to him. The earl arrived before night (12 Dec.), and interposed on behalf of the king besides moving him to a more suitable lodging in a private house (Add. MS. 32095, f. 298 ; Ralph, History, i. 1068). When James fled for the second time, Winchilsea was one of those who voted for offering the vacant throne to William and Mary, and in March 1689 was again made lord-lieutenant of Kent. He died in August the same year. He married four times : (1) Diana, daughter of Francis, fifth lord Willoughby of Parham ; (2) Mary, daughter of William Seymour, marquis of Hertford; (3) Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Norcliff ; (4) Elizabeth, daughter of John Ayres, esq. Out of twenty-seven children sixteen lived to 'some maturity.' His published works were : 1. 'Narrative of the Success of his Embassy to Turkey. ​The Voyage of the Right Honourable Heneage Finch from Smyrna to Constantinople. His Arrival there, and the manner of his Entertainment and Audience with the Grand Vizier and Grand Seignieur,' London, 1661.
[Collins's Peerage, ed. 1779, iii. 280; Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, iii. 316; Rycaut's Hist. of the Turks, ii. 97, &c.; Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, i. 422, 575; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Doyle's Baronage.]
E. T. B.