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

Michael of Cornwall in the ODNB.
​MICHAEL BLAUNPAYN (fl. 1250), also called Michael the Cornishman and Michael the Englishman, Latin poet, was clearly a native of Cornwall, for in his satire he says:
Nam rex Arturus nos primos Cornubienses.
He is said to have studied at Oxford and Paris, and to have finally become dean of Utrecht. More reasonably, perhaps, he may be conjectured to have been a Cambridge scholar, for he thought fit to recite his satire before the chancellor and masters of that university. Michael boasts of being a better scholar and teacher than his adversary, Henry of Avranches. Henry was a poet who enjoyed the favour of the court, and had reflected on Cornish rusticity. This moved Michael to reply, which he did in a satire that was recited before Hugh, abbot of Westminster, the Dean of St. Paul's, and R. de Mortimer, an official of the Archbishop of Canterbury; afterwards it was again recited before the Bishop of Ely and the chancellor and masters of Cambridge. This poem, in leonine hexameters, is contained in MS. Royal 14, C. xiii. f. 269, and Cotton MS. Titus A. xx. ff. 52–69, in the British Museum, in MS. Bodley O.C. 3041 (Bernard, Cat. MSS. Angliæ), and MS. Ff. vi. 13, in the Cambridge University Library. An allusion to the bishop-elect of Winchester fixes its date between 1250 and 1260. In Cotton MS. Vespasian, D. v. f. 149, there are ‘Epistolæ et Carmina,’ which are ascribed to Michael by Richard James [q. v.] The introductory epistle begins ‘Solus et sapiencia.’ The poems include verses to various prelates, as Fulk Basset, William Ralegh, and Peter des Roches, and some lines ‘De veteri Sarisburie et ecclesie mutatione,’ inc. ‘Mons Saltisberie.’ Camden, in his ‘Remaines’ (ed. 1674, p. 10), quotes some lines against Normandy, which ‘merry Michael the Cornish poet piped on his oaten pipe for England.’ They begin:
Nobilis Anglia pocula, prandia donat et æra.
Michael is also credited with a ‘Life of St. Birinus’ and a ‘Historia Normannorum.’
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. 432; Hardy's Cat. Brit. Hist. iii. 125; Warton's Hist. of Poetry, ed. Price, i. cxxxiii, ed. Hazlitt, ii. 48–9; Cotton and Royal MSS.; Hist. Litt. de la France, xviii. 529–30.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Michell, Henry

​MICHELL, HENRY (1714–1789), scholar, born in 1714 at Lewes, was educated there and at Clare Hall, Cambridge; he graduated B.A. 1735, M.A. 1739, and ​became fellow of his college. In 1739 he was presented to the rectory of Maresfield in Sussex, and in 1744 to the vicarage of Brighton with the rectory of Bletchingdon united. Here he lived until his death, enjoying ample means, the friendship of many men of note, and the reputation of an accomplished Greek and Latin scholar. He had considerable share in the rapid development of Brighton, and for a short time the Duke of Wellington was among his pupils. Michell died at Brighton on 31 Oct. 1789, and was buried in the parish church, where there is an inscription to his memory. He married in 1747 the only daughter and heiress of the Rev. Francis Reade of Bedford, by whom he had sixteen children. There is a portrait in Nichols's 'Illustrations' (iv. 868), engraved by E. Scott from a miniature painted by Sherriff.
Michell published: 1. 'De Arte Medendi apud Priscos Musicos,' 1766, dedicated to the Earl of Shelburne; of a second edition only, published in 1767, is there a copy in the British Museum. 2. 'De Jure Colonias inter et Metropolin,' 1777. He left with other manuscripts a translation, with notes, of 'Le Dîner du Comte de Boulainvilliers, 1768, par Mons. St. Hiacinte' [i.e. Voltaire].
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadbert (d.768)

​EADBERT or EADBERHT (d. 768), king of the Northumbrians, son of Eata, a member of the royal house, came to the throne in 738 on the retirement of his cousin Ceolwulf. His brother Ecgberht [see Egbert] had been appointed to the see of York, probably in 732, and the two brothers worked together with one mind, each helping the other, the archbishop ruling the church and the king the state (Carmen de Pontiff. 1273–86). An evidence of their perfect accord and almost co-ordinate authority is afforded by the coins (sceattæ) which bear the names both of the king and of the archbishop (Kenyon). The glories of the church and school at York were equalled by the military glories of the reign. In 740 Eadberht was warring against the Picts. During his absence Æthelbald, the powerful king of Mercia, treacherously ravaged part of his kingdom (Bæda, Hist. Eccl. ap. p. 288). In 750 he took Kyle in Ayrshire from the Strathclyde Welsh and added it and other districts to his own dominions. All neighbouring kings, it is said, whether of the English, Picts, Britons, or Scots, were glad to be at peace with him and to do him honour. His fame was so great that Pippin, king of the Franks, made alliance with him and sent him gifts (Symeon of Durham). Cynewulf, bishop of Lindisfarne, grievously offended him, for one of his kinsmen named Offa, who had fled to the shrine of St. Cuthberht for shelter from his enemies, was left without food until he nearly perished with hunger, and was then taken from sanctuary and put to death. Eadberht caught the bishop, kept him prisoner for some time at Bamborough, and further ordered that ​Lindisfarne should be besieged. In 756 he was again at war with the Strathclyde Welsh, and in alliance with the Pictish king compelled the surrender of Alcluyd or Dumbarton on 1 Aug. of that year. This was the last of his achievements, for ten days later his army was utterly destroyed. In 757 or 758 he received a letter from Pope Paul I exhorting him to restore three monasteries that he had taken away from a certain abbot named Forthred. He was evidently deeply afflicted by the loss of his army, for in 758 he resigned his crown in favour of his son Oswulf, voluntarily received the tonsure, and entered the monastery of St. Peter's at York. There he dwelt with his brother until Ecgberht's death in 766. He survived him about two years, died 19 Aug. 768, and was buried by his brother's side in one of the porches of the minster at York.
[Appendix to Bæda, pp. 288–9, Mon. Hist. Brit.; Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub ann. 737 sq.; Symeon of Durham's Hist. Eccles. Dun. p. 11, Gesta Regum, col. 106, Twysden; Carmen de Pontificibus 1273–86, Historians of York, i. 386–7 (Rolls Ser.); Dict. of Christian Biog. art. ‘Eadbert,’ by Rev. J. Raine; Hawkins's Silver Coins, ed. Kenyon, 66, 67; Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccles. Docs. iii. 394 sq.; Green's Making of England, p. 405 sq.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadbert Præn

​EADBERT or EADBRYHT PRÆN (fl. 796), king of Kent, a member of the kingly line, and related to Ealhmund, under-king of Kent, the father of Ecgberht of Wessex, had received the tonsure, which was probably forced upon him in order to disqualify him for the kingship, but nevertheless headed the resistance offered by the Kentish nobles to Mercian domination, which seems to have actually broken out before the death of Offa (Eccles. Documents, iii. 495–6). This caused great trouble to Archbishop Æthelheard, who was devoted to the Mercian cause, and Alcuin wrote to him, telling him that he had urged Offa to help him. On the death of Offa, in 796, Eadbert Præn was made king of Kent, and was upheld by the nobles of the kingdom. Æthelheard was forced to flee from Canterbury, and wrote to Leo III, asking him to condemn the ‘apostate clerk,’ which the pope accordingly did in a letter to Cenwulf of Mercia (ib. 524). In 798 Cenwulf invaded Kent, took Eadbert Præn prisoner, carried him to Mercia, and there caused his eyes to be torn out and his hands to be cut off. The independent existence of Kent was brought to an end, and Cenwulf handed it over to be ruled by Cuthred as under-king. Eadbert survived his mutilation, for William of Malmesbury records that at the dedication of Winchcombe Abbey in Gloucestershire, in 811, Cenwulf manumitted before the high altar a Kentish king whom he had taken captive. Some silver coins of Eadbert Præn are extant.
[Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub ann. 794, 796; Florence of Worcester, i. 63, confuses Eadbert Præn with Eadbert, son of Wihtred (d. 748), comp. i. 260 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Haddan and Stubbs's Councils and Eccles. Docs. iii. 495–6, 524; Henry of Huntingdon, 733, Mon. Hist. Brit.; Symeon of Durham, 670, Mon. Hist. Brit.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, 294 (Rolls Ser.); Dugdale's Monasticon, ii. 296, 301; Hawkins's Silver Coins of England, ed. Kenyon, p. 32; Dict. of Christian Biog. art. ‘Eadbert Præn’ by Bishop Stubbs.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadburga (d.751)

​EADBURGA, EADBURH, BUGGA, or BUGGE, Saint (d. 751), abbess of Minster in the Isle of Thanet, was a daughter of Centwine [q. v.], king of the West-Saxons (see a poem ascribed to Ealdhelm, and with less probability to Alcuin, on the church she built), and a certain abbess named Eangyth (S. Bonif. Epistt. 30), and was brought up by her mother, who speaks of her in a letter to Boniface or Wynfrith (ib.) She took the veil and became abbess of the house founded in the isle of Thanet by the mother of St. Mildred, whom she succeeded. Finding the buildings of the monastery insufficient for the nuns, she raised a new church, which was dedicated by Archbishop Cuthberht, and therefore in or after 740, to SS. Peter and Paul, and translated thither the incorrupt body of her predecessor, St. Mildred, and also built a new house not far from the old one (Elmham). Some time after the death of Radbod, king of the Frisians (719), she wrote to Boniface, sending him forty shillings and an altar-cloth, saying that it was not in her power to give more (ep. 3). She also gave him many presents of books and raiment at other times (epp. 18, 32). In after days, when she was old, Boniface wrote to her to comfort her under her afflictions (ep. 31). She made a pilgrimage to Rome (ep. 32), and appears to have met Boniface there. It is evident that she was a learned lady, and Leobgyth (Lioba) speaks of having learnt the art of poetry from her. She is said to have died in 751 (Elmham), and Archbishop Bregwin, writing to Lullus, archbishop of Mentz, between 759 and 765, informs him that the English church kept the day of her death on 27 Dec. (Eccl. Documents, iii. 398). A spurious charter of Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, purports to be a grant to the Abbess Eadburh.
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadburga (fl.802)

​EADBURGA, EADBURGH, or EADBURH (fl. 802), queen of the West-Saxons, a daughter of Offa, king of the Mercians, first appears with other members of the royal family as attesting a charter granted by her father in 787 (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 151). In 789 (A.-S. Chron. 787) she married Beorhtric [q. v.] or Brihtric, king of the West-Saxons. Asser says that she gained great power in the kingdom through the king's affection for her, and that she used it tyrannically; that she laid plots against many, accused them to the king, and so caused them to lose life or power; and that when the king refused to hearken to her she would slay her enemy by poison. In 802 she prepared poison for a young man who was much beloved by the king. It so happened that Brihtric tasted the poison before his favourite, and both died from its effects. After this crime Eadburh could not remain in the West-Saxon kingdom, and taking a great amount of treasure with her she crossed the sea to the court of the emperor Charles the Great. When she appeared before the emperor and offered him many gifts, he said, ‘Choose, Eadburh, which you will have, me or my son, who stands with me in the hall.’ She answered, ‘If I may have my choice, I choose your son, because he is the younger.’ Then Charles said with a smile, ‘If you had chosen me you should have had my son; but as you have chosen my son you shall have neither him nor me.’ However, he gave her a great nunnery, and for a very few years she ruled it as abbess. Her conduct was bad, and she was guilty of unchastity with one of her own nation. The emperor expelled her, and she passed the rest of her life in poverty, being reduced before her death to beg in the streets of Pavia, attended only by one young slave. There many of her countrymen saw her, and told Asser about her. After her flight from England the West-Saxons would not give the title of queen to any of her successors, nor suffer any of them to share the royal throne, but called each of them simply the king's wife. This custom was first broken through in the case of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who was crowned by Hincmar on her marriage with Æthelwulf, and who on her coming to England was allowed to sit beside her husband on the throne.
[Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub ann. 787, 800; Asser, 471, 472 (Mon. Hist. Brit.); Kemble's Codex Dipl. 151; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, i. 169 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Annales Bertin., Rerum Germ. Script. (Pertz), i. 450; Dict. of Christian Biog. art. ‘Eadburga,’ by Bishop Stubbs.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadnoth

​EADNOTH (d. 1067), staller, or master of the horse, under Eadward the Confessor (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 845), Harold (Flor. Wig. ii. 3), and William the Conqueror (A.-S. Chron., sub ann. 1067), appears to have held large estates, especially in the west country, and in one case to have taken advantage of Harold's favour to gain land at the expense of the church, and in another probably of the favour of the Conqueror to do so at the expense of a private landowner (Norman Conquest, ii. 548, iv. 758). When Harold's sons invaded England in 1067 with a Danish fleet from Ireland, and, after having been beaten off from Bristol by the burghers, ravaged the coast of Somerset, Eadnoth met them with a local force and fought a battle with them, in which, according to Florence of Worcester, the invaders gained the victory, while William of Malmesbury says that they were defeated, and it may be inferred from the ‘Chronicle’ that the issue was doubtful. Eadnoth was slain, and ‘many good men on both sides’ (A.-S. Chron.) Eadnoth left a son named Harding who was alive when William of Malmesbury wrote. There is no reason to doubt that he was the father of Robert FitzHarding, the founder of the second and present house of the lords of Berkeley [see Berkeley, family of].
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadbert (d.698)

​EADBERT or EADBERHT, Saint (d. 698), bishop of Lindisfarne, was a monk of Lindisfarne when, in 688, he succeeded St. Cuthberht [q. v.] in the bishopric. He was well versed in the holy scriptures and was exceedingly charitable, giving a tithe not only of animals but also of fruits and even clothes to the poor (Bæda). He took off the roof of wood and reeds with which Finan had covered the church of the monastery, and had the whole roofed with sheets of lead, which seem to have been turned down over the walls. It was his custom to retire to a hermitage on an island during the period of Lent and for forty days before Christmas. While he was thus absent from the monastery in the Lent of 698, the monks, with his consent, translated the body of St. Cuthberht; they found the body of the saint undecayed, and carried the news to the bishop. Eadberht bade them lay the body in the tomb that had been prepared for it, and declared that the grave from which it had been taken would not long remain empty. He used to pray most earnestly that he might not die suddenly, and now fell sick and lingered until 6 May, when he died, after much suffering. In obedience to his orders the brethren laid his body in the ground which had held the body of St. Cuthberht, beneath the new tomb of the saint. His bones were preserved by the congregation of Lindisfarne and carried by them in their wanderings along with St. Cuthberht's body, and were finally placed with it in the saint's shrine at Durham.
[Bædæ Hist. Eccles. iii. c. 24, 25, iv. 29, Vita S. Cudbercti, pp. 37, 125, 131 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Reginaldi Libellus, p. 82 (Surtees Soc.); Symeon of Durham's Hist. Dunelm. i. 36, 38, 252 (Rolls Ser.); Dict. of Christian Biog. ii. 2.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Eadsige

​EADSIGE, EADSINE, EDSIE, or ELSI (d. 1050), archbishop of Canterbury, one of the chaplains of Cnut, who granted Folkestone to the convent of Christ Church in order to obtain his admission into the house, stipulating that Eadsige should have the land for his life, was suffragan bishop in Kent in 1035, and is said to have had his see at the church of St. Martin, outside Canterbury. He succeeded Archbishop Æthelnoth in 1038, and in 1040 fetched his pall from Rome. He crowned Harthacnut, and at the coronation of Eadward the Confessor on 3 April 1043 delivered an exhortation to the king and the people (A.-S. Chron.) Eadsige belonged to the party of Godwine and opposed the policy of the great men of the northern part of the country. Soon after the accession of Eadward he fell into bad health and was unable to perform the duties of his office. Fearing lest some man whom he did not approve might beg or buy his archbishopric, he secretly took counsel with the king and Earl Godwine, and through the earl's influence obtained the appointment of Siward, abbot of Abingdon, as his coadjutor. Siward was consecrated in 1044, taking his title from Upsala (Stubbs) or from Rochester (Historia de Abingdon, i. 451), and attests charters as archbishop, his name appearing before that of Ælfric of York (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 780 sq.) William of Malmesbury says that he was ungrateful and kept Eadsige short of food during his illness, that he was consequently deprived of the succession, and that he had to console himself with the bishopric of Rochester. This story evidently arose from a confusion between him and another Siward, bishop of Rochester 1058–75; it was a satisfactory mode of explaining the reason of what was held to have been the failure of the expectation of the suffragan. His retirement was really caused by ill-health; he went back to Abingdon and died there on 23 Oct. 1048. It seems probable that Eadsige recovered from his sickness in 1046, when he again attests a charter as archbishop, Siward using the title of bishop, and that he resumed the government of his entire see on the retirement of Siward, about eight weeks before his death. Eadsige died on 29 Oct. 1050. It is possible that some dispute arose with the convent of Christ Church with reference to the allowance to be made to him during his illness, which may account for part of the story told by William of Malmesbury, for he left lands to the rival house of St. Augustine's (Thorn). He is said, moreover, to have helped Earl Godwine to get possession of Folkestone in defiance of the right of the convent of Christ Church (Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii. 559).
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dixon, William Hepworth

​DIXON, WILLIAM HEPWORTH (1821–1879), historian and traveller, was born on 30 June 1821, at Great Ancoats in Manchester. He came of an old puritan family, the Dixons of Heaton Royds in Lancashire. His father was Abner Dixon of Holmfirth and Kirkburton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, his mother being Mary Cryer. His boyhood was passed in the hill country of Over Darwen, under the tuition of his grand-uncle, Michael Beswick. As a lad he became clerk to a merchant named Thompson at Manchester. Before he was of age he wrote a five-act tragedy called ‘The Azamoglan,’ which was even privately printed. In 1842–3 he wrote articles signed W. H. D. in the ‘North of England Magazine.’ In December 1843 he first wrote under his own name in Douglas Jerrold's ‘Illuminated Magazine.’ Early in 1846 he decided to attempt a literary career. He was for two months editor of the ‘Cheltenham Journal.’ While at Cheltenham he won two principal essay prizes in Madden's ‘Prize Essay Magazine.’ In the summer of 1846, on the strong recommendation of Douglas Jerrold, he moved to London. He soon entered at the Inner Temple, but was not called to the bar until 1 May 1854. He never practised. He became contributor to the ‘Athenæum’ and the ‘Daily News.’ In the latter he published a series of startling papers on ‘The Literature of the Lower Orders,’ which probably suggested Henry Mayhew's ‘London Labour and the London Poor.’ Another series of articles, descriptive of the ‘London Prisons,’ led to his first work, ‘John Howard and the Prison World of Europe,’ which appeared in 1849, and though declined by many publishers passed through three editions. In 1850 Dixon brought out a volume descriptive of ‘The London Prisons.’ At about the same time he was appointed a deputy-commissioner of the first great international exhibition, and helped to start more than one hundred out of three hundred committees then formed. His ‘Life of William Penn’ was published in 1851; in a supplementary chapter ‘Macaulay's charges against Penn,’ eight in number, were elaborately answered [see Penn, William]. Macaulay never took any notice of these criticisms, though a copy of Dixon's book was found close by him at his death.
[A memoir by the present writer appeared in the Illustrated Review, 11 Sept. 1873, vi. 226–228. See also Portraits of Distinguished London Men, pt. i.; In Memoriam Hepworth Dixon, 1878; Times, 29 and 31 Dec. 1879; Daily Telegraph, same dates; Men of the Time, 10th edit. 1879, pp. 321, 322; Athenæum 3 Jan. 1880, pp. 19, 20; Annual Register for 1879, p. 236.]
C. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dixon, Robert

​DIXON, ROBERT, D.D. (d. 1688), royalist divine, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1634-5 and M.A. in 1638. He was ordained on 21 Sept. 1639, and afterwards, it would seem, obtained h benefice in Kent. In 1644, as he was passing through the Crown yard in Rochester, on his return from preaching a funeral sermon at Gravesend, he was taken prisoner and conveyed to Knole House, near Sevenoaks, and subsequently to Leeds Castle, Kent, where he was kept in close confinement for about fourteen months, on account of his refusal to take the solemn league and covenant. After regaining his liberty he was presented in 1647 to the rectory of Tunstall, Kent, from which, however, he was sequestered on account of his adherence to the royalist cause. On the return of Charles II he was restored to his living and instituted to a prebend in the church of Rochester (23 July 1660)). He was created D.D. at Cambridge, per literas regiasy in 1668. In 1676 he resigned the rectory of Tunstall to his son, Robert Dixon, M. A., and afterwards he was presented to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, Rochester. He died in May 1688. His portrait has been engraved by J. Collins, from a painting by W. Reader.
He wrote:
* 'The Doctrine of Faith, Justification, and Assurance humbly endeavoured to be farther cleared towards the satisfaction and comfort of all free unbiassed spirits. With an appendix for Peace,' London, 1668, 4to.
* 'The Degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity described and delineatea,' London, 1674, 12mo.
* 'The Nature of the two Testaments; or the Disposition of the Will and Estate of God to Mankind for Holiness and Happiness by Jesus Christ, concerning things to be done by Men, and things to be had of God, contained in His two great Testaments of the Law and the Gospel; demon; strating the high spirit and state of the Gospel above the Law,' 2 vols. London, 1670, folio.
In 1683 there appeared an eccentric volume I of verse entitled 'Canidia, or the Witches, of Rhapsody in five parts, by R. D.' Bibliographers ascribe this crazy work to a Robert Dixon, and it has been suggested that the divine was its author. The character of the, book—a formless satire on existing society—does not support this suggestion, although no: other Robert Dixon besides the divine and 'his son of this date is known (cf. Cobser, Collectanea),
[Rowe-Mores's Hist. of Tunstall, in Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, pp. 56–8; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 231; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England (1824), iii. 326; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, No. 15144; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), ii. 583; Addit. MS. 5867, f. 27 b; Hasted's Kent (1782), ii. 527, 583; information from the Rev. H. R. Luard, D.D.]
T. C.