OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marlow

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​MARLOW (Great Marlow), a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 311/2 m. W. of London on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4526. It is beautifully situated on the north (left) bank of the Thames, which is here confined closely between low wooded hills. A weir and lock, near which rise the high tower and spire of the modern church of All Saints, separate two fine reaches of the river, and the town is a favourite resort for boating and fishing. The village of Little Marlow, where the foundations of a Benedictine nunnery of the time of Henry III. have been revealed by excavation, lies near the river two miles below. The town is, as a whole, modern in appearance, but a few old houses remain, such as the grammar school, founded as a bluecoat school in 1624, adjoining which is a house occupied by the poet Shelley in 1817. The town has manufactures of chairs, lace and embroidery, paper mills and breweries.
Great Marlow (Merlaue, Merlawe, Marlowe, Marlow) appears as a manor in Domesday Book, but its “borough and liberties” are not mentioned before 1261. It was then held by the earls of Gloucester, and its importance was probably due to the bridge across the Thames, first built, according to tradition, by the Templars at Bisham. No charter of incorporation was ever granted to the town, but there are faint traces of its constitution in the 14th century. In 1342 the mayor and burgesses presented to a chantry and continued to be the patrons till 1394. Later writs addressed to the town only mention two bailiffs as officers of the borough, nor were the pontage rights and dues held by it until the 15th century. Two burgesses sat in parliament from 1300 to 1309, but the representation of the borough lapsed until 1621, when the right to return members was re-established. After the Reform Bill of 1832 the boundaries of the parliamentary borough were enlarged, but in 1867 its representation was reduced to one member, and in 1885 was merged in that of the county. No grant of a market in the borough has been found, but a market was held by the Despensers who had succeeded the De Clares as lords of the manor in the 14th century. In the 16th century the market seems to have been given up, but it was revived and held in the 18th century, only to disappear again before 1862. Fairs were mentioned in 1306 on the death of Gilbert de Clare, when they were held on St Luke’s Day and on the Wednesday in Whit-week by the earl of Gloucester, and Hugh le Despenser was granted a fair in his manor of Marlow in 1324. In 1792 there were two fairs, one of which, for horses and cattle, is still held on the 29th of October. Lace and satin-stitch work used to be made to a considerable extent.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marly-le-Roi

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​MARLY-LE-ROI, a village of northern France in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 5 m. N. by W. of Versailles by road. Pop. (1906), 1409. Notwithstanding some fine country houses, Marly is dull and unattractive, and owes all its celebrity to the sumptuous château built towards the end of the 17th century by Louis XIV., and now destroyed. It was originally designed as a simple hermitage to which the king could occasionally retire with a few of his more intimate friends from the pomp of Versailles, but gradually it grew until it became one of the most ruinous extravagances of the Grand Monarque. The central pavilion (inhabited by the king himself) and its twelve subsidiary pavilions were intended to suggest the sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. Seldom visited by Louis XV., and wholly abandoned by Louis XVI., it was demolished after the Revolution, its art treasures having previously been dispersed, and the remains now consist of a large basin, the Abreuvoir, a few mouldering ivy-grown walls, some traces of parterres with magnificent trees, the park, and the forest of 81/2 sq. m., one of the most pleasant promenades of the neighbourhood of Paris, containing the shooting preserves of the President of the Republic.
Close to the Seine, half-way between Marly-le-Roi and St Germain, is the village of Port-Marly, and one mile farther up is the hamlet of Marly-la-Machine. Here, in 1684, an immense hydraulic engine, driven by the current of the river, was erected; it raised the water to a high tower, where the aqueduct of Marly began (700 yds. in length, 75 in height, with 36 arches, still well-preserved), carrying the waters of the Seine to Versailles.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marlborough (Massachusetts)

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​MARLBOROUGH, a city of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 28 m. W. of Boston. Pop. (1900), 13,609 (3311 were foreign-born); (1910), 14,579; it is served by the Boston & Maine and the New York New Haven & Hartford railways, and by inter-urban electric lines. The city, with a total area of 21.08 sq. m., lies in a fertile hilly country, and contains several ponds, including the beautiful Williams Pond, which covers 1/4 sq. m. A public library was established here in 1792; it was housed in a new building in 1904. Other public buildings are the city hall, the Federal building and a state armoury. There is a boarding school for girls, St Ann’s Academy (1887), under the direction of the Sisters of St Ann. The city’s importance is industrial; in 1905 its factory product was valued at $7,468,849 (an increase of 66% since 1900), of which 88.6% was the value of boots and shoes. Whether the city is named from Marlborough in Wiltshire, or, as seems more probable, because of early spellings “Marlberg” and “Marlbridge,” from the presence of marl in the neighbourhood, is uncertain. Settlers from Sudbury in 1665 took possession of a hill called by the Indians Whipsuffenicke and gradually hemmed in the Christian Indian village of Ockoocangansett (or Ognoikonguamescitt), on an adjoining hill still bearing this name. The town was incorporated in 1660. It was destroyed by Indians in March 1676, during King Philip’s war, and was abandoned for a year. Westborough was separated from it in 1717, Southborough in 1727, and a part of Berlin in 1784; parts of it were annexed to Northborough in 1807, to Bolton in 1829 and to Hudson in 1866; and it annexed parts of Framingham in 1791, and of Southborough in 1843. In 1890 it was incorporated as a city.
See S. A. Drake, History of Middlesex County, ii. 137 sqq., “Marlborough” by Rev. R. S. Griffin and E. L. Bigelow (Boston, 1880).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marlborough, Earls and Dukes of

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​MARLBOROUGH, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The earldom of Marlborough was held by the family of Ley from 1626 to 1679. James Ley, the 1st earl (c. 1550–1629), was lord chief justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland and then in England; he was an English member of parliament and was lord high treasurer from 1624 to 1628. In 1624 he was created Baron Ley and in 1626 earl of Marlborough. The 3rd earl was his grandson James (1618–1665), a naval officer who was killed in action with the Dutch. James was succeeded by his uncle William, a younger son of the 1st earl, on whose death in 1679 the earldom became extinct.
In 1689 John Churchill was created earl and in 1702 duke of Marlborough (see below). After the death of his only son Charles in 1703 an act of parliament was passed in 1706 settling the duke’s titles upon his daughters and their issue. Consequently when he died in June 1722 his eldest daughter Henrietta (1681–1733), wife of Francis Godolphin, 2nd earl of Godolphin, became duchess of Marlborough. She died without sons and was succeeded by her nephew Charles Spencer, 5th earl of Sunderland (1706–1758), a son of the great duke’s second daughter Anne (d. 1716). Although at this time Charles handed over the Sunderland estates to his younger brother John, the ancestor of the earls Spencer, he did not obtain Blenheim until Sarah, the dowager duchess, died in 1744. His eldest son George Spencer, the 4th duke (1739–1817), left three sons. The eldest, George Spencer, the 5th duke (1766–1840), was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Spencer of Wormleighton in 1806, and in 1817, after succeeding to the dukedom, he took the name of Spencer-Churchill. The 4th duke’s second son was Lord Henry John Spencer (1770–1795), envoy to Sweden and to Prussia; and his third son was Lord Francis Almeric Spencer (1779–1845), who was created a peer as Baron Churchill of Whichwood in 1815. His grandson Victor Albert Francis Charles Spencer (b. 1864) succeeded his father as 3rd Baron Churchill in 1886, and was raised to the rank of a viscount in 1902.
The 7th duke of Marlborough, John Winston Spencer-Churchill (1822–1883), a prominent Conservative politician, was lord-lieutenant of Ireland 1876–1880, and when marquess of Blandford (the courtesy title borne by the duke’s eldest son in his father’s lifetime) was responsible for the act of 1856 called the “Blandford Act,” enabling populous parishes to be divided for purposes of Church work. In 1892 his grandson Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill (b. 1871) became 9th duke of Marlborough.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marlitt, E.

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​MARLITT, E., the pseudonym of Eugenie John (1825–1887), German novelist, who was born at Arnstadt in Thuringia, the daughter of a merchant, on the 5th of December 1825. By her musical talent she attracted the notice of the reigning princess ​of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, who provided for her training as a singer at the Vienna Conservatoire. After three years’ study she made a successful stage début, but was compelled in consequence of deafness to abandon this career. She then became reader and travelling companion to her patroness, and her life at the court and on her many travels furnished her with material for her novels. In 1863 she resigned her post, and then lived with her brother at Arnstadt until her death on the 22nd of June 1887.
Her first novel, Die zwölf Apostel, was published in the Gartenlaube in 1865 and this was followed in 1866 by Goldelse (23rd ed., 1890), with which she established her literary reputation. Among others of her novels may be mentioned Blaubart (1866); Das Geheimnis der alten Mamsell (1867; 13th ed., 1888); Reichsgräfin Gisela (1869; 9th ed., 1900), Das Heideprinzesschen (1871; 8th ed., 1888) and Im Hause des Kommerzienrats (1877; 5th ed., 1891). All these works are directed against social prejudices, but, although attractively written, are deficient in higher literary qualities and appeal mostly to juvenile readers.
E. Marlitt’s Gesammelte Romane und Novellen were published in 10 volumes (1888–1890; 2nd ed., 1891–1894), to which is appended a biographical memoir.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Marlowe, Julia

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​MARLOWE, JULIA [Sarah Frances Frost] (1870– ), American actress, was born near Keswick, England, on the 17th of August 1870, and went with her family to America in 1875. Her first formal appearance on the stage was in New York in 1887, although she had before that travelled with a juvenile opera company in H.M.S. Pinafore, and afterwards was given such parts as Maria in Twelfth Night in Miss Josephine Riley’s travelling company. Her first great success was as Parthenia in Ingomar, and her subsequent presentations of Rosalind, Viola, and Julia in The Hunchback confirmed her position as a “star.” In 1894 she married Robert Taber, an actor, with whom she played until their divorce in 1900. Subsequently she had great success as Barbara Frietchie in Clyde Fitch’s play of that name, and other dramas; and from 1904 to 1907 she acted with E. H. Sothern in a notable series of Shakespeare plays, as well as in modern drama.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxenham, Henry Nutcombe

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​OXENHAM, HENRY NUTCOMBE (1829–1888), English ecclesiologist, son of a master at Harrow, was born there on the 15th of November 1829. From Harrow he went to Balliol College, Oxford. He took Anglican orders in 1854, but became a Roman Catholic in 1857. At first his thoughts turned towards the priesthood, and he spent some time at the London Oratory and at St Edmund’s College, Ware; but being unable to surrender his belief in the validity of Anglican orders, he proceeded no further than minor orders in the Roman Church. In 1863 he made a prolonged visit to Germany, where he studied the language and literature, and formed a close friendship with Döllinger, whose First Age of the Christian Church he translated in 1866. Oxenham was a regular contributor to the Saturday Review. A selection of his essays was published in Short Studies in Ecclesiastical History and Biography (1884), and Short Studies, Ethical and Religious (1885). He also translated in 1876 the 2nd vol. of Bishop Hefele’s History of the Councils of the Church, and published several pamphlets on the reunion of Christendom. His Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement (1865) and Catholic Eschatology and Universalism (1876) are standard works. Oxenham died at Kensington on the 23rd of March 1888.
See J. Gillow’s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. v. An interesting obituary notice on Oxenham was written by Vicesimus, i.e. Dean John Oakley of Manchester, for the Manchester Guardian, and published in pamphlet form (Manchester, 1888).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxenbridge, John

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​OXENBRIDGE, JOHN (1608–1674), English Nonconformist divine, was born at Daventry, Northamptonshire, on the 30th of January 1608, and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Magdalen Hall, Oxford (B.A. 1628, M.A. 1631). As tutor of Magdalen Hall he drew up a new code of articles referring to the government of the college. He was deprived of his office in May 1634, and began to preach, with a similar disregard for constituted authority. After his voyages to the Bermudas he returned to England (1641), and after exercising an itinerant and unattached ministry settled for some months in Great Yarmouth and then at Beverley. He was minister at Berwick-on-Tweed when in October 1652 he was appointed a fellow of Eton College. There in 1658 he preached the funeral ​sermon of Francis Rous, the provost, and thence in 1660 he was ejected. He returned to his preaching at Berwick-on-Tweed, but was expelled by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and after spending some time in the West Indies settled (1670) at Boston, Massachusetts, where he was ordained minister of the First Church. He died on the 28th of December 1674. A few sermons are all that he published. His first wife (d. 1658) was “a scholar beyond what was usual in her sex,” and Andrew Marvell, who was their friend, wrote an epitaph for her tomb at Eton which was defaced at the Restoration; his second wife (d. 1659) was Frances Woodward, daughter of the famous vicar of Bray; his third was a widow whom he met at Barbados.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxenford, John

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​OXENFORD, JOHN (1812–1877), English dramatist, was born at Camberwell on the 12th of August 1812. He began his literary career by writing on finance. He was an excellent linguist, and the author of many translations from the German, notably of Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit (1846) and Eckermann’s Conversations of Goethe (1850). He did much by his writing to spread the fame of Schopenhauer in England. His first play was My Fellow Clerk, produced at the Lyceum in 1835. This was followed by a long series of pieces, the most famous of which was perhaps the Porter’s Knot (1858) and Twice Killed (1835). About 1850 he became dramatic critic of The Times. He died in Southwark on the 21st of February 1877.
Many references to his pieces will be found in The Life and Reminiscences of E. L. Blanchard (ed. C. Scott and C. Howard, 1891).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxford, Earls of

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​OXFORD, EARLS OF, an English title held successively by the families of Vere and Harley. The three most important earls of the Vere line (see Vere) are noticed separately below. The Veres held the earldom from 1142 until March 1703, when it became extinct on the death of Aubrey de Vere, the 20th earl. In 1711 the English statesman Robert Harley (see below) was created earl of Oxford; but the title became extinct in this family on the death of the 6th earl in 1853.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxford, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of

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​OXFORD, EDWARD DE VERE, 17th Earl of (1550–1604), son of John de Vere, the 16th earl, was born on the 12th of April 1550. He matriculated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, but he removed later to St John’s College, and was known as Lord Bolebec or Bulbeck until he succeeded in 1562 to the earldom and to the hereditary dignity of great chamberlain of England. As one of the royal wards the boy came under the care of Lord Burghley, at whose house in London he lived under the tutorship of his maternal uncle, Arthur Golding, the translator of Ovid. His violent temper and erratic doings were a constant source of anxiety to Burghley, who nevertheless in 1571 gave him his eldest daughter, Anne, in marriage. Oxford more than once asked for a military or a naval command, but Burghley hoped that his good looks together with his skill in dancing and in feats of arms would win for him a high position at court. His accomplishments did indeed secure Elizabeth’s favour, but he offended her by going to Flanders without her consent in 1574, and more seriously in 1582 by a duel with one of her gentlemen, Thomas Knyvet. Among his other escapades was a futile ​plot to rescue from the Tower Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk, with whom he was distantly connected. In 1579 he insulted Sir Philip Sidney by calling him a “puppy” on the tennis-court at Whitehall. Sidney accordingly challenged Oxford, but the queen forbade him to fight, and required him to apologize on the ground of the difference of rank between the disputants. On Sidney’s refusal and consequent disgrace Oxford is said to have schemed to murder him. The earl sat on the special commission (1586) appointed for the trial of Mary queen of Scots; in 1589 he was one of the peers who tried Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, for high treason; and in 1601 he took part in the trial of Essex and Southampton. It has been suggested that Oxford was the Italianated Englishman ridiculed by Gabriel Harvey in his Speculum Tuscanismi. On his return from a journey to Italy in 1575 he brought back various inventions for the toilet, and his estate was rapidly dissipated in satisfying his extravagant whims. His first wife died in 1588, and from that time Burghley withdrew his support, Oxford being reduced to the necessity of seeking help among the poor men of letters whom he had at one time or another befriended. He was himself a lyric poet of no small merit. His fortunes were partially retrieved on his second marriage with Elizabeth Trentham, by whom he had a son, Henry de Vere, 18th earl of Oxford (1503–1625). He died at Newington, near London, on the 24th of June 1604.
His poems, scattered in various anthologies—the Paradise of Dainty Devices, England’s Parnassus, Phoenix Nest, England’s Helicon—and elsewhere, were collected by Dr A. B. Grosart in vol. iv. of the Fuller Worthies Library (1876).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oxe, Peder

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​OXE, PEDER (1520–1575), Danish Finance Minister, was born in 1520. At the age of twelve he was sent abroad to complete his education, and resided at the principal universities of Germany, Holland, France, Italy and Switzerland for seventeen years. On his return he found both his parents dead, and was appointed the guardian of his eleven young brothers and sisters, in which capacity, profiting by the spoliation of the church, he accumulated immense riches. His extraordinary financial abilities and pronounced political capacity soon found ample scope in public life. In 1552 he was raised to the dignity of Rigsraad (councillor of state); in 1554 he successfully accomplished his first diplomatic mission, by adjusting the differences between the elector of Saxony and the margrave of Brandenburg. The same year he held the post of governor of Copenhagen and shared with Byrge Trolle the control of the treasury. A few years later he incurred the royal disfavour for gross malversation in the administration of public property, and failing to compromise matters with the king, fled to Germany and engaged in political intrigues with the adventurer Wilhelm von Grumbach (1503–1567) for the purpose of dethroning Frederick II. in favour of Christina of Lorraine, the daughter of Christian II. But the financial difficulties of Frederick II. during the stress of the Scandinavian Seven Years' War compelled him, in 1566, to recall the great financier, when his confiscated estates were restored to him and he was reinstated in all his offices and dignities. A change for the better immediately ensued. The finances were speedily put on an excellent footing, means were provided for carrying on the war to a successful issue (one of the chief expedients being the raising of the Sound tolls) and on the conclusion of peace Oxe, as lord treasurer, not only reduced the national debt considerably, but redeemed a large portion of the alienated crown-lands. He reformed the coinage, developed trade and commerce and introduced numerous agricultural reforms, especially on his own estates, which he was never weary of enlarging, so that on his death he was the wealthiest landowner in Denmark. Oxe died on the 24th of October 1575, after contributing, more than any other statesman of his day, to raise Denmark for a brief period to the rank of a great power.
See P. Oxe’s live og levnet (Copenhagen, 1675); Danmarks riges historie, vol. 3 (Copenhagen, 1897–1905).