[1] Arago, Garnier-Pagès, Marie, Lamartine, and Ledru-Rollin.
LEDYARD, JOHN (1751-1789), American traveller, was born in Groton,
Connecticut, U.S.A. After vainly trying law and theology, Ledyard
adopted a seaman's life, and, coming to London, was engaged as corporal
of marines by Captain Cook for his third voyage (1776). On his return
(1778) Ledyard had to give up to the Admiralty his copious journals, but
afterwards published, from memory, a meagre narrative of his
experiences--herein giving the only account of Cook's death by an
eye-witness (Hartford, U.S.A., 1783). He continued in the British
service till 1782, when he escaped, off Long Island. In 1784 he
revisited Europe, to organize an expedition to the American North-West.
Having failed in his attempts, he decided to reach his goal by
travelling across Europe and Asia. Baffled in his hopes of crossing the
Baltic on the ice (Stockholm to Abo), he walked right round from
Stockholm to St Petersburg, where he arrived barefoot and penniless
(March 1787). Here he made friends with Pallas and others, and
accompanied Dr Brown, a Scotch physician in the Russian service, to
Siberia. Ledyard left Dr Brown at Barnaul, went on to Tomsk and Irkutsk,
visited Lake Baikal, and descended the Lena to Yakutsk (18th of
September 1787). With Captain Joseph Billings, whom he had known on
Cook's "Resolution," he returned to Irkutsk, where he was arrested,
deported to the Polish frontier, and banished from Russia for ever.
Reaching London, he was engaged by Sir Joseph Banks and the African
Association to explore overland routes from Alexandria to the Niger, but
in Cairo he succumbed to a dose of vitriol (17th of January 1789).
Though a born explorer, little resulted from his immense but
ill-directed activities.
See _Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard_, by Jared Sparks
(1828).
LEE, ANN (1736-1784), English religious visionary, was born in
Manchester, where she was first a factory hand and afterwards a cook.
She is remembered by her connexion with the sect known as Shakers
(q.v.). She died at Watervliet, near Albany, New York.
LEE, ARTHUR (1740-1792), American diplomatist, brother of Richard Henry
Lee, was born at Stratford, Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 20th
of December 1740. He was educated at Eton, studied medicine at
Edinburgh, practised as a physician in Williamsburg, Virginia, read law
at the Temple, London, in 1766-1770, and practised law in London in
1770-1776. He was an intimate of John Wilkes, whom he aided in one of
his London campaigns. In 1770-1775 he served as London agent for
Massachusetts, second to Benjamin Franklin, whom he succeeded in 1775.
At that time he had shown great ability as a pamphleteer, having
published in London _The Monitor_ (1768), seven essays previously
printed in Virginia; _The Political Detection: or the Treachery and
Tyranny of Administration, both at Home and Abroad_ (1770), signed
"Junius Americanus"; and _An Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the
People of Great Britain in the Present Disputes with America_ (1774),
signed "An Old Member of Parliament." In December 1775 the Committee of
Secret Correspondence of Congress chose him its European agent
principally for the purpose of ascertaining the views of France, Spain,
and other European countries regarding the war between the colonies and
Great Britain. In October 1776 he was appointed, upon the refusal of
Jefferson, on the commission with Franklin and Silas Deane to negotiate
a treaty of alliance, amity and commerce with France, and also to
negotiate with other European governments. His letters to Congress, in
which he expressed his suspicion of Deane's business integrity and
criticized his accounts, resulted in Deane's recall; and other letters
impaired the confidence of Congress in Franklin, of whom he was
especially jealous. Early in 1777 he went to Spain as American
commissioner, but received no official recognition, was not permitted to
proceed farther than Burgos, and accomplished nothing; until the
appointment of Jay, however, he continued to act as commissioner to
Spain, held various conferences with the Spanish minister in Paris, and
in January 1778 secured a promise of a loan of 3,000,000 livres, only a
small part of which (some 170,000 livres) was paid. In June 1777 he went
to Berlin, where, as in Spain, he was not officially recognized.
Although he had little to do with the negotiations, he signed with
Franklin and Deane in February 1778 the treaties between the United
States and France. Having become unpopular at the courts of France and
Spain, Lee was recalled in 1779, and returned to the United States in
September 1780. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in
1781 and a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782-1785. With
Oliver Wolcott and Richard Butler he negotiated a treaty with the Six
Nations, signed at Fort Stanwix on the 22nd of October 1784, and with
George Clark and Richard Butler a treaty with the Wyandot, Delaware,
Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, signed at Ft. McIntosh on the 21st of
January 1785. He was a member of the treasury board in 1784-1789. He
strongly opposed the constitution, and after its adoption retired to his
estate at Urbana, Virginia, where he died on the 12th of December 1792.
See R. H. Lee, _Life of Arthur Lee_ (2 vols., Boston, 1829), and C. H.
Lee, _A Vindication of Arthur Lee_ (Richmond, Virginia, 1894), both
partisan. Much of Lee's correspondence is to be found in Wharton's
_Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence_ (Washington, 1889). Eight
volumes of Lee's MSS. in the Harvard University Library are described
and listed in _Library of Harvard University, Bibliographical
Contributions_, No. 8 (Cambridge, 1882).
LEE, FITZHUGH (1835-1905), American cavalry general, was born at
Clermont, in Fairfax county, Virginia, on the 19th of November 1835. He
was the grandson of "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and the nephew of Robert E.
Lee. His father, Sydney Smith Lee, was a fleet captain under Commodore
Perry in Japanese waters and rose to the rank of commodore; his mother
was a daughter of George Mason. Graduating from West Point in 1856, he
was appointed to the 2nd Cavalry, which was commanded by Colonel Albert
Sidney Johnston, and in which his uncle, Robert E. Lee, was
lieutenant-colonel. As a cavalry subaltern he distinguished himself by
his gallant conduct in actions with the Comanches in Texas, and was
severely wounded in 1859. In May 1860 he was appointed instructor of
cavalry at West Point, but resigned on the secession of Virginia. Lee
was at once employed in the organization of the forces of the South, and
served at first as a staff officer to General R. S. Ewell, and
afterwards, from September 1861, as lieutenant-colonel, and from April
1862 as colonel of the First Virginia Cavalry in the Army of Northern
Virginia. He became brigadier-general on General J. E. B. Stuart's
recommendation on the 25th of July 1862, and served under that general
throughout the Virginian campaigns of 1862 and 1863, becoming
major-general on the 3rd of September 1863. He conducted the cavalry
action of Beverly Ford (17th March 1863) with skill and success. In the
Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns he was constantly employed as a
divisional commander under Stuart, and, after Stuart's death, under
General Wade Hampton. He took part in Early's campaign against Sheridan
in the Shenandoah Valley, and at Winchester (19th Sept. 1864) three
horses were shot under him and he was severely wounded. On General
Hampton's being sent to assist General Joseph E. Johnston in North
Carolina, the command of the whole of General Lee's cavalry devolved
upon Fitzhugh Lee early in 1865, but the surrender of Appomattox
followed quickly upon the opening of the campaign. Fitzhugh Lee himself
led the last charge of the Confederates on the 9th of April that year at
Farmville.
After the war he devoted himself to farming in Stafford county,
Virginia, and was conspicuous in his efforts to reconcile the Southern
people to the issue of the war, which he regarded as a final settlement
of the questions at issue. In 1875 he attended the Bunker Hill centenary
at Boston, Mass., and delivered a remarkable address. In 1885 he was a
member of the board of visitors of West Point, and from 1886 to 1890 was
governor of Virginia. In April 1896 he was appointed by President
Cleveland consul-general at Havana, with duties of a diplomatic and
military character added to the usual consular business. In this post
(in which he was retained by President McKinley) he was from the first
called upon to deal with a situation of great difficulty, which
culminated with the destruction of the "Maine" (see SPANISH-AMERICAN
WAR). Upon the declaration of war between Spain and the United States he
re-entered the army. He was one of the three ex-Confederate general
officers who were made major-generals of United States Volunteers.
Fitzhugh Lee commanded the VII. army corps, but took no part in the
actual operations in Cuba. He was military governor of Havana and Pinar
del Rio in 1899, subsequently commanded the department of the Missouri,
and retired as a brigadier-general U.S. Army in 1901. He died in
Washington on the 28th of April 1905. He wrote _Robert E. Lee_ (1894) in
the "Great Commanders" series, and _Cuba's Struggle Against Spain_
(1899).
LEE, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1802-1851), English musician, was born in London,
the son of Henry Lee, a pugilist and innkeeper. He became "tiger" to
Lord Barrymore, and his singing led to his being educated for the
musical profession. After appearing as a tenor at the theatres in Dublin
and London, he joined in producing opera at the Tottenham Street theatre
in 1829, and afterwards was connected with musical productions at Drury
Lane and Covent Garden. He married Mrs Waylett, a popular singer. Lee
composed music for a number of plays, and also many songs, including the
popular "Come where the Aspens quiver," and for a short time had a
music-selling business in the Quadrant. He died on the 8th of October
1851.
LEE, HENRY (1756-1818), American general, called "Light Horse Harry,"
was born near Dumfries, Virginia, on the 29th of January 1756. His
father was first cousin to Richard Henry Lee. With a view to a legal
career he graduated (1773) at Princeton, but soon afterwards, on the
outbreak of the War of Independence, he became an officer in the patriot
forces. He served with great distinction under Washington, and in 1778
was promoted major and given the command of a small irregular corps,
with which he won a great reputation as a leader of light troops. His
services on the outpost line of the army earned for him the soubriquet
of "Light Horse Harry." His greatest exploit was the brilliant surprise
of Paulus Hook, N.J., on the 19th of August 1779; for this feat he
received a gold medal, a reward given to no other officer below
general's rank in the whole war. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel
1780, and sent with a picked corps of dragoons to the southern theatre
of war. Here he rendered invaluable services in victory and defeat,
notably at Guilford Court House, Camden and Eutaw Springs. He was
present at Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown, and afterwards left the
army owing to ill-health. From 1786 to 1788 he was a delegate to the
Confederation Congress, and in the last-named year in the Virginia
convention he favoured the adoption of the Federal constitution. From
1789 to 1791 he served in the General Assembly, and from 1791 to 1794
was governor of Virginia. In 1794 Washington sent him to help in the
suppression of the "Whisky Insurrection" in western Pennsylvania. A new
county of Virginia was named after him during his governorship. He was a
major-general in 1798-1800. From 1799 to 1801 he served in Congress. He
delivered the address on the death of Washington which contained the
famous phrase, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen." Soon after the War of 1812 broke out, Lee, while
helping to resist the attack of a mob on his friend, A. C. Hanson,
editor of the Baltimore _Federal Republican_, which had opposed the war,
received grave injuries, from which he never recovered. He died at the
house of General Nathanael Greene on Cumberland Island, Georgia, on the
25th of March 1818.
Lee wrote valuable _Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department_
(1812; 3rd ed., with memoir by Robert E. Lee, 1869).
LEE, JAMES PRINCE (1804-1869), English divine, was born in London on the
28th of July 1804, and was educated at St Paul's school and at Trinity
College, Cambridge, where he displayed exceptional ability as a
classical scholar. After taking orders in 1830 he served under Thomas
Arnold at Rugby school, and in 1838 was appointed head-master of King
Edward's school, Birmingham, where he had among his pupils E. W. Benson,
J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott. In 1848 Lord John Russell nominated
him as first bishop of the newly-constituted see of Manchester. His
pedagogic manner bore somewhat irksomely on his clergy. He is best
remembered for his splendid work in church extension; during his
twenty-one years' tenure of the see he consecrated 130 churches. He took
a foremost part in founding the Manchester free library, and bequeathed
his own valuable collection of books to Owens College. He died on the
24th of December 1869.
A memorial sermon was preached by Archbishop E. W. Benson, and was
published with biographical details by J. F. Wickenden and others.
LEE, NATHANIEL (c. 1653-1692), English dramatist, son of Dr Richard Lee,
a Presbyterian divine, was born probably in 1653. His father was rector
of Hatfield, and held many preferments under the Commonwealth. He was
chaplain to General Monk, afterwards duke of Albemarle, and after the
Restoration he conformed to the Church of England, abjuring his former
opinions, especially his approval of Charles I.'s execution. Nathaniel
Lee was educated at Westminster school, and at Trinity College,
Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1668. Coming to London under the
patronage, it is said, of the duke of Buckingham, he tried to earn his
living as an actor, but though he was an admirable reader, his acute
stage fright made acting impossible. His earliest play, _Nero, Emperor
of Rome_, was acted in 1675 at Drury Lane. Two tragedies written in
rhymed heroic couplets, in imitation of Dryden, followed in
1676--_Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow and Gloriana, or the Court of
Augustus Caesar_. Both are extravagant in design and treatment. Lee made
his reputation in 1677 with a blank verse tragedy, _The Rival Queens, or
the Death of Alexander the Great_. The play, which treats of the
jealousy of Alexander's first wife, Roxana, for his second wife,
Statira, was, in spite of much bombast, a favourite on the English
stage down to the days of Edmund Kean. _Mithridates, King of Pontus_
(acted 1678), _Theodosius, or the Force of Love_ (acted 1680), _Caesar
Borgia_ (acted 1680)--an imitation of the worst blood and thunder
Elizabethan tragedies--_Lucius Junius Brutus, Father of His Country_
(acted 1681), and _Constantine the Great_ (acted 1684) followed. _The
Princess of Cleve_ (1681) is a gross adaptation of Madame de La
Fayette's exquisite novel of that name. _The Massacre of Paris_
(published 1690) was written about this time. Lee had given offence at
court by his _Lucius Junius Brutus_, which had been suppressed after its
third representation for some lines on Tarquin's character that were
taken to be a reflection on Charles II. He therefore joined with Dryden,
who had already admitted him as a collaborator in an adaptation of
_Oedipus_, in _The Duke of Guise_ (1683), a play which directly
advocated the Tory point of view. In it part of the _Massacre of Paris_
was incorporated. Lee was now thirty years of age, and had already
achieved a considerable reputation. But he had lived in the dissipated
society of the earl of Rochester and his associates, and imitated their
excesses. As he grew more disreputable, his patrons neglected him, and
in 1684 his mind was completely unhinged. He spent five years in
Bethlehem Hospital, and recovered his health. He died in a drunken fit
in 1692, and was buried in St Clement Danes, Strand, on the 6th of May.
Lee's _Dramatic Works_ were published in 1784. In spite of their
extravagance, they contain many passages of great beauty.
LEE, RICHARD HENRY (1732-1794), American statesman and orator, was born
at Stratford, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 20th of January
1732, and was one of six distinguished sons of Thomas Lee (d. 1750), a
descendant of an old Cavalier family, the first representative of which
in America was Richard Lee, who was a member of the privy council, and
early in the reign of Charles I. emigrated to Virginia. Richard Henry
Lee received an academic education in England, then spent a little time
in travel, returned to Virginia in 1752, having come into possession of
a fine property left him by his father, and for several years applied
himself to varied studies. When twenty-five he was appointed justice of
the peace of Westmoreland county, and in the same year was chosen a
member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, in which he served from 1758
to 1775. He kept a diffident silence during two sessions, his first
speech being in strong opposition to slavery, which he proposed to
discourage and eventually to abolish, by imposing a heavy tax on all
further importations. He early allied himself with the Patriot or Whig
element in Virginia, and in the years immediately preceding the War of
Independence was conspicuous as an opponent of the arbitrary measures of
the British ministry. In 1768, in a letter to John Dickinson of
Pennsylvania, he suggested a private correspondence among the friends of
liberty in the different colonies, and in 1773 he became a member of the
Virginia Committee of Correspondence.
Lee was one of the delegates from Virginia to the first Continental
Congress at Philadelphia in 1774, and prepared the address to the people
of British America, and the second address to the people of Great
Britain, which are among the most effective papers of the time. In
accordance with instructions given by the Virginia House of Burgesses,
Lee introduced in Congress, on the 7th of June 1776, the following
famous resolutions: (1) "that these united colonies are, and of right
ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from
all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion
between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally
dissolved"; (2) "that it is expedient to take the most effectual
measures for forming foreign alliances"; and (3) "that a plan of
confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for
their consideration and approbation." After debating the first of these
resolutions for three days, Congress resolved that the further
consideration of it should be postponed until the 1st of July, but that
a committee should be appointed to prepare a declaration of
independence. The illness of Lee's wife prevented him from being a
member of that committee, but his first resolution was adopted on the
2nd of July, and the Declaration of Independence, prepared principally
by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted two days later. Lee was in Congress
from 1774 to 1780, and was especially prominent in connexion with
foreign affairs. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in
1777, 1780-1784 and 1786-1787; was in Congress again from 1784 to 1787,
being president in 1784-1786; and was one of the first United States
senators chosen from Virginia after the adoption of the Federal
constitution. Though strongly opposed to the adoption of that
constitution, owing to what he regarded as its dangerous infringements
upon the independent power of the states, he accepted the place of
senator in hope of bringing about amendments, and proposed the Tenth
Amendment in substantially the form in which it was adopted. He became a
warm supporter of Washington's administration, and his prejudices
against the constitution were largely removed by its working in
practice. He retired from public life in 1792, and died at Chantilly, in
Westmoreland county, on the 19th of June 1794.
See the _Life_ (Philadelphia, 1825), by his grandson, R. H. Lee; and
_Letters_ (New York, 1910), edited by J. C. Ballagh.
His brother, WILLIAM LEE (1739-1795), was a diplomatist during the War
of Independence. He accompanied his brother, Arthur Lee (q.v.), to
England in 1766 to engage in mercantile pursuits, joined the Wilkes
faction, and in 1775 was elected an alderman of London, then a
life-position. In April 1777, however, he received notice of his
appointment by the Committee of Secret Correspondence in America to act
with Thomas Morris as commercial agent at Nantes. He went to Paris and
became involved in his brother's opposition to Franklin and Deane. In
May 1777 Congress chose William Lee commissioner to the courts of Vienna
and Berlin, but he gained recognition at neither. In September 1778,
however, while at Aix-la-Chapelle, he negotiated a plan of a treaty with
Jan de Neufville, who represented Van Berckel, pensionary of Amsterdam.
It was a copy of this proposed treaty which, on falling into the hands
of the British on the capture of Henry Laurens, the duly appointed
minister to the Netherlands, led to Great Britain's declaration of war
against the Netherlands in December 1780. Lee was recalled from his
mission to Vienna and Berlin in June 1779, without being required to
return to America. He resigned his post as an alderman of London in
January 1780, and returned to Virginia about 1784.
See _Letters of William Lee_, edited by W. C. Ford (Brooklyn, 1891).
Another brother, FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE (1734-1797), was a member of the
Virginia House of Burgesses in 1770-1775. In 1775-1779 he was a delegate
to the Continental Congress, and as such signed the Declaration of
Independence. He served on the committee which drafted the Articles of
Confederation, and contended that there should be no treaty of peace
with Great Britain which did not grant to the United States both the
right to the Newfoundland fisheries and the free navigation of the
Mississippi. After retiring from Congress he served in 1780-1782 in the
Virginia Senate.
LEE, ROBERT EDWARD (1807-1870), American soldier, general in the
Confederate States army, was the youngest son of major-general Henry
Lee, called "Light Horse Harry." He was born at Stratford, Westmoreland
county, Virginia, on the 19th of January 1807, and entered West Point in
1825. Graduating four years later second in his class, he was given a
commission in the U.S. Engineer Corps. In 1831 he married Mary, daughter
of G. W. P. Custis, the adopted son of Washington and the grandson of
Mrs Washington. In 1836 he became first lieutenant, and in 1838 captain.
In this rank he took part in the Mexican War, repeatedly winning
distinction for conduct and bravery. He received the brevets of major
for Cerro Gordo, lieut.-colonel for Contreras-Churubusco and colonel for
Chapultepec. After the war he was employed in engineer work at
Washington and Baltimore, during which time, as before the war, he
resided on the great Arlington estate, near Washington, which had come
to him through his wife. In 1852 he was appointed superintendent of West
Point, and during his three years here he carried out many important
changes in the academy. Under him as cadets were his son G. W. Custis
Lee, his nephew, Fitzhugh Lee and J. E. B. Stuart, all of whom became
general officers in the Civil War. In 1855 he was appointed as
lieut.-colonel to the 2nd Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Sidney Johnston,
with whom he served against the Indians of the Texas border. In 1859,
while at Arlington on leave, he was summoned to command the United
States troops sent to deal with the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry.
In March 1861 he was made colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry; but his
career in the old army ended with the secession of Virginia in the
following month. Lee was strongly averse to secession, but felt obliged
to conform to the action of his own state. The Federal authorities
offered Lee the command of the field army about to invade the South,
which he refused. Resigning his commission, he made his way to Richmond
and was at once made a major-general in the Virginian forces. A few
weeks later he became a brigadier-general (then the highest rank) in the
Confederate service.
The military operations with which the great Civil War opened in 1861
were directed by President Davis and General Lee. Lee was personally in
charge of the unsuccessful West Virginian operations in the autumn, and,
having been made a full general on the 31st of August, during the winter
he devoted his experience as an engineer to the fortification and
general defence of the Atlantic coast. Thence, when the well-drilled
Army of the Potomac was about to descend upon Richmond, he was hurriedly
recalled to Richmond. General Johnston was wounded at the battle of Fair
Oaks (Seven Pines) on the 31st of May 1862, and General Robert E. Lee
was assigned to the command of the famous Army of Northern Virginia
which for the next three years "carried the rebellion on its bayonets."
Little can be said of Lee's career as a commander-in-chief that is not
an integral part of the history of the Civil War. His first success was
the "Seven Days' Battle" (q.v.) in which he stopped McClellan's advance;
this was quickly followed up by the crushing defeat of the Federal army
under Pope, the invasion of Maryland and the sanguinary and indecisive
battle of the Antietam (q.v.). The year ended with another great victory
at Fredericksburg (q.v.). Chancellorsville (see WILDERNESS), won against
odds of two to one, and the great three days' battle of Gettysburg
(q.v.), where for the first time fortune turned decisively against the
Confederates, were the chief events of 1863. In the autumn Lee fought a
war of manoeuvre against General Meade. The tremendous struggle of 1864
between Lee and Grant included the battles of the Wilderness (q.v.),
Spottsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and the long siege of Petersburg
(q.v.), in which, almost invariably, Lee was locally successful. But the
steady pressure of his unrelenting opponent slowly wore down his
strength. At last with not more than one man to oppose to Grant's three
he was compelled to break out of his Petersburg lines (April 1865). A
series of heavy combats revealed his purpose, and Grant pursued the
dwindling remnants of Lee's army to the westward. Headed off by the
Federal cavalry, and pressed closely in rear by Grant's main body,
General Lee had no alternative but to surrender. At Appomattox Court
House, on the 9th of April, the career of the Army of Northern Virginia
came to an end. Lee's farewell order was issued on the following day,
and within a few weeks the Confederacy was at an end. For a few months
Lee lived quietly in Powhatan county, making his formal submission to
the Federal authorities and urging on his own people acceptance of the
new conditions. In August he was offered, and accepted, the presidency
of Washington College, Lexington (now Washington and Lee University), a
post which he occupied until his death on the 12th of October 1870. He
was buried in the college grounds.
For the events of Lee's military career briefly indicated in this notice
the reader is referred to the articles AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, &c. By his
achievements he won a high place amongst the great generals of history.
Though hampered by lack of materials and by political necessities, his
strategy was daring always, and he never hesitated to take the gravest
risks. On the field of battle he was as energetic in attack as he was
constant in defence, and his personal influence over the men whom he
led was extraordinary. No student of the American Civil War can fail to
notice how the influence of Lee dominated the course of the struggle,
and his surpassing ability was never more conspicuously shown than in
the last hopeless stages of the contest. The personal history of Lee is
lost in the history of the great crisis of America's national life;
friends and foes alike acknowledged the purity of his motives, the
virtues of his private life, his earnest Christianity and the unrepining
loyalty with which he accepted the ruin of his party.
See A. L. Long, _Memoirs of Robert E. Lee_ (New York, 1886); Fitzhugh
Lee, _General Lee_ (New York, 1894, "Great Commanders" series); R. A.
Brock, _General Robert E. Lee_ (Washington, 1904); R. E. Lee,
_Recollections and Letters of General R. E. Lee_ (London, 1904); H. A.
White, _Lee_ ("Heroes of the Nations") (1897); P. A. Bruce, _Robert E.
Lee_ (1907); T. N. Page, _Lee_ (1909); W. H. Taylor, _Four Years with
General Lee_; J. W. Jones, _Personal Reminiscences of Robert E. Lee_
(1874).
LEE (or LEGH) ROWLAND (d. 1543), English bishop, belonged to a
Northumberland family and was educated at Cambridge. Having entered the
Church he obtained several livings owing to the favour of Cardinal
Wolsey; after Wolsey's fall he rose high in the esteem of Henry VIII.
and of Thomas Cromwell, serving both king and minister in the business
of suppressing the monasteries, and he is said to have celebrated
Henry's secret marriage with Anne Boleyn in January 1533. Whether this
be so or not, Lee took part in preparing for the divorce proceedings
against Catherine of Aragon, and in January 1534 he was elected bishop
of Coventry and Lichfield, or Chester as the see was often called,
taking at his consecration the new oath to the king as head of the
English Church and not seeking confirmation from the pope. As bishop he
remained in Henry's personal service, endeavouring to establish the
legality of his marriage with Anne, until May 1534, when he was
appointed lord president of the council in the marches of Wales. At this
time the Welsh marches were in a very disorderly condition. Lee acted in
a stern and energetic fashion, holding courts, sentencing many offenders
to death and overcoming the hostility of the English border lords. After
some years of hard and successful work in this capacity, "the last
survivor of the old martial prelates, fitter for harness than for
bishops' robes, for a court of justice than a court of theology," died
at Shrewsbury in June 1543. Many letters from Lee to Cromwell are
preserved in the Record Office, London; these throw much light on the
bishop's career and on the lawless condition of the Welsh marches in his
time.
One of his contemporaries was EDWARD LEE (c. 1482-1544) archbishop of
York, famous for his attack on Erasmus, who replied to him in his
_Epistolae aliquot eruditorum virorum_. Like Rowland, Edward was
useful to Henry VIII. in the matter of the divorce of Catherine of
Aragon, and was sent by the king on embassies to the emperor Charles
V. and to Pope Clement VII. In 1531 he became archbishop of York, but
he came under suspicion as one who disliked the king's new position as
head of the English Church. At Pontefract in 1536, during the
Pilgrimage of Grace, the archbishop was compelled to join the rebels,
but he did not sympathize with the rising and in 1539 he spoke in
parliament in favour of the six articles of religion. Lee, who was the
last archbishop of York to coin money, died on the 13th of September
1544.
LEE, SIDNEY (1859- ), English man of letters, was born in London on
the 5th of December 1859. He was educated at the City of London school,
and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in
1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the _Dictionary of
National Biography_. In 1890 he was made joint-editor, and on the
retirement of Sir Leslie Stephen in 1891 succeeded him as editor. He was
himself a voluminous contributor to the work, writing some 800 articles,
mainly on Elizabethan authors or statesmen. While he was still at
Balliol he wrote two articles on Shakespearian questions, which were
printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and in 1884 he published a book
on Stratford-on-Avon. His article on Shakespeare in the fifty-first
volume (1897) of the _Dictionary of National Biography_ formed the basis
of his _Life of William Shakespeare_ (1898), which reached its fifth
edition in 1905. Mr Lee edited in 1902 the Oxford facsimile edition of
the first folio of _Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies_,
followed in 1902 and 1904 by supplementary volumes giving details of
extant copies, and in 1906 by a complete edition of Shakespeare's
_Works_. Besides editions of English classics his works include a _Life
of Queen Victoria_ (1902), _Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century_
(1904), based on his Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, Mass., in
1903, and _Shakespeare and the Modern Stage_ (1906).
LEE, SOPHIA (1750-1824), English novelist and dramatist, daughter of
John Lee (d. 1781), actor and theatrical manager, was born in London.
Her first piece, _The Chapter of Accidents_, a one-act-opera based on
Diderot's _Père de famille_, was produced by George Colman at the
Haymarket Theatre on the 5th of August 1780. The proceeds were spent in
establishing a school at Bath, where Miss Lee made a home for her
sisters. Her subsequent productions included _The Recess, or a Tale of
other Times_ (1785), a historical romance; and _Almeyda, Queen of
Grenada_ (1796), a tragedy in blank verse; she also contributed to her
sister's _Canterbury Tales_ (1797). She died at her house near Clifton
on the 13th of March 1824.
Her sister, HARRIET LEE (1757-1851), published in 1786 a novel written
in letters, _The Errors of Innocence_. _Clara Lennox_ followed in 1797.
Her chief work is the _Canterbury Tales_ (1797-1805), a series of twelve
stories which became very popular. Lord Byron dramatized one of the
tales, "Kruitzner," as _Werner, or the Inheritance_. She died at Clifton
on the 1st of August 1851.
LEE, STEPHEN DILL (1833-1908), Confederate general in the American Civil
War, came of a family distinguished in the history of South Carolina,
and was born at Charleston, S.C., on the 22nd of September 1833.
Graduating from West Point in 1854, he served for seven years in the
United States army and resigned in 1861 on the secession of South
Carolina. He was aide de camp to General Beauregard in the attack on
Fort Sumter, and captain commanding a light battery in General
Johnston's army later in the year 1861. Thereafter, by successive steps,
each gained by distinguished conduct on the field of battle, he rose to
the rank of brigadier-general in November 1862, being ordered to take
command of defences at Vicksburg. He served at this place with great
credit until its surrender to General Grant in July 1863, and on
becoming a prisoner of war, he was immediately exchanged and promoted
major-general. His regimental service had been chiefly with artillery,
but he had generally worked with and at times commanded cavalry, and he
was now assigned to command the troops of that arm in the south-western
theatre of war. After harassing, as far as his limited numbers
permitted, the advance of Sherman's column on Meridian, he took General
Polk's place as commander of the department of Mississippi. In June
1864, on Hood's promotion to command the Army of Tennessee, S. D. Lee
was made a lieutenant-general and assigned to command Hood's old corps
in that army. He fought at Atlanta and Jonesboro and in the skirmishing
and manoeuvring along middle Tennessee which ended in the great crisis
of Nashville and the "March to the Sea." Lee's corps accompanied Hood in
the bold advance to Nashville, and fought in the battles of Franklin and
Nashville, after which, in the rout of the Confederate army Lee kept his
troops closed up and well in hand, and for three consecutive days formed
the fighting rearguard of the otherwise disintegrated army. Lee was
himself wounded, but did not give up the command until an organized
rearguard took over the post of danger. On recovery he joined General J.
E. Johnston in North Carolina, and he surrendered with Johnston in April
1865. After the war he settled in Mississippi, which was his wife's
state and during the greater part of the war his own territorial
command, and devoted himself to planting. He was president of the
Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi from 1880 to 1899,
took some part in state politics and was an active member--at the time
of his death commander-in-chief--of the "United Confederate Veterans"
society. He died at Vicksburg on the 28th of May 1908.
LEE, a township of Berkshire county, in western Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Pop. (1900) 3596; (1905) 3972; (1910) 4106. The township is traversed by
the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, covers an area of 22½ sq.
m., and includes the village of Lee, 10 m. S. of Pittsfield, East Lee,
adjoining it on the S.E., and South Lee, about 3 m. to the S.W. Lee and
South Lee are on, and East Lee is near, the Housatonic river. The
eastern part of the township is generally hilly, reaching a maximum
altitude of about 2200 ft., and there are two considerable bodies of
water--Laurel Lake in the N.W. (partly in Lenox) and Goose Pond, in the
S.E. (partly in Tyringham). The region is healthy as well as beautiful,
and is much frequented as a summer resort. Memorial Hall was built in
memory of the soldiers from Lee who died during the Civil War. The chief
manufactures are paper and wire, and from the quarries near the village
of Lee is obtained an excellent quality of marble; these quarries
furnished the marble for the extension of the Capitol at Washington, for
St Patrick's cathedral in New York City and for the Lee High School and
the Lee Public Library (1908). Lime is quarried in the township. Lee was
formerly a paper-manufacturing place of great importance. The first
paper mill in the township was built in South Lee in 1806, and for a
time more paper was made in Lee than in any other place in the United
States; the Housatonic Mill in Lee was probably the first (1867) in the
United States to manufacture paper from wood pulp.
The first settlement within the present township of Lee was made in
1760. The township was formed from parts of Great Barrington and
Washington, was incorporated in 1777 and was named in honour of General
Charles Lee (1731-1782). In the autumn of 1786 there was an encounter
near the village of East Lee between about 250 adherents of Daniel Shays
(many of them from Lee township) and a body of state troops under
General John Paterson, wherein the Shays contingent paraded a bogus
cannon (made of a yarn beam) with such effect that the state troops
fled.
See Amory Gale, _History of the Town of Lee_ (Lee, 1854), and _Lee,
The Centennial Celebration and Centennial History of the Town of Lee_
(Springfield, Mass., 1878), compiled by Charles M. Hyde and Alexander
Hyde.
LEE. (1) (In O. Eng. _hléo_; cf. the pronunciation _lew-ward_ of
"leeward"; the word appears in several Teutonic languages; cf. Dutch
_lij_, Dan. _lae_), properly a shelter or protection, chiefly used as a
nautical term for that side of a ship, land, &c., which is farthest from
the wind, hence a "lee shore," land under the lee of a ship, i.e. one on
which the wind blows directly and which is unsheltered. A ship is said
to make "leeway" when she drifts laterally away from her course. (2) A
word now always used in the plural "lees," meaning dregs, sediment,
particularly of wine. It comes through the O. Fr. _lie_ from a Gaulish
Lat. _lia_, and is probably of Celtic origin.
LEECH, JOHN (1817-1864), English caricaturist, was born in London on the
29th of August 1817. His father, a native of Ireland, was the landlord
of the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill, "a man," on the testimony of
those who knew him, "of fine culture, a profound Shakespearian, and a
thorough gentleman." His mother was descended from the family of the
famous Richard Bentley. It was from his father that Leech inherited his
skill with the pencil, which he began to use at a very early age. When
he was only three, he was discovered by Flaxman, who had called on his
parents, seated on his mother's knee, drawing with much gravity. The
sculptor pronounced his sketch to be wonderful, adding, "Do not let him
be cramped with lessons in drawing; let his genius follow its own bent;
he will astonish the world"--an advice which was strictly followed. A
mail-coach, done when he was six years old, is already full of
surprising vigour and variety in its galloping horses. Leech was
educated at Charterhouse, where Thackeray, his lifelong friend, was his
schoolfellow, and at sixteen he began to study for the medical
profession at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he won praise for the
accuracy and beauty of his anatomical drawings. He was then placed under
a Mr Whittle, an eccentric practitioner, the original of "Rawkins" in
Albert Smith's _Adventures of Mr Ledbury_, and afterwards under Dr John
Cockle; but gradually the true bent of the youth's mind asserted itself,
and he drifted into the artistic profession. He was eighteen when his
first designs were published, a quarto of four pages, entitled _Etchings
and Sketchings by A. Pen, Esq._, comic character studies from the
London streets. Then he drew some political lithographs, did rough
sketches for _Bell's Life_, produced an exceedingly popular parody on
Mulready's postal envelope, and, on the death of Seymour, applied
unsuccessfully to illustrate the _Pickwick Papers_. In 1840 Leech began
his contributions to the magazines with a series of etchings in
_Bentley's Miscellany_, where Cruikshank had published his splendid
plates to _Jack Sheppard_ and _Oliver Twist_, and was illustrating _Guy
Fawkes_ in sadly feebler fashion. In company with the elder master Leech
designed for the _Ingoldsby Legends_ and _Stanley Thorn_, and till 1847
produced many independent series of etchings. These cannot be ranked
with his best work; their technique is exceedingly imperfect; they are
rudely bitten, with the light and shade out of relation; and we never
feel that they express the artist's individuality, the _Richard Savage_
plates, for instance, being strongly reminiscent of Cruikshank, and "The
Dance at Stamford Hall" of Hablot Browne. In 1845 Leech illustrated _St
Giles and St James_ in Douglas Jerrold's newly started _Shilling
Magazine_, with plates more vigorous and accomplished than those in
_Bentley_, but it is in subjects of a somewhat later date, and
especially in those lightly etched and meant to be printed with colour,
that we see the artist's best powers with the needle and the acid. Among
such of his designs are four charming plates to Dickens's _Christmas
Carol_ (1844), the broadly humorous etchings in the _Comic History of
England_ (1847-1848), and the still finer illustrations to the _Comic
History of Rome_ (1852)--which last, particularly in its minor woodcuts,
shows some exquisitely graceful touches, as witness the fair faces that
rise from the surging water in "Cloelia and her Companions Escaping from
the Etruscan Camp." Among the other etchings which deserve very special
reference are those in _Young Master Troublesome or Master Jacky's
Holidays_, and the frontispiece to _Hints on Life, or How to Rise in
Society_ (1845)--a series of minute subjects linked gracefully together
by coils of smoke, illustrating the various ranks and conditions of men,
one of them--the doctor by his patient's bedside--almost equalling in
vivacity and precision the best of Cruikshank's similar scenes. Then in
the 'fifties we have the numerous etchings of sporting scenes,
contributed, together with woodcuts, to the _Handley Cross_ novels.
Turning to Leech's lithographic work, we have, in 1841, the _Portraits
of the Children of the Mobility_, an important series dealing with the
humorous and pathetic aspects of London street Arabs, which were
afterwards so often and so effectively to employ the artist's pencil.
Amid all the squalor which they depict, they are full of individual
beauties in the delicate or touching expression of a face, in the
graceful turn of a limb. The book is scarce in its original form, but in
1875 two reproductions of the outline sketches for the designs were
published--a lithographic issue of the whole series, and a finer
photographic transcript of six of the subjects, which is more valuable
than even the finished illustrations of 1841, in which the added light
and shade is frequently spotty and ineffective, and the lining itself
has not the freedom which we find in some of Leech's other lithographs,
notably in the _Fly Leaves_, published at the _Punch_ office, and in the
inimitable subject of the nuptial couch of the Caudles, which also
appeared, in woodcut form, as a political cartoon, with Mrs Caudle,
personated by Brougham, disturbing by untimely loquacity the slumbers of
the lord chancellor, whose haggard cheek rests on the woolsack for
pillow.
But it was in work for the wood-engravers that Leech was most prolific
and individual. Among the earlier of such designs are the illustrations
to the _Comic English_ and _Latin Grammars_ (1840), to _Written
Caricatures_ (1841), to Hood's _Comic Annual_, (1842), and to Albert
Smith's _Wassail Bowl_ (1843), subjects mainly of a small vignette size,
transcribed with the best skill of such woodcutters as Orrin Smith, and
not, like the larger and later _Punch_ illustrations, cut at speed by
several engravers working at once on the subdivided block. It was in
1841 that Leech's connexion with _Punch_ began, a connexion which
subsisted till his death on the 29th of October 1864, and resulted in
the production of the best-known and most admirable of his designs. His
first contribution appeared in the issue of the 7th of August, a
full-page illustration--entitled "Foreign Affairs"--of character studies
from the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. His cartoons deal at first
mainly with social subjects, and are rough and imperfect in execution,
but gradually their method gains in power and their subjects become more
distinctly political, and by 1849 the artist is strong enough to produce
the splendidly humorous national personification which appears in
"Disraeli Measuring the British Lion." About 1845 we have the first of
that long series of half-page and quarter-page pictures of life and
manners, executed with a hand as gentle as it was skilful, containing,
as Ruskin has said, "admittedly the finest definition and natural
history of the classes of our society, the kindest and subtlest analysis
of its foibles, the tenderest flattery of its pretty and well-bred
ways," which has yet appeared. In addition to his work for the weekly
issue of _Punch_, Leech contributed largely to the _Punch_ almanacks and
pocket-books, to _Once a Week_ from 1859 till 1862, to the _Illustrated
London News_, where some of his largest and best sporting scenes
appeared, and to innumerable novels and miscellaneous volumes besides,
of which it is only necessary to specify _A Little Tour in Ireland_
(1859), which is noticeable as showing the artist's treatment of pure
landscape, though it also contains some of his daintiest figure-pieces,
like that of the wind-blown girl, standing on the summit of a pedestal,
with the swifts darting around her and the breadth of sea beyond.
In 1862 Leech appealed to the public with a very successful exhibition
of some of the most remarkable of his _Punch_ drawings. These were
enlarged by a mechanical process, and coloured in oils by the artist
himself, with the assistance and under the direction of his friend J. E.
Millais.
Leech was a singularly rapid and indefatigable worker. Dean Hole tells
us, when he was his guest, "I have known him send off from my house
three finished drawings on the wood, designed, traced, and rectified,
without much effort as it seemed, between breakfast and dinner." The
best technical qualities of Leech's art, his unerring precision, his
unfailing vivacity in the use of the line, are seen most clearly in
the first sketches for his woodcuts, and in the more finished drawings
made on tracing-paper from these first outlines, before the
chiaroscuro was added and the designs were transcribed by the
engraver. Turning to the mental qualities of his art, it would be a
mistaken criticism which ranked him as a comic draughtsman. Like
Hogarth he was a true humorist, a student of human life, though he
observed humanity mainly in its whimsical aspects,
"Hitting all he saw with shafts
With gentle satire, kin to charity,
That harmed not."
The earnestness and gravity of moral purpose which is so constant a
note in the work of Hogarth is indeed far less characteristic of
Leech, but there are touches of pathos and of tragedy in such of the
_Punch_ designs as the "Poor Man's Friend" (1845), and "General
Février turned Traitor" (1855), and in "The Queen of the Arena" in the
first volume of _Once a Week_, which are sufficient to prove that more
solemn powers, for which his daily work afforded no scope, lay dormant
in their artist. The purity and manliness of Leech's own character are
impressed on his art. We find in it little of the exaggeration and
grotesqueness, and none of the fierce political enthusiasm, of which
the designs of Gillray are so full. Compared with that of his great
contemporary George Cruikshank, his work is restricted both in compass
of subject and in artistic dexterity.
Biographies of Leech have been written by John Brown (1882), and Frith
(1891); see also "John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character," by
Thackeray, _Quarterly Review_ (December 1854); letter by John Ruskin,
_Arrows of the Chace_, vol. i. p. 161; "Un Humoriste Anglais," by
Ernest Chesneau, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ (1875). (J. M. G.)
LEECH, the common name of members of the Hirudinea, a division of
Chaetopod worms. It is doubtful whether the medicinal leech, _Hirudo
medicinalis_, which is rarer in England than on the continent of Europe,
or the horse leech, _Aulastoma gulo_, often confused with it, has the
best right to the original possession of this name. But at present the
word "leech" is applied to every member of the group Hirudinea, for the
general structure and classification of which see CHAETOPODA. There are
many genera and species of leeches, the exact definitions of which are
still in need of a more complete survey. They occur in all parts of the
world and are mostly aquatic, though sometimes terrestrial, in habit.
The aquatic forms frequent streams, ponds and marshes, and the sea. The
members of this group are always carnivorous or parasitic, and prey
upon both vertebrates and invertebrates. In relation to their parasitic
habit one or two suckers are always developed, the one at the anterior
and the other at the posterior end of the body. In one subdivision of
the leeches, the _Gnathobdellidae_, the mouth has three chitinous jaws
which produce a triangular bite, though the action has been described as
like that of a circular saw. Leeches without biting jaws possess a
protrusible proboscis, and generally engulf their prey, as does the
horse leech when it attacks earthworms. But some of them are also
ectoparasites. The leech has been used in medicine from remote antiquity
as a moderate blood-letter; and it is still so used, though more rarely
than formerly. As unlicensed blood-letters, certain land-leeches are
among the most unpleasant of parasites that can be encountered in a
tropical jungle. A species of _Haemadipsa_ of Ceylon attaches itself to
the passer-by and draws blood with so little irritation that the
sufferer is said to be aware of its presence only by the trickling from
the wounds produced. Small leeches taken into the mouth with
drinking-water may give rise to serious symptoms by attaching themselves
to the fauces and neighbouring parts and thence sucking blood. The
effects of these parasites have been mistaken for those of disease. All
leeches are very extensile and can contract the body to a plump,
pear-shaped form, or extend it to a long and worm-like shape. They
frequently progress after the fashion of a "looper" caterpillar,
attaching themselves alternately by the anterior and the posterior
sucker. Others swim with eel-like curves through the water, while one
land-leech, at any rate, moves in a gliding way like a land Planarian,
and leaves, also like the Planarian, a slimy trail behind it. Leeches
are usually olive green to brown in colour, darker patches and spots
being scattered over a paler ground. The marine parasitic leech
_Pontobdella_ is of a bright green, as is also the land-leech
_Trocheta_.
The term "leech," as an old English synonym for physician, is from a
Teutonic root meaning "heal," and is etymologically distinct from the
name (O. Eng. _lyce_) of the _Hirudo_, though the use of the one by the
other has helped to assimilate the two words. (F. E. B.)
LEEDS, THOMAS OSBORNE, 1st DUKE OF (1631-1712), English statesman,
commonly known also by his earlier title of EARL OF DANBY, son of Sir
Edward Osborne, Bart., of Kiveton, Yorkshire, was born in 1631. He was
great-grandson of Sir Edward Osborne (d. 1591), lord mayor of London,
who, according to the accepted account, while apprentice to Sir William
Hewett, cloth worker and lord mayor in 1559, made the fortunes of the
family by leaping from London Bridge into the river and rescuing Anne
(d. 1585), the daughter of his employer, whom he afterwards married.[1]
Thomas Osborne, the future lord treasurer, succeeded to the baronetcy
and estates in Yorkshire on his father's death in 1647, and after
unsuccessfully courting his cousin Dorothy Osborne, married Lady Bridget
Bertie, daughter of the earl of Lindsey. He was introduced to public
life and to court by his neighbour in Yorkshire, George, 2nd duke of
Buckingham, was elected M.P. for York in 1665, and gained the "first
step in his future rise" by joining Buckingham in his attack on
Clarendon in 1667. In 1668 he was appointed joint treasurer of the navy
with Sir Thomas Lyttelton, and subsequently sole treasurer. He succeeded
Sir William Coventry as commissioner for the state treasury in 1669, and
in 1673 was appointed a commissioner for the admiralty. He was created
Viscount Osborne in the Scottish peerage on the 2nd of February 1673,
and a privy councillor on the 3rd of May. On the 19th of June, on the
resignation of Lord Clifford, he was appointed lord treasurer and made
Baron Osborne of Kiveton and Viscount Latimer in the peerage of England,
while on the 27th of June 1674 he was created earl of Danby, when he
surrendered his Scottish peerage of Osborne to his second son Peregrine
Osborne. He was appointed the same year lord-lieutenant of the West
Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1677 received the Garter.
Danby was a statesman of very different calibre from the leaders of the
Cabal ministry, Buckingham and Arlington. His principal aim was no doubt
the maintenance and increase of his own influence and party, but his
ambition corresponded with definite political views. A member of the old
cavalier party, a confidential friend and correspondent of the despotic
Lauderdale, he desired to strengthen the executive and the royal
authority. At the same time he was a keen partisan of the established
church, an enemy of both Roman Catholics and dissenters, and an opponent
of all toleration. In 1673 he opposed the Indulgence, supported the Test
Act, and spoke against the proposal for giving relief to the dissenters.
In June 1675 he signed the paper of advice drawn up by the bishops for
the king, urging the rigid enforcement of the laws against the Roman
Catholics, their complete banishment from the court, and the suppression
of conventicles,[2] and a bill introduced by him imposing special taxes
on recusants and subjecting Roman Catholic priests to imprisonment for
life was only thrown out as too lenient because it secured offenders
from the charge of treason. The same year he introduced a Test Oath by
which all holding office or seats in either House of Parliament were to
declare resistance to the royal power a crime, and promise to abstain
from all attempts to alter the government of either church or state; but
this extreme measure of retrograde toryism was successfully opposed by
wiser statesmen. The king himself as a Roman Catholic secretly opposed
and also doubted the wisdom and practicability of this "thorough" policy
of repression. Danby therefore ordered a return from every diocese of
the numbers of dissenters, both Romanist and Protestant, in order by a
proof of their insignificance to remove the royal scruples.[3] In
December 1676 he issued a proclamation for the suppression of
coffee-houses because of the "defamation of His Majesty's Government"
which took place in them, but this was soon withdrawn. In 1677, to
secure Protestantism in case of a Roman Catholic succession, he
introduced a bill by which ecclesiastical patronage and the care of the
royal children were entrusted to the bishops; but this measure, like the
other, was thrown out.
In foreign affairs Danby showed a stronger grasp of essentials. He
desired to increase English trade, credit and power abroad. He was a
determined enemy both to Roman influence and to French ascendancy. He
terminated the war with Holland in 1674, and from that time maintained a
friendly correspondence with William; while in 1677, after two years of
tedious negotiations, he overcame all obstacles, and in spite of James's
opposition, and without the knowledge of Louis XIV., effected the
marriage between William and Mary that was the germ of the Revolution
and the Act of Settlement. This national policy, however, could only be
pursued, and the minister could only maintain himself in power, by
acquiescence in the king's personal relations with the king of France
settled by the disgraceful Treaty of Dover in 1670, which included
Charles's acceptance of a pension, and bound him to a policy exactly
opposite to Danby's, one furthering French and Roman ascendancy. Though
not a number of the Cabal ministry, and in spite of his own denial,
Danby must, it would seem, have known of these relations after becoming
lord treasurer. In any case, in 1676, together with Lauderdale alone, he
consented to a treaty between Charles and Louis according to which the
foreign policy of both kings was to be conducted in union, and Charles
received an annual subsidy of £100,000. In 1678 Charles, taking
advantage of the growing hostility to France in the nation and
parliament, raised his price, and Danby by his directions demanded
through Ralph Montagu (afterwards duke of Montagu) six million livres a
year (£300,000) for three years. Simultaneously Danby guided through
parliament a bill for raising money for a war against France; a league
was concluded with Holland, and troops were actually sent there. That
Danby, in spite of these compromising transactions, remained in
intention faithful to the national interests, appears clearly from the
hostility with which he was still regarded by France. In 1676 he is
described by Ruvigny to Louis XIV. as intensely antagonistic to France
and French interests, and as doing his utmost to prevent the treaty of
that year.[4] In 1678, on the rupture of relations between Charles and
Louis, a splendid opportunity was afforded Louis of paying off old
scores by disclosing Danby's participation in the king's demands for
French gold.
Every circumstance now conspired to effect his fall. Although both
abroad and at home his policy had generally embodied the wishes of the
ascendant party in the state, Danby had never obtained the confidence of
the nation. His character inspired no respect, and he could not reckon
during the whole of his long career on the support of a single
individual. Charles is said to have told him when he made him treasurer
that he had only two friends in the world, himself and his own merit.[5]
He was described to Pepys on his acquiring office as "one of a broken
sort of people that have not much to lose and therefore will venture
all," and as "a beggar having £1100 or £1200 a year, but owes above
£10,000." His office brought him in £20,000 a year,[6] and he was known
to be making large profits by the sale of offices; he maintained his
power by corruption and by jealously excluding from office men of high
standing and ability. Burnet described him as "the most hated minister
that had ever been about the king." Worse men had been less detested,
but Danby had none of the amiable virtues which often counteract the
odium incurred by serious faults. Evelyn, who knew him intimately from
his youth, describes him as "a man of excellent natural parts but
nothing of generous or grateful." Shaftesbury, doubtless no friendly
witness, speaks of him as an inveterate liar, "proud, ambitious,
revengeful, false, prodigal and covetous to the highest degree,"[7] and
Burnet supports his unfavourable judgment to a great extent. His
corruption, his mean submission to a tyrant wife, his greed, his pale
face and lean person, which had succeeded to the handsome features and
comeliness of earlier days,[8] were the subject of ridicule, from the
witty sneers of Halifax to the coarse jests of the anonymous writers of
innumerable lampoons. By his championship of the national policy he had
raised up formidable foes abroad without securing a single friend or
supporter at home,[9] and his fidelity to the national interests was
now, through a very mean and ignoble act of personal spite, to be the
occasion of his downfall.
Danby in appointing a new secretary of state had preferred Sir W.
Temple, a strong adherent of the anti-French policy, to Montagu. The
latter, after a quarrel with the duchess of Cleveland, was dismissed
from the king's employment. He immediately went over to the opposition,
and in concert with Louis XIV. and Barillon, the French ambassador, by
whom he was supplied with a large sum of money, arranged a plan for
effecting Danby's ruin. He obtained a seat in parliament; and in spite
of Danby's endeavour to seize his papers by an order in council, on the
20th of December 1678 caused two of the incriminating letters written by
Danby to him to be read aloud to the House of Commons by the Speaker.
The House immediately resolved on Danby's impeachment. At the foot of
each of the letters appeared the king's postscripts, "I approve of this
letter. C.R.," in his own handwriting; but they were not read by the
Speaker, and were entirely neglected in the proceedings against the
minister, thus emphasizing the constitutional principle that obedience
to the orders of the sovereign can be no bar to an impeachment. He was
charged with having encroached to himself royal powers by treating
matters of peace and war without the knowledge of the council, with
having promoted the raising of a standing army on pretence of a war with
France, with having obstructed the assembling of parliament, with
corruption and embezzlement in the treasury. Danby, while communicating
the "Popish Plot" to the parliament, had from the first expressed his
disbelief in the so-called revelations of Titus Oates, and his
backwardness in the matter now furnished an additional charge of having
"traitorously concealed the plot." He was voted guilty by the Commons;
but while the Lords were disputing whether the accused peer should have
bail, and whether the charges amounted to more than a misdemeanour,
parliament was prorogued on the 30th of December and dissolved three
weeks later. In March 1679 a new parliament hostile to Danby was
returned, and he was forced to resign the treasurership; but he received
a pardon from the king under the Great Seal, and a warrant for a
marquessate.[10] His proposed advancement in rank was severely reflected
upon in the Lords, Halifax declaring it in the king's presence the
recompense of treason, "not to be borne"; and in the Commons his
retirement from office by no means appeased his antagonists. The
proceedings against him were revived, a committee of privileges deciding
on the 19th of March 1679 that the dissolution of parliament was no
abatement of an impeachment. A motion was passed for his committal by
the Lords, who, as in Clarendon's case, voted his banishment. This was,
however, rejected by the Commons, who now passed an act of attainder.
Danby had removed to the country, but returned on the 21st of April to
avoid the threatened passing by the Lords of the attainder, and was sent
to the Tower. In his written defence he now pleaded the king's pardon,
but on the 5th of May 1679 it was pronounced illegal by the Commons.
This declaration was again repeated by the Commons in 1689 on the
occasion of another attack made upon Danby in that year, and was finally
embodied in the Act of Settlement in 1701.
The Commons now demanded judgment against the prisoner from the Lords.
Further proceedings, however, were stopped by the dissolution of
parliament again in July; but for nearly five years Danby remained a
prisoner in the Tower. A number of pamphlets asserting the complicity of
the fallen minister in the Popish Plot, and even accusing him of the
murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, were published in 1679 and 1680;
they were answered by Danby's secretary, Edward Christian, in
_Reflections_; and in May 1681 Danby was actually indicted by the Grand
Jury of Middlesex for Godfrey's murder on the accusation of Edward
FitzHarris. His petition to the king for a trial by his peers on this
indictment was refused, and an attempt to prosecute the publishers of
the false evidence in the king's bench was unsuccessful. For some time
all appeals to the king, to parliament, and to the courts of justice
were unavailing; but on the 12th of February 1684 his application to
Chief Justice Jeffreys was at last successful, and he was set at liberty
on finding bail to the amount of £40,000, to appear in the House of
Lords in the following session. He visited the king at court the same
day; but took no part in public affairs for the rest of the reign.
After James's accession Danby was discharged from his bail by the Lords
on the 19th of May 1685, and the order declaring a dissolution of
parliament to be no abatement of an impeachment was reversed. He again
took his seat in the Lords as a leader of the moderate Tory party.
Though a strong Tory and supporter of the hereditary principle, James's
attacks on Protestantism soon drove him into opposition. He was visited
by Dykvelt, William of Orange's agent; and in June 1687 he wrote to
William assuring him of his support. On the 30th of June 1688 he was one
of the seven leaders of the Revolution who signed the invitation to
William. In November he occupied York in the prince's interest,
returning to London to meet William on the 26th of December. He appears
to have thought that William would not claim the crown,[11] and at first
supported the theory that the throne having been vacated by James's
flight the succession fell as of right to Mary; but as this met with
little support, and was rejected both by William and by Mary herself, he
voted against the regency and joined with Halifax and the Commons in
declaring the prince and princess joint sovereigns.
Danby had rendered extremely important services to William's cause. On
the 20th of April 1689 he was created marquess of Carmarthen and was
made lord-lieutenant of the three ridings of Yorkshire. He was, however,
still greatly disliked by the Whigs, and William, instead of reinstating
him in the lord treasurership, only appointed him president of the
council in February 1689. He did not conceal his vexation and
disappointment, which were increased by the appointment of Halifax to
the office of lord privy seal. The antagonism between the "black" and
the "white marquess" (the latter being the nickname given to Carmarthen
in allusion to his sickly appearance), which had been forgotten in their
common hatred to the French policy and to Rome, revived in all its
bitterness. He retired to the country and was seldom present at the
council. In June and July new motions were made in parliament for his
removal; but notwithstanding his great unpopularity, on the retirement
of Halifax in 1690 he again acquired the chief power in the state, which
he retained till 1695 by bribery in parliament and by the support of the
king and queen. In 1690, during William's absence in Ireland, he was
appointed Mary's chief adviser. In 1691, desiring to compromise Halifax,
he discredited himself by the patronage of an informer named Fuller,
soon proved an impostor. He was absent in 1692 when the Place Bill was
thrown out. In 1693 he presided in great state as lord high steward at
the trial of Lord Mohun; and on the 4th of May 1694 he was created duke
of Leeds.[12] The same year he supported the Triennial Bill, but opposed
the new treason bill as weakening the hands of the executive. Meanwhile
fresh attacks had been made upon him. He was accused unjustly of
Jacobitism. In April 1695 he was impeached once more by the Commons for
having received a bribe of 5000 guineas to procure the new charter for
the East India Company. In his defence, whilst denying that he had
received the money and appealing to his past services, he did not
attempt to conceal the fact that according to his experience bribery was
an acknowledged and universal custom in public business, and that he
himself had been instrumental in obtaining money for others. Meanwhile
his servant, who was said to have been the intermediary between the duke
and the Company in the transaction, fled the country; and no evidence
being obtainable to convict, the proceedings fell to the ground. In May
1695 he had been ordered to discontinue his attendance at the council.
He returned in October, but was not included among the lords justices
appointed regents during William's absence in this year. In November he
was created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford; in December he became a
commissioner of trade, and in December 1696 governor of the Royal
Fishery Company. He opposed the prosecution of Sir John Fenwick, but
supported the action taken by members of both Houses in defence of
William's rights in the same year. On the 23rd of April 1698 he
entertained the tsar, Peter the Great, at Wimbledon. He had for some
time lost the real direction of affairs, and in May 1699 he was
compelled to retire from office and from the lord-lieutenancy of
Yorkshire.
In Queen Anne's reign, in his old age, he is described as "a gentleman
of admirable natural parts, great knowledge and experience in the
affairs of his own country, but of no reputation with any party. He hath
not been regarded, although he took his place at the council board."[13]
The veteran statesman, however, by no means acquiesced in his enforced
retirement, and continued to take an active part in politics. As a
zealous churchman and Protestant he still possessed a following. In 1705
he supported a motion that the church was in danger, and in 1710 in
Sacheverell's case spoke in defence of hereditary right.[14] In November
of this year he obtained a renewal of his pension of £3500 a year from
the post office which he was holding in 1694,[15] and in 1711 at the
age of eighty was a competitor for the office of lord privy seal.[16]
His long and eventful career, however, terminated soon afterwards by his
death on the 26th of July 1712.
In 1710 the duke had published _Copies and Extracts of some letters
written to and from the Earl of Danby ... in the years 1676, 1677 and
1678_, in defence of his conduct, and this was accompanied by _Memoirs
relating to the Impeachment of Thomas, Earl of Danby_. The original
letters, however, of Danby to Montagu have now been published (by the
Historical MSS. Commission from the MSS. of J. Eliot Hodgkin), and are
seen to have been considerably garbled by Danby for the purposes of
publication, several passages being obliterated and others altered by
his own hand.
See the lives, by Sidney Lee in the _Dict. Nat. Biography_ (1895); by
T. P. Courtenay in _Lardner's Encyclopaedia_, "Eminent British
Statesmen," vol. v. (1850); in Lodge's _Portraits_, vii.; and _Lives
and Characters of ... Illustrious Persons_, by J. le Neve (1714).
Further material for his biography exists in _Add. MSS._, 26040-95 (56
vols., containing his papers); in the _Duke of Leeds MSS. at Hornby
Castle_, calendered in _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 11th Rep. pt. vii. pp. 1-43;
_MSS. of Earl of Lindsay and J. Eliot Hodgkin_; and _Calendars of
State Papers Dom_. See also _Add. MSS. 1894-1899_, Index and Calendar;
_Hist. MSS. Comm._ 11th Rep. pt. ii., _House of Lords MSS.; Gen. Cat.
British Museum_ for various pamphlets. (P. C. Y.)
_Later Dukes of Leeds._
The duke's only surviving son, Peregrine (1659-1729), who became 2nd
duke of Leeds on his father's death, had been a member of the House of
Lords as Baron Osborne since 1690, but he is better known as a naval
officer; in this service he attained the rank of a vice-admiral. He died
on the 25th of June 1729, when his son Peregrine Hyde (1691-1731) became
3rd duke. The 4th duke was the latter's son Thomas (1713-1789), who was
succeeded by his son Francis.
Francis Osborne, 5th duke of Leeds (1751-1799), was born on the 29th of
January 1751 and was educated at Westminster school and at Christ
Church, Oxford. He was a member of parliament in 1774 and 1775; in 1776
he became a peer as Baron Osborne, and in 1777 lord chamberlain of the
queen's household. In the House of Lords he was prominent as a
determined foe of the prime minister, Lord North, who, after he had
resigned his position as chamberlain, deprived him of the office of
lord-lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire in 1780. He regained
this, however, two years later. Early in 1783 the marquess of
Carmarthen, as he was called, was selected as ambassador to France, but
he did not take up this appointment, becoming instead secretary for
foreign affairs under William Pitt in December of the same year. As
secretary he was little more than a cipher, and he left office in April
1791. Subsequently he took some slight part in politics, and he died in
London on the 31st of January 1799. His _Political Memoranda_ were
edited by Oscar Browning for the Camden Society in 1884, and there are
eight volumes of his official correspondence in the British Museum. His
first wife was Amelia (1754-1784), daughter of Robert Darcy, 4th earl of
Holdernesse, who became Baroness Conyers in her own right in 1778. Their
elder son, George William Frederick (1775-1838), succeeded his father as
duke of Leeds and his mother as Baron Conyers. These titles were,
however, separated when his son, Francis Godolphin Darcy, the 7th Duke
(1798-1859), died without sons in May 1859. The barony passed to his
nephew, Sackville George Lane-Fox (1827-1888), falling into abeyance on
his death in August 1888, and the dukedom passed to his cousin, George
Godolphin Osborne (1802-1872), a son of Francis Godolphin Osborne
(1777-1850), who was created Baron Godolphin in 1832. In 1895 George's
grandson George Godolphin Osborne (b. 1862) became 10th duke of Leeds.
The name of Godolphin, which is borne by many of the Osbornes, was
introduced into the family through the marriage of the 4th duke with
Mary (d. 1764), daughter and co-heiress of Francis Godolphin, 2nd earl
of Godolphin, and grand-daughter of the great duke of Marlborough.