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United Kingdom and Ireland: Sample biographies
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340–1400)
English poet. The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, reveals his knowledge of human nature and his stylistic variety, from the sophisticated and subtly humorous to the simple and bawdy. His early work shows formal French influence, as in the dream-poem The Book of the Duchess and his adaptation of the French allegorical poem on courtly love, The Romaunt of the Rose, in which the meaning is conveyed in symbols. More mature works reflect the influence of Italian realism, as in Troilus and Criseyde, a substantial narrative poem about the tragic betrayal of an idealized courtly love, adapted from the Italian writer Boccaccio. In The Canterbury Tales he shows his own genius for metre (rhythm) and characterization. Chaucer was the most influential English poet of the Middle Ages.
Chaucer was born in London, the son of a wine dealer. Taken prisoner in the French wars, he had to be ransomed by Edward III in 1360. In 1366 he married Philippa Roet, sister of Katherine Swynford, the mistress and later third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Payments during the period 1367–74 indicate a rising fortune and show that Chaucer made several journeys abroad, both on military service and public business. He was sent to Italy (where he may have met the writers Boccaccio and Petrarch), France, and Flanders. He was controller of wool customs (1374–86), and of petty customs (1382–86). He became justice of
the peace for Kent in 1385 and member of Parliament for Kent in 1386. In 1389 he was made clerk of the king's works, and superintended undertakings at Woolwich and Smithfield. In 1391 he gave up the clerkship and accepted the position of deputy forester of North Petherton, Somerset. Late in 1399 he moved to Westminster and died the following year; he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
The first of his poems that can be dated with certainty, The Book of the Duchess, was written as an elegy (lament for the dead) on the Duke of Lancaster's first wife, Blanche, who died in 1369. This was one of four allegorical dream-poems; he also wrote several love complaints, a group of moral and personal ballads, and another (unfinished) collection of tales, The Legend of Good Women. Many of his works cannot be dated exactly but the list of works in the first Prologue to The Legend of Good Women (1385–86) gives evidence of earlier writings, while topical references and dedications often help with dating in general. His dream-poem The Parliament of Fowls, in which birds debate a dispute of love, is usually dated 1382 from its connection with Richard II's marriage. The translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae by Roman philosopher Boethius, as well as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale probably all belong to the first half of the 1380s.
Though the Prologue and the general plan of The Canterbury Tales are thought to be later work, the tales themselves probably incorporated a good deal of earlier material. In the envoy to The Complaint to his Empty Purse, Chaucer implores Henry IV for increased payments, suggesting 1399 as the date. A Treatise on the Astrolabe (an introductory manual on the construction and use of the astronomical instrument) as well as the revised version of the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women belong to the 1390s. The Canterbury Tales were left unfinished at his death. Difficult to date are Anelida and Arcite and the unfinished dream-poem The House of Fame.
Though Chaucer's themes are rarely his own invention, there is a recurring and profound originality in his handling of them. Much of his poetry is concerned with varying concepts of love – human, divine, and philosophical – and in order to show their various aspects he sets them in a dramatic context beside marriage, tyranny, lust, ill fortune, faithlessness, and death. The
contrasting demands of human love and rationality is also a favourite theme, and Troilus and Criseyde may owe something of its timeless appeal to the conflict found in it between idealizing human love and the values of eternal life.
With similar versatility and through his use of critical and ironic undertones Chaucer also produces refreshing variations on an accepted literary style. The dream-allegory as well as the love narrative show new possibilities under his treatment, while the
technique in The Canterbury Tales of ascribing each of the stories to a character introduced in a prologue produces a many-layered interest. Chaucer's profound insight into character and situation and the final values that emerge are based firmly on a deeply Christian view of life. The Canterbury pilgrims have an animation and a solidarity that makes them immediately sympathetic to a modern reader, and the element of appraisal surrounding this colourful gathering adds greatly to the flavour with which each individual emerges: the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Knight, Madam Eglantine, and Chaucer himself. As in all his work, warmth and humour soften the portrayal of vice and wretchedness, and they are presented together with more wholesome joys and sorrows in a positive universal picture of humanity.
Drake, Francis (c. 1540–1596)
English buccaneer and explorer. After enriching himself as a pirate against Spanish interests in the Caribbean between 1567 and 1572, as well as in the slave trade, he was sponsored by Elizabeth I for an expedition to the Pacific, sailing round the world from 1577 to 1580 in the Golden Hind, robbing Spanish ships as he went. This was the second circumnavigation of the globe (the
first was by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan). Drake also helped to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 as a vice admiral in the Revenge.
Drake was born in Devon and apprenticed to the master of a coasting vessel, who left him the ship at his death. He accompanied his relative, the navigator John Hawkins, in 1567 and 1572 to plunder the Caribbean, and returned to England in 1573 with considerable booty. After serving in Ireland as a volunteer, he suggested to Queen Elizabeth I an expedition to the Pacific, and in December 1577 he sailed in the Pelican with four other ships and 166 men towards South America. In August 1578 the fleet passed through the Straits of Magellan and was then blown south to Cape Horn. The ships became separated and returned to England, all but the Pelican, now renamed the Golden Hind. Drake sailed north along the coast of Chile and Peru, robbing Spanish ships as far north as California, and then, in 1579, headed southwest across the Pacific. He rounded the South African Cape in June 1580, and reached England in September 1580. Thus the second voyage around the world, and the first made by an English person, was completed in a little under three years. When the Spanish ambassador demanded Drake's punishment, the Queen knighted him on the deck of the Golden Hind at Deptford, London. In 1581 Drake was made mayor of Plymouth, in which capacity he brought fresh water into the city by constructing leats from Dartmoor. In 1584–85 he represented the town of Bosinney in Parliament. In a raid on Cádiz in 1587 he burned 10,000 tons of shipping, 'singed the King of Spain's beard', and delayed the invasion of England by the Spanish Armada for a year. He was stationed off the French island of Ushant in 1588 to intercept the
Armada, but was driven back to England by unfavourable winds. During the fight in the Channel he served as a vice admiral on the Revenge. Drake sailed on his last expedition to the West Indies with Hawkins in 1595, capturing Nombre de Dios on the north coast of Panama but failing to seize Panamá. In January 1596 he died of dysentery off the town of Puerto Bello (now Portobello), Panama.
James I (1566–1625)
King of England from 1603 and Scotland (as James VI) from 1567. The son of Mary Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley, he succeeded to the Scottish throne on the enforced abdication of his mother and assumed power in 1583. He established a strong centralized authority, and in 1589 married Anne of Denmark (1574–1619).
As successor to Elizabeth I in England, he alienated the Puritans by his High Church views and Parliament by his assertion of divine right, and was generally unpopular because of his favourites, such as Buckingham, and his schemes for an alliance with Spain. He was succeeded by his son Charles I.
As king of Scotland, he curbed the power of the nobility, although his attempts to limit the authority of the Kirk (Church of Scotland) were less successful.
Upon his accession to the English throne on the death of Elizabeth I, James acted mainly upon the advice of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, but on the latter's death all restraint vanished.
His religious policy consisted of asserting the supreme authority of the crown and suppressing both Puritans and Catholics who objected. The preparation of the Authorized Version of the Bible in English, published in 1611, was ordered by James.
Led by Robert Catesby, a group of Catholic gentry planned to blow up James at the opening of Parliament in 1605, but the plot was discovered. The anti-Catholic reaction to the gunpowder plot gave James a temporary popularity, which soon dissipated. It was during his reign that the Puritan Pilgrims (or 'Pilgrim Fathers') sailed to the New World to escape persecution in England. His foreign policy, aimed primarily at achieving closer relations with Spain, was also disliked.
James's childhood and adolescence were unhappy, abnormal, and precarious; he had various guardians, whose treatment of him differed widely. His education, although thorough, was weighted with Presbyterian and Calvinist political doctrine, and his character – highly intelligent and sensitive, but also fundamentally shallow, vain, and exhibitionist – reacted violently to this.
His political philosophy turned to the theory of the divine right of kings, in striking contrast to the practical experiences of his childhood. He also sought solace with extravagant and unsavoury male favourites who, in later years, were to have a damaging
effect on his prestige and state affairs. His economic opportunism, with its disastrous effects on commerce, alienated city interests. Puritan influence and political awareness were increasing fast among the rural landowners, whose influence James never appreciated. His willingness to compromise politically, even while continuing to talk in terms of absolutism, largely accounts for the superficial stability of his reign. However, the effects of many of his actions were long term, becoming fully obvious only after his death. The marriage of James's daughter Elizabeth to Frederic V, Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia, was to result in the eventual Hanoverian succession to the British throne.
Pankhurst, Emmeline (1858–1928)
born Emmeline Goulden
English suffragette. Founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, she launched the militant suffragette
campaign in 1905. In 1926 she joined the Conservative Party and was a prospective Parliamentary candidate for Whitechapel.
Mrs Pankhurst was born in Manchester, the daughter of Robert Goulden, an early advocate of women's suffrage. In 1879 she married Richard Marsden Pankhurst (died 1898), a lawyer, and they served together on the committee that promoted the Married Women's Property Act. From 1906, as a militant, she was frequently arrested and in 1913 was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in connection with the blowing up of Lloyd George's house at Walton.
She was supported by her daughters Christabel Pankhurst (1880–1958), political leader of the movement, and Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960). The latter was imprisoned nine times under the 'Cat and Mouse Act', and was a pacifist in World War I.
When World War I broke out she called off the suffrage campaign and went recruiting in the USA. She died only a month before Stanley Baldwin's Representation of the People Act gave women full equality in the franchise. Her autobiography The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst was published in 1935.
Parnell, Charles Stewart (1846–1891)
Irish nationalist politician. He supported a policy of obstruction and violence to attain home rule, and became the president of the Nationalist Party in 1877. In 1879 he approved the Land League, and his attitude led to his imprisonment in 1881. His career was ruined in 1890 when he was cited as co-respondent in a divorce case. Because of his great influence over his followers, he was called 'the uncrowned king of Ireland'.
Parnell, born in Avondale, County Wicklow, was elected member of Parliament for Meath in 1875. He welcomed Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, and continued his agitation after its defeat in 1886. In 1887 his reputation suffered from an unfounded accusation by The Times of complicity in the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Three years later came the adultery scandal, and for fear of losing the support of Gladstone, Parnell's party deposed him. He died suddenly of
rheumatic fever at the age of 45.
As a member of the Irish Home Rule party led in the House of Commons by Isaac Butt, Parnell was instrumental in disrupting the business of the House and in securing the support of the Fenians. In the autumn of 1881 he was imprisoned in Kilmainham jail for
incitement to violence, but was released in the following May, when an arrangement concerning Irish affairs, called the 'Kilmainham Treaty', was arrived at with Gladstone. However, the Phoenix Park murders upset all plans (Parnell not only had no connection with the crime, but even denounced it in the House of Commons). Subsequently, the documents purporting to prove his complicity were shown to be forgeries, and Parnell was completely vindicated by the report of the special commission.
Peel, Robert (1788–1850)
British Conservative politician. As home secretary 1822–27 and 1828–30, he founded the modern police force and in 1829 introduced Roman Catholic emancipation. He was prime minister 1834–35 and 1841–46, when his repeal of the Corn Laws caused him and his followers to break with the party. He became 2nd baronet in 1830.
Peel, born in Lancashire, entered Parliament as a Tory in 1809. After the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, which he had
resisted, he reformed the Tories under the name of the Conservative Party, on a basis of accepting necessary changes and seeking middle-class support. He fell from prime ministerial office because his repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was opposed by the majority of his party. He and his followers then formed a third party standing between the Liberals and Conservatives; the majority of the Peelites, including Gladstone, subsequently joined the Liberals.
Richard (I) the Lion-Heart (1157–1199)
French Coeur-de-Lion
King of England 1189–99. He spent all but six months of his reign abroad. He was the third son of Henry II, against whom he twice rebelled. In the Third Crusade 1191–92 he won victories at Cyprus, Acre, and Arsuf (against Saladin), but failed to recover Jerusalem. While returning overland he was captured by the Duke of Austria, who handed him over to the emperor Henry VI, and he was held prisoner until a large ransom was raised. He then returned briefly to England, where his brother John had been ruling in his stead. His later years were spent in warfare in France, where he was killed by a crossbow bolt while besieging Châlus-Chabrol in 1199. He left no heir.
Richard's experience in warfare came from controlling his rebellious vassals in Poitou in the 1170s and against his father, Henry II, in 1183. He took up Henry's plans to recover Jerusalem on his accession in 1189 and set out to establish bases for crusades in Sicily in 1190 and Cyprus, which he took in 1191. Engaging in the Siege of Acre, which he brought to a swift conclusion, he set off down the coast to Jaffa, conducting a fighting march against Saladin. Once ransomed from the Germans, Richard recovered lands in France taken by Philip. In the Vexin, where he built Chateau Gaillard, the great castle on the Seine, and in the Touraine and Poitou, he thwarted the French king's every manoeuvre.
Himself a poet, he became a hero of legends after his death. He was succeeded by his brother John I.
Accusations of homosexuality are modern.
Wilson, (James) Harold (1916–1995)
Baron Wilson of Rievaulx
British Labour politician, party leader from 1963, prime minister 1964–70 and 1974–76. His premiership was dominated by the issue of UK admission to membership of the European Community (now the European Union), the social contract (unofficial agreement with the trade unions), and economic difficulties.
Wilson, born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, studied at Jesus College, Oxford, where he gained a first-class degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. During World War II he worked as a civil servant, and in 1945 stood for Parliament and won the marginal seat of Ormskirk. Assigned by Prime Minister Clement Attlee to a junior post in the ministry of works, he progressed to become president of the Board of Trade 1947–51 (when he resigned because of social-service cuts). In 1963 he succeeded Hugh Gaitskell as Labour leader and became prime minister the following year, increasing his majority in 1966. He formed a minority government in February 1974 and achieved a majority of three in October 1974. He resigned in 1976 and was succeeded by James Callaghan. He was knighted in 1976 and made a peer in 1983.
In terms of electoral success Wilson was an outstanding party leader, winning four of the five general elections he fought and causing Labour to be described as the 'natural party of government'. In preventing division between the left and the right of his party, he was frequently obliged to trim his policies to secure the support of the opposing wings. His attempts to rejuvenate British industry and enterprise were not always successful; perhaps his greatest achievement was setting up the Open University.
Following the Labour victory in the 1964 general election, Wilson announced his intention to revitalize British industry and created the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in order to thwart what he saw as the negative influence of the Treasury. The attempt predictably failed and the DEA was subsequently abandoned.
In 1966, despite opposition from within his own party as well as outside, he decided to reapply for British membership of the European Community (EC). With his deputy George Brown, he toured the European capitals, canvassing support. Their efforts were to no avail; the application was vetoed by the French president Charles de Gaulle.
Wilson turned his attention to industrial relations and awaited the report of the Donovan Royal Commission on Trade Unions and
Employers' Associations, which he had set up in 1965. When it reported in 1968, an attempt to implement its recommendations, through the White Paper 'In Place of Strife', was blocked by opposition from trade unions and from within the cabinet.
The two years before Wilson's unexpected resignation were primarily occupied with the problems of reconciling EC membership (achieved by Edward Heath's government 1970–74) with calls within the Labour Party for withdrawal, and the revival of the economy without uncontrollable inflation. He solved the first through a referendum, which endorsed EC membership, and tackled the second by means of an incomes policy.
He retired in 1976, leaving his successor, James Callaghan, to finish what he had started. Despite rumours of undercover plots to remove him, Wilson steadfastly claimed that it had long been his intention to retire from public life after his 60th birthday. There was speculation that he had detected early signs of a diminution in his powers of memory, which persuaded him to leave before they deteriorated further.
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