Research Results For 'Alarm'

BEACON

A beacon is ignited, combustible materials placed in an iron cage, elevated upon a pole or other natural elevation, so as to be seen from a distance. Beacons were formerly used to guide travellers across unfrequented parts of the country, and to alarm the inhabitants on the occasion of an invasion or a rebellion. It was from the earlier beacons that street lighting first developed in London.
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GOWRIE CONSPIRACY

The Gowrie Conspiracy was one of the strangest episodes in Scottish history. It took place in August, 1600. King James VI. while hunting in Falkland Park, Fifeshire, was asked by Alexander Ruthven (brother of the Earl of Gowrie) to accompany him to Gowrie House, near Perth, on the pretext that they had caught a Jesuit with an urn of foreign golden pieces hid under his cloak. On arriving at Gowrie House an attempt was made on the life or liberty of the king, but an alarm being raised, both the Ruthvens were slain, and James VI escaped, though not without difficulty as the Gowries were very popular among the inhabitants of Perth.
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HUE AND CRY

In English law, a hue and cry is the pursuit of a felon or offender, with loud outcries or clamour to give an alarm. This procedure was formerly allowed to be taken by a person robbed, or otherwise injured, in order to pursue and get possession of the culprit's person, or by an officer of justice. At common law, a private person who has been robbed, or who knows that a felony is committed, was bound to raise hue and cry. This was generally done by informing the nearest constable; and this process was long recognized by the law of England as a means of arresting felons and breaking open doors without the warrant of a justice of the peace. The same name was also applied to an official paper circulated to announce the perpetration of. offences.
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OBERLIN-WELLINGTON CASE

The Oberlin-Wellington Case was an American criminal case which occurred in 1858. A negro named John Rice was captured near Wellington, Ohio, by Kentucky kidnappers. An Oberlin College student gave the alarm, and the kidnappers were pursued by a large crowd, who rescued the negro. For this infraction of the law thirty-seven citizens of Oberlin and Wellington were indicted. During the progress of the case the greatest excitement prevailed over the entire country, however no severe penalties were imposed upon the offenders.
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CHARLES II

Charles II was King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1660 to 1685. He was the sone of son of Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France. He was a refugee at the Hague on the death of his father, on which he immediately assumed the royal title. Oliver Cromwell was then all-powerful in England; but Charles II accepted an invitation from the Scots, who had proclaimed him their king in July, 1650, and, passing over to Scotland, he was crowned at Scone in 1651. Oliver Cromwell's approach made him take refuge amongst the English royalists, who, having gathered an army, encountered Oliver Cromwell at Worcester, and were totally defeated. With great difficulty Charles II escaped to France. On the death of Oliver Cromwell the Restoration effected without a struggle by General Monk set Charles on the throne after the declaration of Breda, his entry into the capital on the 29th of May, 1660 being made amidst universal acclamations.

Despite the bitterness left from the Civil Wars and Charles I's execution, there were few detailed negotiations over the conditions of Charles II's restoration to the throne. Under the Declaration of Breda of May 1660, Charles had promised pardons, arrears of Army pay, confirmation of land purchases during the Interregnum and 'liberty of tender consciences' in religious matters, but several issues remained unresolved. However, the Militia Act of 1661 vested control of the armed forces in the Crown, and Parliament agreed to an annual revenue of 1, 200,000 pounds. The bishops were restored to their seats in the House of Lords, and the Triennial Act of 1641 was repealed - there was no mechanism for enforcing the King's obligation to call Parliament at least once every three years.

Under the 1660 Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, only the lands of the Crown and the Church were automatically resumed; the lands of Royalists and other dissenters which had been confiscated and/or sold on were left for private negotiation or litigation.

In 1662 Charles II married the Infanta of Portugal, Catharine of Bra-ganza, a prudent and virtuous princess, but in no way calculated to acquire the affection of a man like Charles. For a time his measures, mainly counselled by the chancellor Lord Clarendon, were prudent and conciliatory. But the indolence, extravagance, and licentious habits of the king soon involved the nation as well as himself in difficulties. Dunkirk was sold to the French to relieve his pecuniary embarrassment, and war broke out with Holland. A Dutch fleet entered the Thames, and burned and destroyed ships as far up as Chatham. The early years of Charles's reign saw an appalling plague which hit the country in 1665 with 70,000 dying in London alone, and the Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed St Paul's amongst other buildings. Another misfortune included the second Dutch war of 1665 (born of English and Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry). Although the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was overrun and renamed New York before the war started, by 1666 France and Denmark had allied with the Dutch. The war was dogged by poor administration culminating in a Dutch attack on the Thames in 1667; a peace was negotiated later in the year.

In 1667, Charles dismissed his Lord Chancellor, Clarendon - an adviser from Charles's days of exile. As a scapegoat for the difficult religious settlement and the Dutch war, Clarendon had failed to build a 'Court interest' in the Commons. Clarendon was dismissed, and was succeeded by a series of ministerial combinations, the first of which was that of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and Lauderdale. Such combinations (except for Danby's dominance of Parliament from 1673 to 1679) were largely kept in balance by Charles for the rest of his reign. Charles's foreign policy was a wavering balance of alliances with France and the Dutch in turn.

A triple alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, for the purpose of checking the ambition of Louis XIV, followed; but the extravagance of the king made him willing to become a mere pensioner of Louis XIV, with whom he arranged a private treaty against Holland in 1670 - the secret treaty of Dover under which Charles would declare himself a Catholic and England would side with France against the Dutch, in return Charles would receive subsidies from the King of France (thus enabling Charles some limited room for manoeuvre with Parliament, but leaving the possibility of public disclosure of the treaty by Louis). Practical considerations prevented such a public conversion, but Charles issued a Declaration of Indulgence, using his prerogative powers to suspend the penal laws against Catholics and Nonconformists. In the face of an Anglican Parliament's opposition, Charles was eventually forced to withdraw the Declaration in 1673.

The Cabal ministry was by this time in power, and they were quite ready to break the triple alliance and bring about a rupture with the Dutch. As the king did not choose to apply to parliament for money to carry on the projected war he caused the exchequer to be shut up in January, 1672, and by several other disgraceful and arbitrary proceedings gave great disgust and alarm to the nation. The war ended in failure, and the Cabal ministry was dissolved in 1673.

In 1677 Charles married his niece Mary to William of Orange partly to restore the balance after his brother's second marriage to the Catholic Mary of Modena and to re-establish his own Protestant credentials. This assumed a greater importance as it became clear that Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza would produce no legitimate heirs (although Charles had a number of mistresses and illegitimate children) , and his Roman Catholic brother James's position as heir apparent raised the prospect of a Catholic king.

Throughout Charles's reign, religious toleration dominated the political scene. The 1662 Act of Uniformity had imposed the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and insisted that clergy subscribe to Anglican doctrine (some 1,000 clergy lost their livings). Anti-Catholicism was widespread; the Test Act of 1673 excluded Roman Catholics from both Houses of Parliament. Parliament's reaction to the Popish Plot of 1678 (an allegation by Titus Oates that Jesuit priests were conspiring to murder the King, and involving the Queen and the Lord Treasurer, Danby) was to impeach Danby and present a Bill to exclude James (Charles's younger brother and a Roman Catholic convert) from the succession.

In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, and the temper of the parliament was so much excited that the king dissolved it. A new parliament which assembled in 1680 had to be dissolved for a like reason, and yet another which met the year following at Oxford. Finally Charles, like his father, determined to govern without a parliament, and after the suppression of the Rye House plot and the execution of Russell and Sidney Charles became as absolute as any sovereign in Europe.

Charles sponsored the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 to promote scientific research. Charles also encouraged a rebuilding programme, particularly in the last years of his reign, which included extensive rebuilding at Windsor Castle, a huge but uncompleted new palace at Winchester and the Greenwich Observatory. Charles was a patron of Christopher Wren in the design and rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, Chelsea Hospital and other London buildings. Charles II died in 1685, becoming a Roman Catholic on his deathbed.
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GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA

Girolamo Savonarola was an Italian religious reformer. He was born in 1452 at Ferrara and died in 1498 when he was hanged for criticising Pope Alexander VI. Amid the degradation and corruption of his time, he was the representative of pure Christianity, and an enlightened precursor of the reformation. As a child his parents wanted him to become a physician, but, sickened by the depravities of the court of D'Estes he secretly left home and entered the monastery of St Dominic at Bologna. In 1481 he was sent to preach at Ferrara, but was recalled in the same year and then sent to Florence where he entered the monastery of St Mark. Realising corruption and a lack of morality, he preached widely, denouncing corruption with a mystical and apocalyptic air, spreading alarm on all sides, which eventually lead to his execution.
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JOSEPH ALLEIN

Joseph Allein was an English Nonconformist divine. He was born in 1633 and died in 1668. He was the author of a popular religious book entitled, 'An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners'.
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PIERRE BAYLE

Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and critic. He was born in 1647 at Carlat, Languedoc and died in 1706. He studied at Toulouse, and was employed for some time as a private tutor at Geneva and Rouen. He went to Paris in 1674, and soon after was appointed professor of philosophy at Sedan. Six years after he removed to Rotterdam, where he filled a similar chair.

The appearance of a comet, in 1680, which occasioned an almost universal alarm, induced him to publish, in 1682, his Pensees Diverses sur la Comete, a work full of learning, in which he discussed various subjects of metaphysics, morals, theology, history, and politics. It was followed by his Critique Generale de l'Histoire du Calvinisme de Maimbourg. This work excited the jealousy of his colleague, the theologian Jurieu, and involved Bayle in many disputes. In 1684 he undertook a periodical work, Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, containing notices of new books in theology, philosophy, history, and general literature. This publication, which lasted for three years, added much to his reputation as a philosophical critic.

In 1693 Jurieu succeeded in inducing the magistrates of Rotterdam to remove Bayle from his office. He now devoted all his attention to the composition of his Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, which he first published in 1696, in two volumess. This work, much enlarged, has passed through many editions. It is a vast storehouse of facts, discussions, and opinions, and though it was publicly censured by the Rotterdam consistory for its frequent impurities, its pervading scepticism, and tacit atheism, it long remained a favourite book both with literary men and with men of the world. The articles in his dictionary, in themselves, are generally of little value, and serve only as a pretext for the notes, in which the author displays, at the same time, his learning and the power of his logic. The best editions are that of 1740, in four volumes, and that in sixteen volumes published in 1820-1824 at Paris.
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ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

St John Chrysostom was a Greek missionary. He was born in 344 at Antioch and died in 407. Secundus, his father, who had the command of the imperial troops in Syria, died soon after the birth of his son, whose early education devolved upon Anthusa, his mother. Chrysostom Studied eloquence with Libanius, the most famou's orator of his time, and soon excelled his master.

After having studied philosophy with Andragathius he devoted himself to the Holy Scriptures, and determined upon quitting the world and consecrating his life to God in the deserts of Syria. He spent several years in solitary retirement, studying and meditating with a view to the church. Having completed his voluntary probation he returned to Antioch in 381, when he was appointed deacon by the Bishop of Antioch, and in 386 consecrated priest. He was chosen vicar by the same dignitary, and commissioned to preach the Word of God to the people.

He became so celebrated for the eloquence of his preaching that the Emperor Arcadius determined, in 397, to place him in the archiepiscopal see of Constantinople (Istanbul). He now exerted himself so zealously in supressing heresy, paganism, and immorality, and in enforcing the obligations of monachism, that he raised up many enemies, and Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, aided and encouraged by the Empress Eudoxia, caused him to be deposed at a synod held at Chalcedon. The emperor banished him from Constantinople, and Chrysostom purposed retiring to Bithynia; but the people threatened a revolt. In the following night an earthquake gave general alarm. In this dilemma Arcadius recalled his orders, and Eudoxia herself invited Chrysostom to return. The people accompanied him triumphantly to the city, his enemies fled, and peace was restored, but only for a short time.

A feast given by the empress on the consecration of a statue, and attended with many heathen ceremonies, roused the zeal of the archbishop, who publicly exclaimed against it; and Eudoxia, violently incensed, recalled the prelates devoted to her will, and Chrysostom was condemned and exiled to Armenia. Here he continued to exert his pious zeal until the emperor ordered him to be conveyed to a town on the most distant shore of the Black Sea. The officers who had him in charge obliged the old man to perform his journey on foot, and he died at Comana, by the way. Here he was buried; but in 438 his body was conveyed solemnly to Constantinople, and there interred in the Church of the Apostles, in the sepulchre of the emperor.

At a later period his remains were placed in the Vatican at Rome. The Greek Church celebrates his feast on the 13th of November, the Roman on the 27th of January. His .works, which consist of sermons, commentaries, and treatises, abound with information as to the manners and characteristics of his age.
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THOMAS ELLWOOD

Thomas Ellwood was an early writer among the Quakers. He was born in 1639 and died in 1713. About 1660 he was induced to join the Society of Friends, and soon after published An Alarm to the Priests. He was imprisoned on account of his religion, but subsequently became reader to Milton, and is said to have suggested to him the idea of writing the Paradise Regained. In 1705 and 1709 he published the two parts of his Sacred History. His works include a poetical life of King David, the Davideis.
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