Research Results For 'Buckingham'

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Buckingham Palace is the London residence of the British royal family. It was built by John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, in 1703. In 1761 it was bought by George III who in 1775 settled it on his queen, Charlotte who made it her town residence.
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OXFORD'S ASSAULT

On the 10th of June, 1840, Edward Oxford a youth who had been a servant in a public house, discharged two pistols at queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as they were proceeding up Constitution-hill in an open phaeton from Buckingham palace. He stood within a few yards of the carriage, but no one was injured. Oxford was tried at the Old Bailey in July of the same year and was adjudged to be insane and sent first to Bethlehem hospital, next to Broadmoor, and released in 1868 on condition that he left the country.
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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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EDMUND BURKE

Edmund Burke was an Irish writer and statesman. He was born in 1729 at Dublin and died in 1797. After studying at Trinity College in Dublin, he moved to London and studied law at the Temple. He applied himself more to literature than to law, and in 1756 published his Essay on the Sublime and the Beautiful, which attracted considerable attention, and procured him the friendship of some of the most notable men of the time.

In 1761 he was appointed private secretary to W.G. Hamilton, secretary for Ireland. On his return he was rewarded with a pension of 300 pounds per annum, and obtained the appointment of private secretary to the Marquis of Buckingham, then First Lord of the Treasury, and in 1765 entered Parliament as member for Wendover. as a member of Parliament he advised badly on the question of taxing the American colonies. He was absent from Parliament from 1770, returning in 1774 as member for Bristol, advocating a policy of justice and conciliation towards the colonies. In 1782 he was appointed Paymaster-General of the Forces, shortly afterwards passing his bill for economic reform.

The chief feature in the latter part of Burke's life was his resolute struggle against the ideas and doctrines of the French revolution. His attitude on this question separated him from his old friend Fox, and the Liberals who followed Fox. His famous Reflections on the Revolution in France, a pamphlet which appeared in 1790, had an unprecedented sale, and gave enormous impetus to the reaction which had commenced in England. From this time most of his writings are powerful pleadings on the same side. We may mention An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs; Letter to a Noble Lord; Letters on a Regicide Peace; etc. In 1794 he withdrew from parliament. Three years after, on July the 8th, 1797, he died, his end being hastened by grief for the loss of his only son.
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GEORGE IV

George IV (George Frederick Augustus, nicknamed The First Gentleman of Europe) was King of Great Britain and Ireland. He was born in 1762 and died in 1830. George IV was 48 when he became Regent in 1811. He had secretly and illegally married a Roman Catholic, Mrs Fitzherbert. In 1795 he officially married Princess Caroline of Brunswick, but the marriage was a failure and he tried unsuccessfully to divorce her after his accession in 1820. Their only child Princess Charlotte died giving birth to a stillborn child. An outstanding, if extravagant, collector and builder, George IV acquired many important works of art, built the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, and transformed Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. George's fondness for pageantry helped to develop the ceremonial side of monarchy.

After his father's long illness, George resumed royal visits; he visited Hanover in 1821 which had not been visited by its ruler since the 1750s, and Ireland and Scotland over the next couple of years. Beset by debts, George was in a weak position in relation to his Cabinet of ministers. His concern for royal prerogative was sporadic; when the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool fell ill in 1827, George at one stage suggested that ministers should choose Liverpool's successor. In 1829, George IV was forced by his ministers, much against his will and his interpretation of his coronation oath, to agree to Catholic Emancipation. By reducing religious discrimination, this emancipation enabled the monarchy to play a more national role. George's profligacy and marriage difficulties meant that he never regained much popularity, and he spent his final years in seclusion at Windsor, dying at the age of 67.
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GEORGE VI

George VI was king of Great Britain and Ireland from 1936 until his death in 1952. George VI was a conscientious and dedicated man, who worked hard to adapt to the royal role into which he was suddenly thrown by the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. The King paid a State Visit to France in 1938, and to Canada and the United States in 1939, being the first British monarch to enter the USA. His dedication to duty, particularly during the Second World War, when he remained for most of the time at Buckingham Palace, and when he and his wife visited severely bombed areas in the East End of London and elsewhere in the country, gained him great popularity. The King developed a close working relationship with his wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, as most of Europe fell to Nazi Germany. Recognising the total nature of modern warfare, in 1940 the King instituted the George Cross and George Medal, to be awarded for acts of bravery by citizens.

Having served in the Navy during the Great War, including at the Battle of Jutland, the King was anxious to visit his troops whenever possible. He went to France in 1939 to inspect the British Expeditionary Force, and to North Africa in 1943 after the victory of El Alamein. In June 1944, the King visited his Army on the Normandy beaches ten days after D-Day, and later that year he visited troops in Italy and the Low Countries. In 1947, the King undertook a major tour of South Africa, accompanied by the Queen and their daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret - the first time a sovereign had undertaken a tour with his family. When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, George ceased to be Emperor of India. Changes in the Commonwealth meant that its tie was no longer based on common allegiance to the Crown, but upon recognition of the Sovereign as Head of the Commonwealth.
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GEORGE VILLIERS

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was an English courtier. He was born in 1592 and died in 1628 being stabbed to death by John Felton. He was the son of George Villiers, a knight. At eighteen he was sent to France, where he resided three years, and on his return made so great an impression on James I that in two years he was made a knight, a gentleman of the bed-chamber, baron, viscount. Marquis of Buckingham, lord high-admiral, etc, and at last dispenser of all the honours and offices of the three kingdoms.

In 1623, when the Earl of Bristol was negotiating a marriage for Prince Charles with the Infanta of Spain, the Marquis of Buckingham went with the prince incognito to Madrid to carry on the suit in person in the hope of securing the Palatinate as dowry. The result, however, was the breaking off of the marriage, and the declaration of war with Spain. During his absence the Marquis of Buckingham was created duke.

After the death of James I in 1625 he was sent to France as proxy for Charles I to marry the Princess Henrietta Maria. In 1626, after the failure of the Cadiz expedition, he was impeached, but saved by the favour of the king. Despite the difficulty in obtaining supplies the Duke of Buckingham took upon himself the conduct of a war with France, but his expedition in aid of the Rochellese proved an entire failure. In the meantime the spirit of revolt was becoming more formidable; the Petition of Right was carried despite the duke's exertions; and he was again protected from impeachment only by the king's prorogation of parliament. He then went to Portsmouth to lead another expedition to Rochelle, but was stabbed on August the 24th, 1628, by John Felton, an ex-lieutenant who had been disappointed of promotion.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham was an English soldier. He was born in 1627 at Westminster, London and died in 1688. The son of George Villiers he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and served in the royal army under Rupert and then went abroad. In 1648 he returned to England, was with Charles II in Scotland and at the battle of Worcester, and afterwards served as a volunteer in the French army in Flanders.

He then returned to England, and in 1657 married the daughter of Lord Fairfax. At the Restoration he became master of the horse and one of the king's confidential cabal from 1667 until 1673. In 1666 he engaged in a conspiracy, and in 1676 was committed to the Tower for a contempt by order of the House of Lords; but on each occasion he recovered the king's favour. On the death of Charles II he retired to his seat in Yorkshire. Among his literary compositions the comedy of the Rehearsal (1671) takes the first place.

George William Frederick Villiers, Earl of Clarendon was an English diplomat. He was the eldest son of the Honourable George Villiers and was through his mother indirectly related to the Hydes, the family of the great Earl of Clarendon. He was educated at Cambridge, entered the civil service at an early age, and in 1820 was attached to the embassy at St Petersburg. In 1823 he was appointed to a commissionership of the excise in Dublin. In 1831 he was sent to France to negotiate a commercial treaty, and in 1833, as minister plenipotentiary at Madrid, was instrumental in negotiating the Quadruple Alliance, signed in 1834.

Having succeeded to his uncle's title in 1838 he returned home in the following year, and in January 1840 was appointed lord privy-seal, and in October chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He supported the repeal of the corn-laws and the reduction of duties, and in 1846 was appointed president of the board of trade in Lord J. Russell's ministry, and in the following year Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He resigned with his party in 1852, when the Earl of Derby took office, but soon after the formation of the Aberdeen ministry he was appointed to the foreign secretaryship, which he held until January 1855. After a few weeks' interval he returned to the post under Lord Palmerston, and retained it until 1858, being one of the signatories of the Treaty of Paris.

In 1861 he was sent as ambassador-extraordinary to the coronation of the King of Prussia, and in 1864 was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In the following administration, under Russell, he resumed the direction of the foreign office. He was sent in 1868 on a special mission to the pope and the King of Italy, and again occupied the post of foreign secretary in the Gladstone ministry until his death, in June, 1870.
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JAMES BUCKINGHAM

James Silk Buckingham was an English traveller, writer, and lecturer. He was born in 1786 near Falmouth and died in 1855. After trying several professions, and wandering over a great part of the world, he came to London, where he established the Athenaeum, well known as a literary journal. He also published his journal of travel in Palestine (1822), in Arabia (1825), in Mesopotamia (1827), and in Assyria and Media (1830). In 1832 he was chosen member of parliament for Sheffield, and retained his seat until 1837. Subsequently he made a tour of three years in America. In 1843 he became secretary to the British and Foreign Institute. He also published volumes on his Continental tours and an autobiography.
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JAMES BUTLER

James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, was an English statesman. He was born in 1610 at London in 1610 and died in 1688. He was a steady adherent of the royal cause, on the ruin of which he retired to France. At the Restoration he returned with the king, was created a duke, and appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. After losing his office and the royal favour for some years, principally through the intrigues of Buckingham, he was again appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and retained the post until the death of Charles, when he resigned, his principles not suiting the policy of James.
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JOHN HAMPDEN

John Hampden was an English politician and Parliamentarian. He was born in 1594 at London and died in 1643 at the Battle of Thame during the Civil War. In 1609 he was entered a gentleman commoner at Magdalen College, Oxford. He began the study of law in the Inner Temple, but having inherited an ample fortune on his father's death he lived the usual life of a country gentleman. He became a member of parliament in 1621 and in 1626 helped to prepare the charges against the Duke of Buckingham. In 1627 he was imprisoned for refusing a loan to the King, Charles I and again in 1634 when he refused to pay the Ship-Money tax, supposedly for outfitting the King's navy. He was one of the five members of parliament whose attempted seizure by Charles I precipitated the Civil War. When war broke out, he raised a regiment of infantry for the Parliamentarians, and subsequently demonstrated great leadership and grasp of tactics at the Battle of Edgehill and the Battle Of Reading before being killed at the Battle of Thame.
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