may be regarded as its improved copies. He also published a translation of three comedies of Plautus, and took a share in a translation of Terence; but he obtained little credit for either of these performances, which were censured for the coarseness and vulgarity of their style. In his proper profession he compiled a volume of "Maxims and Discourses moral and divine," taken from the works of archbishop Tillotson, and methodised and connected, 8vo. 1719. Mr. Echard was appointed to the archdeaconry of Stow in 1712. Towards the latter part of life he was presented by the king to the livings of Rendlesham, Sudborn, and Alford, in Suffolk, to which county he removed. Falling into a bad state of health, he was proceeding to Scarborough for the benefit of the waters, when he died in his carriage, in 1730. Biog. Britan. -A. ECHIUS, or ECKIUS, JOHN, a celebrated German catholic divine and controversialist, was born at a village in Suabia, in the year 1486. Having embraced the ecclesiastical life, he became doctor and professor of theology in the university of Ingolstadt. He made himself famous by his controversial writings against the reformation, and the leading part which he took in the public disputes with Luther, Carlostadt, and Melancthon. He began his contests with Luther, on the subject of that reformer's propositions against indulgences, about the year 1518. And the protestant world is not a little indebted to the ardour of his indiscreet zeal for rekindling the fire of religious controversy in Germany, when it had become in a considerable degree extinguished. For by the dextrous negociations of Charles Miltitz with Luther, the latter was brought to make such submissions to the papal see, that, if true policy had governed it, and repressed the excessive forwardness of its champions, would, for a time at least, have prevented the rupture which has proved so humbling to the grandeur and power of the Roman pontiffs. In these circumstances Echius took a step, which in its consequences rendered ineffectual the embassy of Miltitz, by provoking anew those investigations that were so fatal to the principle of blind submission insisted on by the court of Rome. For he challenged Carlostadt, the friend of Luther, to public disputations on the subject of the freedom of the human will; and dared Luther himself to enter the lists with him, while he defended the authority and supremacy of the Roman pontiff. These disputations were carried on at Leipsic, in the year 1519, before a numerous and splendid audience, and were conducted with great skill by all parties, but in the issue proved most unfavourable to the side which Echius embraced. Although no formal decision was pronounced by Hoffman, rector of the university of Leipsic, who was appointed judge of the arguments on both sides, yet the majority of auditors were satisfied that the victory was obtained, not by the challenger, but his opponents; who were encouraged to pursue the blow which they had given to the credit and authority of the pope. From this moment Echius breathed nothing but vengeance against Luther; but in vain attempted to stop the progress of his doctrines in Germany. In the year 1530 Echius was employed, with John Faber, and another doctor named Cochloeus, to draw up a confutation of the famous confession of Augsburg; which, by the command of the emperor Charles V., was laid before the diet assembled at that city, and the unlimited submission of the Protestants required to the doctrines and opinions contained in it. This confutation was answered by the pen of Melancthon, in a piece entitled "The Defence of the Confession of Augsburg." During the remainder of his life Echius was one of the principal parties in all the public disputes which the Catholics had with the Protestants; and was at the same time indefatigable in combating their opinions through the medium of the press. He was justly considered as one of the most learned and able defenders of the pretensions and opinions of the church of Rome, and has had exalted encomiums passed on his services by the writers of that communion. He died at Ingolstadt, in 1543, when he was fifty-seven years of age. He was the author of two treatises "On the Sacrifice of the Mass;" "A Commentary on the Prophet Haggai," 8vo. 1638; "Homilies," in four volumes 8vo. ; and numerous controversial pieces against the Protestants. Dupin. Mosh. Hist. Eccl. Sec. XVI. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M. ECLUSE, CHARLES DE L' (Latin, Clusius), a celebrated physician and botanist, was born at Arras in 1526. He studied at Ghent and Louvain, and afterwards visited several universities in Germany, and spent three years in that of Montpellier, where he took the degree of doctor. He resided in the Low-countries from 1550 to 1563, and then entered upon a course of travel through various parts of Europe, in which he acquired a very extensive knowledge of plants. After his return he was made superintendant of the imperial botanic garden by Maximilian II. and afterwards by Rodolph II. At length, being wearied of a court life, he retired for some years to Frankfort-on-the-Mein, which, in 1593, he quitted to take the botanical chair at his brother Edwy, Edgar, then about thirteen Leyden. He died there in 1609, in his eighty- years of age, was placed by the insurgents at fourth year. He was a man of candour, and their head; and Edwy dying soon after, he sucpossessed many friends in various parts, by ceeded peaceably to the throne in 959. He whose assistance he was enriched with plants was necessarily thrown into the party of Duacollected from every quarter of the world. This stan and the monks, who had been the prinenabled him to make great additions to the bo- cipal instruments of his elevation; and they tanical catalogue, though he was unacquainted obtained extraordinary advantages in his reign, with the true principles of arrangement. His particularly that of governing all the monasteries, principal works are: "Rariorum aliquot Stir in consequence of dispossessing the secular pium per Hispanias Observat. Historia, l. ii." canons under pretence of the dissoluteness of 1576, 8vo.: most of the species here described their manners. Edgar, however, though poliare new, and beautifully delineated with his tically subservient to the monks in religious own hand." Rariorum aliquot Stirpium per concerns, managed the civil and military affairs Pannoniam, Austriam, &c. Observ. Hist. l. iv." of his kingdom with great vigour and success. 1583, 8vo. a very valuable work, containing He maintained a body of disciplined troops in many Alpine and other curious plants, with the north to control the mutinous Northumfigures. He reprinted the two above-mentioned brians, and repel the incursions of the Scots. works in 1601, folio, with additions; and also He fitted out a powerful navy, which he sta gave an appendix, and a commentary on fungi, tioned in three squadrons on the coast, and in which a number of species of that order are exercised from time to time in circuits round described and figured. "Exoticorum, libri. x." his dominions. By such an appearance of 1605, contain the plants of Garcias ab Orta, defence he deterred the Danes from any atC. a Costa, Monardus, and Bellonius, with the tempts at invasion, and he secured the submisnotes and figures of Clusius: he has added six sion of the little independent princes of Wales, new books of exotics: with this was published Ireland, and the surrounding islands. Chroni another "Appendix plantarum variorum." clers relate that he was once rowed in a barge After his death were published his "Cure upon the Dee at Chester by eight tributary kings. posteriores," 1611, folio, containing principally Among these is reckoned Kenneth III. king of garden plants. He edited several pieces on Scotland; but the historians of that country botanical subjects, written by his friends. either deny the fact, or assert that Kenneth Clusius was a great linguist, and also a skilful could only have done homage for his English cosmographer, and drew several maps with his territories. One of the circumstances which own hand. Moreri. Haller Bibl. Botan.-A. have rendered his reign remarkable is, the supEDELINCK, GERARD, a celebrated engrav- posed extirpation of wolves from the southern er, was born at Antwerp in 1641. He ac- portion of this island. By commuting the puquired the principles of his 'art in that city, nishment of certain crimes in England for a fine and came to exercise it at Paris, whither the of wolves' tongues, and by exchanging a tribute munificence of Lewis XIV. attracted men of of money from Wales for a payment of the talents in every walk. His merít caused him heads of those animals, he certainly very much there to be employed upon works of the first diminished their number; yet it appears that order. He was chosen to engrave the Holy they still infested the country some centuries Family of Raphael, and Alexander visiting the afterwards. (Pennant's Zoolog.) Edgar, though Family of Darius by Le Brun, in both which by his submission to monkish authority, and his pieces he acquired the admiration of connois- efforts in the reformation of the secular clergy, seurs, by the clearness, brilliancy, and harmony he has obtained a character from contemporary of his graver. His print of Le Brun's famous writers of great piety and sanctity, was a man Magdalen was also a master-piece; and his of very licentious morals, especially with regard heads of a number of the most illustrious per- to the female sex. He is related to have carried sons of the age are in the highest esteem. He off by force a nun from a convent, and to have had apartments in the Gobelins, with the title ravished her. One of his mistresses, called of engraver to the king, and counsellor of the Elfleda, was a handmaid, who was fraudulently Academy of Painting. He died in 1707. Ma substituted for the daughter of a nobleman, reri.-A. with whom, on a visit at her father's house, he insisted upon passing the night. One of his amours has afforded an interesting subject for tragedy. Elfrida, daughter of Olgar earl of EDGAR, one of the most distinguished of the Saxon kings of England, was the son of king Edmund. On the rebellion raised against Devonshire, was a celebrated beauty. Edgar, who had never seen her, inflamed with her praises, sent his favourite, earl Athelwold, to make an apparently casual visit, in order to discover whether her charms were such as common fame had represented them. Athelwold found them so powerful, that he was himself completely captivated by them; and to divert the king's curiosity, he made such a report as satisfied the king that her beauty had been exaggerated. He afterwards, with his master's permission, courted her himself as a rich heiress, and obtained her for a wife. Edgar, who was at length informed of the artifice, paid him a visit at his castle, and desired to be introduced to his bride. The request could not be refused; and Elfrida prepared for the interview by decorating her person in the most striking manner. Edgar was thrown into a transport of love and rage. He drew Athelwold to a retired place in a wood on pretence of hunting, and stabbed him with his own hand; and soon after publicly married the willing widow. This prince, after a reign of sixteen years, died in 975, and was succeeded by his son Edward, called the Martyr. Hume's Hist. Engl.-A. EDMER, or EADMER, a learned English benedictine monk, of the congregation of Cluni, in a house belonging to the order at Canterbury, flourished in the latter end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century. He was made abbot of the monastery of St. Alban's, and afterwards raised to the see of St. Andrew's in Scotland. He was the author of numerous productions, one of which was " A Treatise on the Liberty of the Church," intended to vindisate Anselm archbishop of Canterbury, in his contests with king William Rufus, which have been noticed by us in our biography of that prelate. He also wrote several other works, which the learned of modern times have thought worthy to be rescued from oblivion. Among these is his "Historia Novorum," or history of his own times, from the year 1066 to the year 1122, which the celebrated Selden published with notes, in folio, 1623, and which lord Lyttelton, in his life of Henry II. pronounces to be not inelegantly written. In the second volume of Wharton's Anglia Sacra are also preserved, by the same author, "The Life of St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury;" "The Life of St. Oswald, Archbishop of York;" "The Life of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, with a Letter to the Monks of Glastonbury;" ," "The Life of the blessed Bregwin, Archbishop of Canterbury ;""An Epistle to the Monks of Worcester, concerning the Election of a Bishop ;" and "The Life of St, Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury." For the titles of his other pieces, which are still preserved in the collections of catholic writers, we must refer to Moreri.-M. EDMUND I. king of England, son of Edward the Elder, succeeded at an early age his brother Athelstan, in 941. He suppressed a rebellion of the Northumbrians, and conquered Cumberland, which he bestowed upon Malcolm king of Scotland, on the condition of homage. He was a spirited prince, and seemed likely to govern with prudence and vigour, when he lost his life in a sudden quarrel. Holding a festival at Gloucester, he perceived that one Leolf, a notorious robber whom he had sentenced to banishment, entered the hall, and seated himself with the guests. Enraged at this insolence, the king ordered him to quit the room; and on his hesitating to obey, he leaped up and seized Leolf by the hair. The desperate ruffian thereupon drew his dagger, and gave Edmund a wound, of which he immediately expired, in the sixth year of his reign. Hume's Hist. Engl.—A. EDMUND II. surnamed Ironside, king of England, was eldest son of Ethelred II. In the bloody contests between his father and the Danish kings Sweyn and Canute, he displayed great valour, and supported the cause of English liberty with perseverance and activity, though under many disadvantages. On the death of Ethelred in 1016, Edmund succeeded to a crown, for which he was obliged immediately to fight in the field. After an indecisive engagement against Canute at Scoerston in Gloucestershire, he was entirely defeated with great slaughter at Assingdon in Essex, in consequence of the defection of Edric duke of Mercia. He, however, assembled a new army at Gloucester, with which he was prepared again to try his fortune, when the English and Danish nobility, fatigued with the destructive warfare, obliged the two rivals to make a compromise, by which the northern and midland parts of the kingdom were ceded to Canute, while the southern provinces were left to Edmund. He survived this treaty but a short time, being murdered at Oxford in 1017 by two of his chamberlains, who were instigated by the traitor Edric. His death left Canute sole master of the kingdom; but the line of Edmund again ascended the throne by the marriage of his great-grand-daughter Matilda to Henry I. Hume's Hist. Engl-A. EDRED, king of England, son of Edward the Elder, succeeded to the throne on the murder of his brother Edmund I. in 946 or 947. His reign was disturbed by two rebellions of the Northumbrian Danes, which he quelled, and the renewal of which he endeavoured to prevent by placing English garrisons in their principal towns, and subjecting them to an English governor. He also compelled Malcolm king of Scotland to renew his homage for his English possessions. Though sufficiently active and warlike, Edred was inclined to the weakest superstition; and he put his conscience, and at length the management of his civil affairs, into the hands of Dunstan abbot of Glastonbury, a haughty and ambitious priest, who acted a principal part in this and the two succeeding reigns. Through his influence a set of foreign monks of the benedictine order were introduced, who affected an extraordinary purity of doctrine and austerity of manners, and proved formidable rivals to the secular clergy of the kingdom. Edred died, after a reign of nine years, in 955, and left the crown to his nephew Edwy.Hume's Hist. Engl.-A. EDWARD, surnamed the Elder, king of England, son of Alfred the Great, succeeded him in 901. His reign was soon disquieted by an insurrection raised by Ethelwald, the son of his father's elder brother, who claimed a preferable right to the crown. After being obliged to take refuge in Normandy, this competitor landed in Northumberland, and there excited the Danes, settled in that province, to rebellion. They were joined by the East-Anglian and Mercian Danes, and made a destructive inroad as far south as Wiltshire. Edward revenged this by an expedition into East Anglia, which, after the death of Ethelwald in battle, he reduced to submission. He afterwards repelled a a second incursion of the Northumbrians, and gave them a complete defeat at Tetenhall in Staffordshire. He had many more conflicts, as well with the anglicised as the foreign Danes, in which he was finally successful. He fortified many of the inland towns of England, acquired the dominion over Northumbria and East Anglia, subdued several tribes of Britons, and by his activity proved himself, at least in warlike transactions, the worthy son of his glorious father. On the death of his sister Ethelfleda, he assumed the government of Mercia, which before had been in a great measure independent of the crown. He died in 925. Hume's Hist. Engl.-A. EDWARD, surnamed the Martyr, king of England, son of Edgar, succeeded his father at the age of fifteen, in 975. His succession was opposed by his step-mother, Elfrida, who wished to raise her own son Ethelred to the throne; but the firmness of Dunstan in supporting his cause prevailed, and he was peaceably crowned. The incidents of his short reign were chiefly disputes between Dunstan and his foreign monks on the one side, and the secular clergy on the other. The young king himself, who possessed an amiable simplicity of character, chiefly attended to the amusement of the chace, which gave occasion to his unhappy death. Being one day hunting in Dorsetshire, he was separated in the heat of the diversion from his attendants, and rode to Corfe-castle, where Elfrida resided. After paying his respects to her (for he retained no resentment of the part she had taken against him), he desired, while on horseback, that a cup of liquor might be brought him. As he was drinking, a servant of Elfrida gave him a deep stab behind. He set spurs to his horse; but becoming faint through loss of blood, he fell, and was dragged in the stirrup till he died. His body was tracked by his servants, and privately buried at Wareham. The pity excited by his innocence and tragical fate caused him to be regarded by the people as a martyr, and miracles were said to be wrought at his tomb. His reign had continued four years. Hume's Hist. Engl.-A. EDWARD, surnamed the Confessor, youngerson of Ethelred the Second, at the death of his maternal brother Hardicanute the Dane, was called to the English throne in 1041, and thus renewed the Saxon line of kings. He was not, indeed, the true heir of this race, since his elder brother Edmund Ironside had left sons; but as these were absent in Hungary, the impatience of the English' to free themselves from the Danish yoke, 'caused them to unite in favour of Edward; and the Danes in the island were obliged to acquiesce in the choice. The powerful earl Godwin concurred in acknowledging him, on the condition that their former animosity should be forgotten, and the king should marry his daughter Editha. Edward displayed. a mildness and equity which conciliated the minds of his subjects of the different races; though his treatment of his mother, whom he stript of her treasures, and confined to a monastery, incurred some censure. He was religious; but the circumstance which is said chiefly to have acquired for him from the monkish historians the titles of saint and confessor, betrays the weakness of superstition; this was, his abstaining from nuptial commerce with his queen-a blameable continence, which left the kingdom to be contended for after his death. Having been educated in Normandy, he introduced many of the natives of that country to his court, and the French language and manners became prevalent in England. The favour shewn to those strangers excited the jealousy of earl Godwin and his sons, who promoted discontents among the people. Dissensions arose which put on an alarming appearance. Godwin, after raising a rebellion, was obliged to take refuge in Flanders. He afterwards returned with a powerful fleet, and appeared in such strength at London, that the king was glad to enter into a compromise with him, and banish his foreign favourites. Godwin soon after died, but his son Harold succeeded to the greatest part of his power. In 1055 Edward had the honour, by means of Seward duke of Northumberland, of restoring to the throne of Scotland Malcolm, the son of Duncan, by the defeat and death of the usurper Macbeth. As he grew into years, the appointment of a successor to the crown engaged his cares. He had sent over to Hungary for the true heir, his nephew Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, who arrived in England with his family, and soon after died. The right remained in his son Edgar Atheling, but the youth and weakness of that prince rendered him little able to contend with the ambitious designs of Harold, who was plainly making preparations to secure the succession to himself. Edward, who was averse to the whole family of earl Godwin, turned his eyes towards his kinsman, William duke of Normandy, and took measures to make him his successor. It is even asserted that he executed a will in the duke's favour; but as this was never publicly produced, the fact may be doubted. In reality he had too little resolution, and was too much under the power of Harold, to act with decision, and he died while this great point was still undetermined. This event happened in 1066, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, and sixty-fifth of his age. With him ended the Saxon line on the English throne. His character appearsto have been feeble; but his memory is revered, not only for his piety, but for his care in the administration of justice, and particularly his compiling of a body of laws taken from those of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred, to which the nation was long fondly attached. He was the first English monarch who practised the royal superstition or imposture of touching for the king's-evil. Hume's Hist. Engl.-A. EDWARD I. (of the Norman line), king of England, eldest son of Henry III. was born at Winchester in 1239. The contests between his father and the discontented barons of his kingdom early called him forth to active life, and his military and political talents proved the chief support of the tottering throne. At the battle of Lewes he routed the Londoners who were opposed to him; but pursuing them with too much ardour, on his return to the field he found the royal army defeated, and the king made captive. He himself fell into the power of the earl of Leicester. He obtained his release some time after; and collecting an army, gave a decisive defeat to Leicester at the battle of Evesham in 1265, and entirely quelled all further resistance to the royal authority. In 1270 he was led by the persuasions of Lewis IX. of France, to make an expedition against the Saracens. On his arrival at Tunis he found the French king dead; but he himself proceeded with his forces to the Holy-land, where he signalised his valour in several actions. Such was the terror he excited, that an assassin was employed to murder him, who gave him a wound in the arm. This, as story relates, upon suspicion of its being poisoned, was sucked by his faithful spouse, Eleanor of Castile. The prince had reached Sicily on his return, when he received advice of the death of his father in 1272, and of his own unopposed succession to the crown. His first cares, after assuming the reins of government, were to restore order and justice throughout the kingdom, and to repress the violences of the great, and punish the corruption of the judges. He prosecuted these objects with vigour, but with somewhat of an arbitrary spirit; and it seemed no small part of his purpose to fill his coffers with the fines of culprits. His conduct towards the Jews was still more reprehensible. After executing a great number of them for alleged adulteration of the coin, he expelled all the remainder of this devoted people, and confiscated their effects. In his eagerness to improve the royal revenues, he issued a commission to examine into all encroachments, escheats, &c. and began to enquire into the titles by which the nobility held their lands. By this," replied earl Warenne, putting his hand to his sword; and adding, that William the Bastard did not conquer the kingdom for himself alone. The king found it prudent to desist from further enquiries of this nature. In 1276 Edward summoned Lewellyn, native prince of Wales, to do him homage; and upon his refusal, except upon certain conditions, he marched next year into the country, and driving Lewellyn to the mountains, reduced him through want of subsistence to surrender at discretion, and imposed upon him very humiliating terms. The indignation of the Welsh soon after incited them again to take up arms; but the event of their struggle was, that Lewellyn was slain in battle, his brother David put ine |