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Urraca

(Encyclopedia)Urraca o͞oräˈkä [key], d. 1126, Spanish queen of Castile and León (1109–26), daughter and successor of Alfonso VI. Her first husband, Raymond of Burgundy, died in 1107, and in 1109 she was marr...

Heraclea Pontica

(Encyclopedia)Heraclea Pontica pŏnˈtĭkə [key], ancient Greek city, a port on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Founded in the 6th cent. b.c. by colonists from Megara and Boeotia, it rose to a position of gre...

Peter II, king of Portugal

(Encyclopedia)Peter II, 1648–1706, king of Portugal (1683–1706), younger son of John IV; brother and successor of Alfonso VI. In 1667, he seized power from his incompetent brother and ruled the country as princ...

Benson, Robert Hugh

(Encyclopedia)Benson, Robert Hugh, 1871–1914, English author and clergyman; 4th son of Archbishop Benson. He was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1903 and ordained the next year. In 1911, as a monsignor, he beca...

Williams, Emlyn

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Emlyn, 1905–87, Welsh actor and dramatist. His best-known plays are Night Must Fall (1935) and The Corn Is Green (1941). His Collected Plays were published in 1961. As an actor he is noted...

Cecilia, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Cecilia, Saint səsĭlˈyə, –sēl– [key], 2d or 3d cent., Roman virgin martyr. An ancient and famous account of her life is factually valueless. As patron of music, she is represented at the orga...

Gregory XIII

(Encyclopedia)Gregory XIII, 1502–85, pope (1572–85), an Italian named Ugo Buoncompagni, b. Bologna; successor of St. Pius V. He is best known for his work on the calendar, and the reformed calendar, the Gregori...

Waldenses

(Encyclopedia)Waldenses wôldĕnˈsēz [key] or Waldensians, Protestant religious group of medieval origin, called in French Vaudois. They originated in the late 12th cent. as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organize...

Tudor

(Encyclopedia)Tudor, royal family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Its founder was Owen Tudor, of a Welsh family of great antiquity, who was a squire at the court of Henry V and who married that king's widow, ...

Marmousets

(Encyclopedia)Marmousets märmo͞ozāˈ [key], [Fr.,=little fellows], ministers of King Charles V of France, so called by the great nobles, who were contemptuous of their humble origins. Olivier de Clisson was the ...