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Grey, Lady Jane

(Encyclopedia)Grey, Lady Jane, 1537–54, queen of England for nine days. She was the daughter of Henry Grey, marquess of Dorset (later duke of Suffolk), and Frances Brandon, daughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary. S...

flagellants

(Encyclopedia)flagellants flăjˈələnts, fləjĕlˈənts [key], term applied to the groups of Christians who practiced public flagellation as a penance. The practice supposedly grew out of the floggings administe...

Battenberg

(Encyclopedia)Battenberg bătˈənbûrg [key], German princely family, issued from the morganatic union of Alexander, a younger son of Louis II, grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Julia von Hauke, who was ...

Stuart, James, earl of Arran

(Encyclopedia)Stuart or Stewart, James, earl of Arran ârˈən [key], d. 1595, Scottish nobleman. He spent his early years as a soldier of fortune fighting in the Dutch revolt against Spain, returned to Scotland in...

Zoë

(Encyclopedia)Zoë zōˈē [key], c.978–1050, Byzantine empress (1028–50), daughter and successor of Constantine VIII. Zoë was first married when she was 50 years old at the request of her father to insure sta...

Bloomsbury group

(Encyclopedia)Bloomsbury group, name given to the literary group that made the Bloomsbury area of London the center of its activities from 1904 to World War II. It included Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, Leonard ...

kremlin

(Encyclopedia)kremlin krĕmˈlĭn [key], Rus. kreml, citadel or walled center of several Russian cities; the most famous is in Moscow. During the Middle Ages, the kremlin served as an administrative and religious c...

Henry V, king of England

(Encyclopedia)Henry V, 1387–1422, king of England (1413–22), son and successor of Henry IV. Henry abandoned his early recklessness (celebrated and probably exaggerated by Shakespeare) and ruled with justice...

Byzantine Empire

(Encyclopedia)CE5 CE5 Byzantine Empire (c.1000) Byzantine Empire, successor state to the Roman Empire (see under Rome), also called Eastern Empire and East Roman Empire. It was named after Byzantium, which Emp...

Lent

(Encyclopedia)Lent [Old Eng. lencten,=spring], Latin Quadragesima (meaning 40; thus the 40 days of Lent). In Christianity, Lent is a time of penance, prayer, preparation for or recollection of baptism, and preparat...