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Walpole, Horace, 4th earl of Orford

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, Horace or Horatio, 4th earl of Orford, 1717–97, English author; youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he toured the Continent with his friend Thomas Gray from ...

Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, Robert, 1st earl of Orford, 1676–1745, English statesman. Walpole is usually described as the first prime minister of Great Britain, but he was not a prime minister in the modern sense. A...

Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of hĕˈbərn, bŏthˈwəl [key], 1536?–1578, Scottish nobleman; third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. Though a Protestant, he was a strong partisan of the Catholic...

Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Richard, 1st earl of Cork, 1566–1643, English settler in Ireland. He first went to Ireland in 1588 and in 1602 purchased for a small sum Sir Walter Raleigh's large landholdings in Cork, Water...

Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of, 1607–67, English nobleman; son of the 3d earl. At first an opponent of the court party in the events leading up to the English civil war, he later joine...

Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of, 1593–1641, English statesman. Regularly elected to Parliament from 1614 on, he became one of the critics of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of ...

Stuart, John, 4th earl of Atholl

(Encyclopedia)Stuart or Stewart, John, 4th earl of Atholl ăthˈəl [key], d. 1579, Scottish nobleman. He succeeded his father to the earldom in 1542. A supporter of Mary of Guise, in 1559 he voted in Parliament ag...

Stair, John Dalrymple, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Stair, John Dalrymple, 1st earl of, 1648–1707, Scottish statesman; son of Viscount Stair. He served under James II, but sponsored the accession (1688) of William III in the Scottish Parliament and b...

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