Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

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...

Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon, 4th earl of rŏskŏmˈən [key], 1633?–1685, English poet and scholar, b. Ireland. He was one of the first to praise Milton's genius. Besides making a blank-verse transl...

Walpole, Sir Spencer

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, Sir Spencer, 1839–1907, English historian. He held a number of minor public offices and served as private secretary in the home office to his father, Sir Spencer Horatio Walpole, whose biog...

Walpole

(Encyclopedia)Walpole, industrial town (1990 pop. 20,212), Norfolk co., E Mass., SW of Boston; settled 1659, inc. 1724. Machinery, trailers, fences, and roofing are the chief manufactures. Walpole is the site of a ...

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...

Orrery, Charles Boyle, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Orrery, Charles Boyle, 4th earl of ŏrˈərē [key], 1676–1731, English nobleman; grandson of the 1st earl of Orrery. He succeeded his brother as earl in 1703. A supporter of Sir William Temple in h...

Northumberland, Henry Percy, 4th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Northumberland, Henry Percy, 4th earl of, 1446–89, English nobleman. When his father, the 3d earl, was killed fighting in the Lancastrian army at Towton (1461), he was imprisoned by Edward IV and th...

Browse by Subject