Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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For the annexation period see John Martineau, _The Life of Sir Bartle
Frere_, vol. ii. chap, xviii. (London, 1895).

BURGERSDYK, or BUROERSDICIUS, FRANCIS (1590-1629), Dutch logician, was born
at Lier, near Delft, and died at Leiden. After a brilliant career at the
university of Leiden, he studied theology at Saumur, where while still very
young he became professor of philosophy. After five years he returned to
Leiden, where he accepted the chair of logic and moral philosophy, and
afterwards that of natural philosophy. His _Logic_ was at one time widely
used, and is still valuable. He wrote also _Idea Philosophiae Moralis_
(1644).

BURGES, GEORGE (1786-1864), English classical scholar, was born in India.
He was educated at Charterhouse school and Trinity College, Cambridge,
taking his degree in 1807, and obtaining one of the members' prizes both in
1808 and 1809. He stayed up at Cambridge and became a most successful
"coach." He had a great reputation as a Greek scholar, and was a somewhat
acrimonious critic of rival scholars, especially Bishop Blomfield.
Subsequently he fell into embarrassed circumstances through injudicious
speculation, and in 1841 a civil list pension of L100 per annum was
bestowed upon him. He died at Ramsgate, on the 11th of January 1864. Burges
was a man of great learning and industry, but too fond of introducing
arbitrary emendations into the text of classical authors. His chief works
are: Euripides' _Troades_ (1807) and _Phoenissae_ (1809); Aeschylus'
_Supplices_ (1821), _Eumenides_ (1822) and _Prometheus_ (1831); Sophocles'
_Philoctetes_ (1833); E.F. Poppo's _Prolegomena to Thucydides_ (1837), an
abridged translation with critical remarks; _Hermesianactis Fragmenta_
(1839). He also edited some of the dialogues of Plato with English notes,
and translated nearly the whole of that author and the Greek anthology for
Bohn's Classical library. He was a frequent contributor to the _Classical
Journal_ and other periodicals, and dedicated to Byron a play called _The
Son of Erin_, or, _The Cause of the Greeks_ (1823).

BURGESS, DANIEL (1645-1713), English Presbyterian divine, was born at
Staines, in Middlesex, where his father was minister. He was educated under
Busby at Westminster school, and in 1660 was sent to Magdalen Hall, Oxford,
but not being able conscientiously to subscribe the necessary formulae he
quitted the university without taking his degree. In 1667, after taking
orders, he was appointed by Roger Boyle, first Lord Orrery, to the
headmastership of a school recently established by that nobleman at
Charleville, Co. Cork, and soon after he became private chaplain to Lady
Mervin, near Dublin. There he was [v.04 p.0814] ordained by the local
presbytery, and on returning to England was imprisoned for preaching at
Marlborough. He soon regained his liberty, and went to London, where he
speedily gathered a large and influential congregation, as much by the
somewhat excessive fervour of his piety as by the vivacious illustrations
which he frequently employed in his sermons. He was a master of epigram,
and theologically inclined to Calvinism. The Sacheverell mob gutted his
chapel in 1710, but the government repaired the building. Besides
preaching, he gave instruction to private pupils, of whom the most
distinguished was Henry St John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke. His son,
Daniel Burgess (d. 1747), was secretary to the princess of Wales, and in
1723 obtained a _regium donum_ or government grant of L500 half-yearly for
dissenting ministers.

BURGESS, THOMAS (1756-1837), English divine, was born at Odiham, in
Hampshire. He was educated at Winchester, and at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford. Before graduating, he edited a reprint of John Burton's
_Pentalogia_. In 1781 he brought out an annotated edition of Richard
Dawes's _Miscellanea Critica_ (reprinted, Leipzig, 1800). In 1783 he became
a fellow of his college, and in 1785 was appointed chaplain to Shute
Barrington, bishop of Salisbury, through whose influence he obtained a
prebendal stall, which he held till 1803. In 1788 he published his
_Considerations on the Abolition of Slavery_, in which he advocated the
principle of gradual emancipation. In 1791 he accompanied Barrington to
Durham, where he did evangelistic work among the poorer classes. In 1803 he
was appointed to the vacant bishopric of St David's, which he held for
twenty years with great success. He founded the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge in the diocese, and also St David's College at
Lampeter, which he liberally endowed. In 1820 he was appointed first
president of the recently founded Royal Society of Literature; and three
years later he was promoted to the see of Salisbury, over which he presided
for twelve years, prosecuting his benevolent designs with unwearied
industry. As at St David's, so at Salisbury, he founded a Church Union
Society for the assistance of infirm and distressed clergymen. He
strenuously opposed both Unitarianism and Catholic emancipation. He died on
the 19th of February 1837.

A list of his works, which are very numerous, will be found in his
biography by J.S. Harford (2nd ed., 1841). In addition to those already
referred to may be mentioned his _Essay on the Study of Antiquities_, _The
First Principles of Christian Knowledge_; _Reflections on the Controversial
Writings of Dr Priestley_, _Emendationes in Suidam et Hesychium et alios
Lexicographos Graecos_; _The Bible, and nothing but the Bible, the Religion
of the Church of England_.

BURGESS (Med. Lat. _burgensis_, from _burgus_, a borough, a town), a term,
in its earliest sense, meaning an inhabitant of a borough, one who occupied
a tenement therein, but now applied solely to a registered parliamentary,
or more strictly, municipal voter. An early use of the word was to denote a
member elected to parliament by his fellow citizens in a borough. In some
of the American colonies (_e.g._ Virginia), a "burgess" was a member of the
legislative body, which was termed the "House of Burgesses." Previously to
the Municipal Reform Act 1835, burgess was an official title in some
English boroughs, and in this sense is still used in some of the states of
the United States, as in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. _The
Burgess-roll_ is the register or official list of burgesses in a borough.

BURGH [BOURKE, BURKE], the name of an historic Irish house, associated with
Connaught for more than seven centuries. It was founded by William de
Burgh, brother of Hubert de Burgh (_q.v._). Before the death of Henry II.
(1189) he received a grant of lands from John as lord of Ireland. At John's
accession (1199) he was installed in Thomond and was governor of Limerick.
In 1199-1201 he was supporting in turn Cathal Carrach and Cathal Crovderg
for the native throne, but he was expelled from Limerick in 1203, and,
losing his Connaught, though not his Munster estates, died in 1205. His son
Richard, in 1227, received the land of "Connok" [Connaught], as forfeited
by its king, whom he helped to fight. From 1228 to 1232 he held the high
office of justiciar of Ireland. In 1234 he sided with the crown against
Richard, earl marshal, who fell in battle against him. Dying in 1243, he
was succeeded as lord of Connaught by his son Richard, and then (1248) by
his younger son Walter, who carried on the family warfare against the
native chieftains, and added greatly to his vast domains by obtaining (c.
1255) from Prince Edward a grant of "the county of Ulster," in consequence
of which he was styled later earl of Ulster. At his death in 1271, he was
succeeded by his son Richard as 2nd earl. In 1286 Richard ravaged and
subdued Connaught, and deposed Bryan O'Neill as chief native king,
substituting a nominee of his own. The native king of Connaught was also
attacked by him, in favour of that branch of the O'Conors whom his own
family supported. He led his forces from Ireland to support Edward I. in
his Scottish campaigns, and on Edward Bruce's invasion of Ulster in 1315
Richard marched against him, but he had given his daughter Elizabeth in
marriage to Robert Bruce, afterwards king of Scotland, about 1304.
Occasionally summoned to English parliaments, he spent most of his forty
years of activity in Ireland, where he was the greatest noble of his day,
usually fighting the natives or his Anglo-Norman rivals. The patent roll of
1290 shows that in addition to his lands in Ulster, Connaught and Munster,
he had held the Isle of Man, but had surrendered it to the king.

His grandson and successor William, the 3rd earl (1326-1333), was the son
of John de Burgh by Elizabeth, lady of Clare, sister and co-heir of the
last Clare earl of Hertford (d. 1314). He married a daughter of Henry, earl
of Lancaster, and was appointed lieutenant of Ireland in 1331, but was
murdered in his 21st year, leaving a daughter, the sole heiress, not only
of the de Burgh possessions, but of vast Clare estates. She was married in
childhood to Lionel, son of Edward III., who was recognized in her right as
earl of Ulster, and their direct representative, the duke of York, ascended
the throne in 1461 as Edward IV., since when the earldom of Ulster has been
only held by members of the royal family.

On the murder of the 3rd earl (1333), his male kinsmen, who had a better
right, by native Irish ideas, to the succession than his daughter, adopted
Irish names and customs, and becoming virtually native chieftains succeeded
in holding the bulk of the de Burgh territories. Their two main branches
were those of "MacWilliam Eighter" in southern Connaught, and "MacWilliam
Oughter" to the north of them, in what is now Mayo. The former held the
territory of Clanricarde, lying in the neighbourhood of Galway, and in 1543
their chief, as Ulick "Bourck, _alias_ Makwilliam," surrendered it to Henry
VIII., receiving it back to hold, by English custom, as earl of Clanricarde
and Lord Dunkellin. The 4th earl (1601-1635) distinguished himself on the
English side in O'Neill's rebellion and afterwards, and obtained the
English earldom of St Albans in 1628, his son Ulick receiving further the
Irish marquessate of Clanricarde (1646). His cousin and heir, the 6th earl
(1657-1666) was uncle of the 8th and 9th earls (1687-1722), both of whom
fought for James II. and paid the penalty for doing so in 1691, but the 9th
earl was restored in 1702, and his great-grandson, the 12th earl, was
created marquess of Clanricarde in 1789. He left no son, but the
marquessate was again revived in 1825, for his nephew the 14th earl, whose
heir is the present marquess. The family, which changed its name from
Bourke to de Burgh in 1752, and added that of Canning in 1862, still own a
vast estate in County Galway.

In 1603 "the MacWilliam Oughter," Theobald Bourke, similarly resigned his
territory in Mayo, and received it back to hold by English tenure. In 1627
he was created Viscount Mayo. The 2nd and 3rd viscounts (1629-1663)
suffered at Cromwell's hands, but the 4th was restored to his estates (some
50,000 acres) in 1666. The peerage became extinct or dormant on the death
of the 8th viscount in 1767. In 1781 John Bourke, a Mayo man, believed to
be descended from the line of "MacWilliam Oughter," was created Viscount
Mayo, and four years later earl of Mayo, a peerage still extant. In 1872
the 6th earl was murdered in the Andaman Islands when viceroy of India.

The baronies of Bourke of Connell (1580) and Bourke of Brittas (1618), both
forfeited in 1691, were bestowed on branches [v.04 p.0815] of the family
which has also still representatives in the baronetage and landed gentry of
Ireland.

The lords Burgh or Borough of Gainsborough (1487-1599) were a Lincolnshire
family believed to be descended from a younger son of Hubert de Burgh. The
5th baron was lord deputy of Ireland in 1597, and his younger brother, Sir
John (d. 1594), a distinguished soldier and sailor.

(J. H. R.)

BURGH, HUBERT DE (d. 1243), chief justiciar of England in the reign of John
and Henry III., entered the royal service in the reign of Richard I. He
traced his descent from Robert of Mortain, half brother of the Conqueror
and first earl of Cornwall; he married about 1200 the daughter of William
de Vernon, earl of Devon; and thus, from the beginning of his career, he
stood within the circle of the great ruling families. But he owed his high
advancement to exceptional ability as an administrator and a soldier.
Already in 1201 he was chamberlain to King John, the sheriff of three
shires, the constable of Dover and Windsor castles, the warden of the
Cinque Ports and of the Welsh Marches. He served with John in the
continental wars which led up to the loss of Normandy. It was to his
keeping that the king first entrusted the captive Arthur of Brittany.
Coggeshall is our authority for the tale, which Shakespeare has
immortalized, of Hubert's refusal to permit the mutilation of his prisoner;
but Hubert's loyalty was not shaken by the crime to which Arthur
subsequently fell a victim. In 1204 Hubert distinguished himself by a long
and obstinate defence of Chinon, at a time when nearly the whole of Poitou
had passed into French hands. In 1213 he was appointed seneschal of Poitou,
with a view to the invasion of France which ended disastrously for John in
the next year.

Both before and after the issue of the Great Charter Hubert adhered loyally
to the king; he was rewarded, in June 1215, with the office of chief
justiciar. This office he retained after the death of John and the election
of William, the earl marshal, as regent. But, until the expulsion of the
French from England, Hubert was entirely engaged with military affairs. He
held Dover successfully through the darkest hour of John's fortunes; he
brought back Kent to the allegiance of Henry III.; he completed the
discomfiture of the French and their allies by the naval victory which he
gained over Eustace the Monk, the noted privateer and admiral of Louis, in
the Straits of Dover (Aug. 1217). The inferiority of the English fleet has
been much exaggerated, for the greater part of the French vessels were
transports carrying reinforcements and supplies. But Hubert owed his
success to the skill with which he manoeuvred for the weather-gage, and his
victory was not less brilliant than momentous. It compelled Louis to accept
the treaty of Lambeth, under which he renounced his claims to the crown and
evacuated England. As the saviour of the national cause the justiciar
naturally assumed after the death of William Marshal (1219) the leadership
of the English loyalists. He was opposed by the legate Pandulf (1218-1221),
who claimed the guardianship of the kingdom for the Holy See; by the
Poitevin Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who was the young king's
tutor; by the foreign mercenaries of John, among whom Falkes de Breaute
took the lead; and by the feudal party under the earls of Chester and
Albemarle. On Pandulf's departure the pope was induced to promise that no
other legate should be appointed in the lifetime of Archbishop Stephen
Langton. Other opponents were weakened by the audacious stroke of 1223,
when the justiciar suddenly announced the resumption of all the castles,
sheriffdoms and other grants which had been made since the king's
accession. A plausible excuse was found in the next year for issuing a
sentence of confiscation and banishment against Falkes de Breaute. Finally
in 1227, Hubert having proclaimed the king of age, dismissed the bishop of
Winchester from his tutorship.

Hubert now stood at the height of his power. His possessions had been
enlarged by four successive marriages, particularly by that which he
contracted in 1221 with Margaret, the sister of Alexander II. of Scotland;
in 1227 he received the earldom of Kent, which had been dormant since the
disgrace of Odo of Bayeux. But the favour of Henry III. was a precarious
foundation on which to build. The king chafed against the objections with
which his minister opposed wild plans of foreign conquest and inconsiderate
concessions to the papacy. They quarrelled violently in 1229, at
Portsmouth, when the king was with difficulty prevented from stabbing
Hubert, because a sufficient supply of ships was not forthcoming for an
expedition to France. In 1231 Henry lent an ear to those who asserted that
the justiciar had secretly encouraged armed attacks upon the aliens to whom
the pope had given English benefices. Hubert was suddenly disgraced and
required to render an account of his long administration. The blow fell
suddenly, a few weeks after his appointment as justiciar of Ireland. It was
precipitated by one of those fits of passion to which the king was prone;
but the influence of Hubert had been for some time waning before that of
Peter des Roches and his nephew Peter des Rievaux. Some colour was given to
their attacks by Hubert's injudicious plea that he held a charter from King
John which exempted him from any liability to produce accounts. But the
other charges, far less plausible than that of embezzlement, which were
heaped upon the head of the fallen favourite, are evidence of an intention
to crush him at all costs. He was dragged from the sanctuary at Bury St
Edmunds, in which he had taken refuge, and was kept in strait confinement
until Richard of Cornwall, the king's brother, and three other earls
offered to be his sureties. Under their protection he remained in
honourable detention at Devizes Castle. On the outbreak of Richard
Marshal's rebellion (1233), he was carried off by the rebels to the Marshal
stronghold of Striguil, in the hope that his name would add popularity to
their cause. In 1234 he was admitted, along with the other supporters of
the fallen Marshal, to the benefit of a full pardon. He regained his
earldom and held it till his death, although he was once in serious danger
from the avarice of the king (1239), who was tempted by Hubert's enormous
wealth to revive the charge of treason.

In his lifetime Hubert was a popular hero; Matthew Paris relates how, at
the time of his disgrace, a common smith refused with an oath to put
fetters on the man "who restored England to the English." Hubert's ambition
of founding a great family was not realized. His earldom died with him,
though he left two sons. In constitutional history he is remembered as the
last of the great justiciars. The office, as having become too great for a
subject, was now shorn of its most important powers and became politically
insignificant.

See Roger of Wendover's _Flores Historiarum_, edited for the English
Historical Society by H.O. Coxe (4 vols., 1841-1844); the _Chronica Majora_
of Matthew Paris, edited by H.R. Luard for the Rolls Series (7 vols.,
1872-1883); the _Histoire des ducs de Normandie_, edited by F. Michel for
the Soc. de l'Hist. de France (Paris, 1840); the _Histoire de Guillaume le
Marechal_, edited by Paul Meyer for the same society (3 vols., Paris, 1891,
&c.); J.E. Doyle's _Official Baronage of England_, ii. pp. 271-274; R.
Pauli's _Geschichte von England_, vol. iii.; W. Stubbs's _Constitutional
History of England_, vol. ii.

(H. W. C. D.)

BURGHERSH, HENRY (1292-1340), English bishop and chancellor, was a younger
son of Robert, Baron Burghersh (d. 1305), and a nephew of Bartholomew, Lord
Badlesmere, and was educated in France. In 1320 owing to Badlesmere's
influence Pope John XXII. appointed him bishop of Lincoln in spite of the
fact that the chapter had already made an election to the vacant bishopric,
and he secured the position without delay. After the execution of
Badlesmere in 1322 Burghersh's lands were seized by Edward II., and the
pope was urged to deprive him; about 1326, however, his possessions were
restored, a proceeding which did not prevent him from joining Edward's
queen, Isabella, and taking part in the movement which led to the
deposition and murder of the king. Enjoying the favour of the new king,
Edward III., the bishop became chancellor of England in 1328; but he failed
to secure the archbishopric of Canterbury which became vacant about the
same time, and was deprived of his office of chancellor and imprisoned when
Isabella lost her power in 1330. But he was soon released and again in a
position of influence. He was treasurer of England from 1334 to 1337, and
high in the favour and often in the company of Edward III.; he was sent on
several important [v.04 p.0816] errands, and entrusted with important
commissions. He died at Ghent on the 4th of December 1340.

The bishop's brother, Bartholomew Burghersh (d. 1355), became Baron
Burghersh on the death of his brother Stephen in 1310. He acted as
assistant to Badlesmere until the execution of the latter; and then,
trusted by Edward III., was constable of Dover Castle and warden of the
Cinque Ports. He filled other important positions, served Edward III. both
as a diplomatist and a soldier, being present at the battle of Crecy in
1346; and retaining to the last the royal confidence, died in August 1355.
His son and successor, Bartholomew (d. 1369), was one of the first knights
of the order of the Garter, and earned a great reputation as a soldier,
specially distinguishing himself at the battle of Poitiers in 1356.

BURGHLEY, WILLIAM CECIL, BARON (1521-1508), was born, according to his own
statement, on the 13th of September 1521 at the house of his mother's
father at Bourne, Lincolnshire. Pedigrees, elaborated by Cecil himself with
the help of Camden, the antiquary, associated him with the Cecils or
Sitsyllts of Altyrennes in Herefordshire, and traced his descent from an
Owen of the time of King Harold and a Sitsyllt of the reign of Rufus. The
connexion with the Herefordshire family is not so impossible as the descent
from Sitsyllt; but the earliest authentic ancestor of the lord treasurer is
his grandfather, David, who, according to Burghley's enemies, "kept the
best inn" in Stamford. David somehow secured the favour of Henry VII., to
whom he seems to have been yeoman of the guard. He was serjeant-at-arms to
Henry VIII. in 1526, sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1532, and a justice of
the peace for Rutland. His eldest son, Richard, yeoman of the wardrobe (d.
1554), married Jane, daughter of William Heckington of Bourne, and was
father of three daughters and Lord Burghley.

William, the only son, was put to school first at Grantham and then at
Stamford. In May 1535, at the age of fourteen, he went up to St John's
College, Cambridge, where he was brought into contact with the foremost
educationists of the time, Roger Ascham and John Cheke, and acquired an
unusual knowledge of Greek. He also acquired the affections of Cheke's
sister, Mary, and was in 1541 removed by his father to Gray's Inn, without,
after six years' residence at Cambridge, having taken a degree. The
precaution proved useless, and four months later Cecil committed one of the
rare rash acts of his life in marrying Mary Cheke. The only child of this
marriage, Thomas, the future earl of Exeter, was born in May 1542, and in
February 1543 Cecil's first wife died. Three years later he married (21st
of December 1546) Mildred, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, who was ranked by
Ascham with Lady Jane Grey as one of the two most learned ladies in the
kingdom, and whose sister, Anne, became the wife of Sir Nicholas, and the
mother of Sir Francis, Bacon.

Cecil, meanwhile, had obtained the reversion to the office of _custos
rotulorum brevium_, and, according to his autobiographical notes, sat in
parliament in 1543; but his name does not occur in the imperfect
parliamentary returns until 1547, when he was elected for the family
borough of Stamford. Earlier in that year he had accompanied Protector
Somerset on his Pinkie campaign, being one of the two "judges of the
Marshalsea," _i.e._ in the courts-martial. The other was William Patten,
who states that both he and Cecil began to write independent accounts of
the campaign, and that Cecil generously communicated his notes for Patten's
narrative, which has been reprinted more than once.

In 1548 he is described as the protector's master of requests, which
apparently means that he was clerk or registrar of the court of requests
which the protector, possibly at Latimer's instigation, illegally set up in
Somerset House "to hear poor men's complaints." He also seems to have acted
as private secretary to the protector, and was in some danger at the time
of the protector's fall (October 1549). The lords opposed to Somerset
ordered his detention on the 10th of October, and in November he was in the
Tower. On the 25th of January 1550 he was bound over in recognizances to
the value of a thousand marks. However, he soon ingratiated himself with
Warwick, and on the 15th of September 1550 he was sworn one of the king's
two secretaries. He was knighted on the 11th of October 1551, on the eve of
Somerset's second fall, and was congratulated on his success in escaping
his benefactor's fate. In April he became chancellor of the order of the
Garter. But service under Northumberland was no bed of roses, and in his
diary Cecil recorded his release in the phrase _ex misero aulico factus
liber et mei juris_. His responsibility for Edward's illegal "devise" of
the crown has been studiously minimized by Cecil himself and by his
biographers. Years afterwards, he pretended that he had only signed the
"devise" as a witness, but in his apology to Queen Mary he did not venture
to allege so flimsy an excuse; he preferred to lay stress on the extent to
which he succeeded in shifting the responsibility on to the shoulders of
his brother-in-law, Sir John Cheke, and other friends, and on his intrigues
to frustrate the queen to whom he had sworn allegiance. There is no doubt
that he saw which way the wind was blowing, and disliked Northumberland's
scheme; but he had not the courage to resist the duke to his face. As soon,
however, as the duke had set out to meet Mary, Cecil became the most active
intriguer against him, and to these efforts, of which he laid a full
account before Queen Mary, he mainly owed his immunity. He had, moreover,
had no part in the divorce of Catherine or in the humiliation of Mary in
Henry's reign, and he made no scruple about conforming to the religious
reaction. He went to mass, confessed, and out of sheer zeal and in no
official capacity went to meet Cardinal Pole on his pious mission to
England in December 1554, again accompanying him to Calais in May 1555. It
was rumoured in December 1554 that Cecil would succeed Sir William Petre as
secretary, an office which, with his chancellorship of the Garter, he had
lost on Mary's accession. Probably the queen had more to do with the
falsification of this rumour than Cecil, though he is said to have opposed
in the parliament of 1555--in which he represented Lincolnshire--a bill for
the confiscation of the estates of the Protestant refugees. But the story,
even as told by his biographer (Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_, i. 11), does
not represent Cecil's conduct as having been very courageous; and it is
more to his credit that he found no seat in the parliament of 1558, for
which Mary had directed the return of "discreet and good Catholic members."

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