Part 153

From 1855 to 1862 the history of Denmark was uneventful. But in the next year King Frederick VII. died, and the Treaty of London, which had settled the succession upon Prince Christian of Glücksburg, failed to prevent the reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question.

ALSO IN: _C. A. Gosch, Denmark and Germany since 1815, chapters 3-9._

_A Forgotten War (Spectator, September 22, 1894, reviewing Count von Moltke's "Geschichte des Krieges gegen Dänemark, 1848-49 "). _

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark-Iceland): A. D. 1849-1874. The Danish constitution. Relations of Iceland to Denmark.

Denmark became a constitutional monarchy in 1849. The principal provisions of the Constitution are these: Every king of Denmark, before he can assume the government of the monarchy, must deliver a written oath that he will observe the constitution. He alone is invested with the executive power, but the legislative he exercises conjointly with the Assembly (Rigsdag). He can declare war and make peace, enter and renounce alliances. But he cannot, without the consent of the Assembly, sign away any of the possessions of the kingdom or encumber it with any State obligations. … The king's person is sacred and inviolable; he is exempt from all responsibility. The ministers form the Council of State, of which the king is the president, and where, by right, the heir-apparent has a seat. The king has an absolute veto. The Rigsdag (Assembly) meets every year, and cannot be prorogued till the session has lasted for two months at least. It consists of two Chambers—the Upper Chamber, 'Landsting,' and the Lower Chamber, 'Folketing.' The Upper Chamber consists of 66 members, twelve of which are Crown-elects for life, seven chosen by Copenhagen, and one by the so-called Lagting of Faro. The 46 remaining members are voted in by ten electoral districts, each of which comprises from one to three Amts, or rural governorships, with the towns situated within each of them included. The elections are arranged on the proportional or minority system. In Copenhagen and in the other towns one moiety of electors is chosen out of those who possess the franchise for the Lower House, the other moiety is selected from among those who pay the highest municipal rates. In every rural commune one elector is chosen by all the enfranchised members of the community. … The Lower House is elected for three years, and consists of 102 members; consequently there are 102 electorates or electoral districts. … The Lower House is elected by manhood suffrage. {2835} Every man thirty years old has a vote, provided there be no stain on his character, and that he possesses the birthright of a citizen within his district, and has been domiciled for a year within it before exercising his right of voting, and does not stand in such a subordinate relation of service to private persons as not to have a home of his own. … The two Chambers of the Rigsdag stand, as legislative bodies, on an equal footing, both having the right to propose and to alter laws. … At present [1891] this very Liberal Constitution is not working smoothly. As was to be expected, two parties have gradually come into existence—a Conservative and a Liberal, or, as they are termed after French fashion, the Right and the Left. The country is governed at present arbitrarily against an opposition in overwhelming majority in the Lower House. The dispute between the Left and the Ministry does not really turn so much upon conflicting views with regard to great public interests, as upon the question whether Denmark has, or has not, to have parliamentary government. … The Right represents chiefly the educated and the wealthy classes; the Left the mass of the people, and is looked down upon by the Right. … I said in the beginning that I would tell you how the constitutional principle has been applied to Iceland. I have only time briefly to touch upon that matter. In 1800 the old Althing (All Men's Assembly, General Diet), which had existed from 930, came to an end. Forty-five years later it was re-established by King Christian VIII. in the character of a consultative assembly. … The Althing at once began to direct its attention to the question—What Iceland's proper position should be in the Danish monarchy when eventually its anticipated constitution should be carried out. The country had always been governed by its special laws; it had a code of laws of its own, and it had never been ruled, in administrative sense, as a province of Denmark. Every successive king had, on his accession to the throne, issued a proclamation guaranteeing to Iceland due observance of the country's laws and traditional privileges. Hence it was found entirely impracticable to include Iceland under the provisions of the charter for Denmark; and a royal rescript of September 23, 1848, announced that with regard to Iceland no measures for settling the constitutional relation of that part of the monarchy would be adopted until a constitutive assembly in the country itself 'had been heard' on the subject. Unfortunately, the revolt of the duchies intervened between this declaration and the date of the constitutive assembly which was fixed for 1851. The Government took fright, being unfortunately quite in the dark about the real state of public opinion in the distant dependency. … The Icelanders only wanted to abide by their laws, and to have the management of their own home affairs, but the so-called National-Liberal Government wanted to incorporate the country as a province in the kingdom of Denmark proper. This idea the Icelanders really never could understand as seriously meant. … The constitutive assembly was brusquely dissolved by the Royal Commissary when he saw that it meant to insist on autonomy for the Icelanders in their own home affairs. And from 1851 to 1874 every successive Althing (but one) persisted in calling on the Government to fulfil the royal promise of 1848. It was no doubt due to the very loyal, quiet, and able manner in which the Icelanders pursued their case, under the leadership of the trusted patriot, Jon Sigurdsson, that in 1874 the Government at last agreed to give Iceland the constitution it demanded. But instead of frankly meeting the Icelandic demands in full, they were only partially complied with, and from the first the charter met with but scanty popularity."

_E. Magnusson, Denmark and Iceland (National Life and Thought, chapter 12)._

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden): A. D. 1855. In the alliance against Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden and Norway): A. D. 1859. Accession of Charles XV.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark): A. D. 1863. Accession of Christian IX.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Denmark): A. D. 1864. Reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question. Austro-Prussian invasion and conquest of the duchies.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: (Sweden and Norway): A. D. 1872. Accession of Oscar II.

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1890. Population.

By a census taken, at the close of 1890, the population of Sweden was found to be 4,784,981, and that of Norway 2,000,917. The population of Denmark, according to a census taken in February, 1890, was 2,185,335.

_Statesman's Year-Book, 1894._

SCANDINAVIAN STATES: End--------

SCANZIA, Island of.

The peninsula of Sweden and Norway was so called by some ancient writers.

See GOTHS, ORIGIN OF THE.

SCHAH, SHAH.

See BEY.

SCHAMYL'S WAR WITH THE RUSSIANS.

See CAUCASUS.

SCHARNHORST'S MILITARY REFORMS IN PRUSSIA.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.

SCHELLENBERG, or HERMANSTADT, Battle of (1599).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.).

SCHENECTADY: A. D. 1690. Massacre and Destruction by French and Indians.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.

SCHEPENS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.

SCHILL'S RISING.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (APRIL-JULY).

SCHISM, The Great.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417, and 1414-1418; also, ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414.

SCHISM ACT.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714.

SCHKIPETARS, Albanian.

See ILLYRIANS.

SCHLESWIG, and the Schleswig-Holstein question.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862, and GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866, and 1866.

SCHMALKALDIC LEAGUE, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.

SCHŒNE, The.

An ancient Egyptian measure of length which is supposed, as in the case of the Persian parasang, to have been fixed by no standard, but to have been merely a rude estimate of distance.

See PARASANG.

{2836}

SCHOFIELD, General J. M. Campaign in Missouri and Arkansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS), and (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

The Atlanta Campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA), to (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).

Campaign against Hood.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE), and (DECEMBER: TENNESSEE).

SCHOLARII.

The household troops or imperial life-guards of the Eastern Roman Empire.

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 5, chapter 20._

SCHOLASTICISM. SCHOOLMEN.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: SCHOLASTICISM.

SCHOOL OF THE PALACE, Charlemagne's.

"Charlemagne took great care to attract distinguished foreigners into his states, and … among those who helped to second intellectual development in Frankish Gaul, many came from abroad. … He not only strove to attract distinguished men into his states, but he protected and encouraged them wherever he discovered them. More than one Anglo-Saxon abbey shared his liberality; and learned men who, after following him into Gaul, wished to return to their country, in no way became strangers to him. … Alcuin fixed himself there permanently. He was born in England, at York, about 735. The intellectual state of Ireland and England was then superior to that of the continent; letters and schools prospered there more than anywhere else. … The schools of England, and particularly that of York, were superior to those of the continent. That of York possessed a rich library, where many of the works of pagan antiquity were found; among others, those of Aristotle, which it is a mistake to say were first introduced to the knowledge of modern Europe by the Arabians, and the Arabians only; for from the fifth to the tenth century, there is no epoch in which we do not find them mentioned in some library, in which they were not known and studied by some men of letters. … In 780, on the death of archbishop Ælbert, and the accession of his successor, Eanbald, Alcuin received from him the mission to proceed to Rome for the purpose of obtaining from the pope and bringing to him the 'pallium.' In returning from Rome, he came to Parma, where he found Charlemagne. … The emperor at once pressed him to take up his abode in France. After some hesitation, Alcuin accepted the invitation, subject to the permission of his bishop, and of his own sovereign. The permission was obtained, and in 782 we find him established in the court of Charlemagne, who at once gave him three abbeys, those of Ferrieres in Gatanois, of St. Loup at Troyes, and of St. Josse in the county of Ponthieu. From this time forth, Alcuin was the confidant, the councillor, the intellectual prime minister, so to speak, of Charlemagne. … From 782 to 796, the period of his residence in the court of Charlemagne, Alcuin presided over a private school, called 'The School of the Palace,' which accompanied Charlemagne wherever he went, and at which were regularly present all those who were with the emperor. … It is difficult to say what could have been the course of instruction pursued in this school; I am disposed to believe that to such auditors Alcuin addressed himself generally upon all sorts of topics as they occurred; that in the 'Ecole du Palais,' in fact, it was conversation rather than teaching, especially so called, that went on; that movement given to mind, curiosity constantly excited and satisfied, was its chief merit."

_F. Guizot, History of Civilization, lecture 22 (volume 3)._

See, also, EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.

ALSO IN: _A. F. West, Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools._

SCHOOLS.

See EDUCATION.

SCHÖNBRUNN, Treaty of (1806).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

Treaty of (1809).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

SCHOUT AND SCHEPENS.

The chief magistrate and aldermen of the chartered towns of Holland were called the Schout and the Schepens.

_J. L. Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, introduction, section 6._

"In every tribunal there is a Schout or sheriff, who convenes the judges, and demands from them justice for the litigating parties; for the word 'schout' is derived from 'schuld,' debt, and he is so denominated because he is the person who recovers or demands common debts, according to Grotius."

_Van Leeuwen, Commentaries on Roman Dutch Law, quoted in O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, volume 1, page 101, foot-note, and volume 2, page 212._

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.

SCHUMLA, Siege of (1828).

See TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.

SCHUYLER, General Philip, and the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (MAY-AUGUST); 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

SCHUYLER, Fort (Late Fort Stanwix): A. D. 1777. Defense against the British and Indians under St. Leger.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

SCHWECHAT, Battle of (1848).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

SCHWEIDNITZ, Battle of (1642).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

SCHWEIDNITZ: Captured and recaptured.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.

SCINDE, SINDH.

"Sindh is the Sanskrit word Sindh or Sindhu, a river or ocean. It was applied to the river Indus, the first great body of water encountered by the Aryan invaders. … Sindh, which is part of the Bombay Presidency, is bounded on the north and west by the territories of the khan of Khelat, in Beluchistan; the Punjab and the Bahawalpur State lie on the north-east. … Three-fourths of the people are Muhammadans and the remainder Hindus." Sindh was included in the Indian conquests of Mahmud of Ghazni, Akbar, and Nadir Shah.

See INDIA: A. D. 977-1290; 1399-1605; and 1662-1748).

"In 1748 the country became an appanage of Kabul, as part of the dowry bestowed by the reigning emperor upon Timur, son of Ahmed Shah Durani, who founded the kingdom of Afghanistan. … The connection of the British government with Sindh had its origin in A. D. 1758, when Ghulam Shah Kalhora … granted a 'purwanah,' or permit, to an officer in the East India Company's service for the establishment of a factory in the province. … In their relations with the British government the Amirs throughout displayed much jealousy of foreign interference. Several treaties were made with them from time to time. {2837} In 1836, owing to the designs of Ranjit Singh on Sindh, which, however, were not carried out because of the interposition of the British government, more intimate connection with the Amirs was sought. Colonel Pottinger visited them to negotiate for this purpose. It was not, however, till 1838 that a short treaty was concluded, in which it was stipulated that a British minister should reside at Haidarabad. At this time the friendly alliance of the Amirs was deemed necessary in the contemplated war with Afghanistan which the British government was about to undertake, to place a friendly ruler on the Afghan throne. The events that followed led to the occupation of Karachi by the British, and placed the Amirs in subsidiary dependence on the British government. New treaties became necessary, and Sir Charles Napier was sent to Haidarabad to negotiate. The Beluchis were infuriated at this proceeding, and openly insulted the officer, Sir James Outram, at the Residency at Haidarabad. Sir Charles Napier thereupon attacked the Amir's forces at Meanee, on 17th February, 1843, with 2,800 men, and twelve pieces of artillery, and succeeded in gaining a complete victory over 22,000 Beluchis, with the result that the whole of Sindh was annexed to British India."

_D. Ross, The Land of the Five Rivers and Sindh, pages 1-6._

ALSO IN: _Mohan Lal, Life of Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, chapter 14 (volume 2)._

See INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845.

SCIO.

See CHIOS.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS, The Campaigns of.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS MINOR, Destruction of Carthage by.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 146.

SCIR-GEREFA.

See SHERIFF; SHIRE; and EALDORMAN.

SCIRONIAN WAY, The.

"The Scironian Way led from Megara to Corinth, along the eastern shore of the isthmus. At a short distance from Megara it passed along the Scironian rocks, a long range of precipices overhanging the sea, forming the extremity of a spur which descends from Mount Geranium. This portion of the road is now known as the 'Kaki Scala,' and is passed with some difficulty. The way seems to have been no more than a footpath until the time of Adrian, who made a good carriage road throughout the whole distance. There is but one other route by which the isthmus can be traversed. It runs inland, and passes over a higher portion of Mount Geranium, presenting to the traveller equal or greater difficulties."

_G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, book 8, section 71, foot-note._

SCLAVENES. SCLAVONIC PEOPLES.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES.

SCLAVONIC.

See SLAVONIC.

SCODRA, OR SKODRA.·

See ILLYRIANS.

SCONE, Kingdom of.

See SCOTLAND: 8-9TH CENTURIES.

SCORDISCANS, The.

The Scordiscans, called by some Roman writers a Thracian people, but supposed to have been Celtic, were settled in the south of Pannonia in the second century, B. C. In B. C. 114 they destroyed a Roman army under consul C. Portius Cato. Two years later consul M. Livius Drusus drove them across the Danube.

_E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 18, section 1 (volume 2)._

SCOT AND LOT.

"Paying scot and lot; that is, bearing their rateable proportion in the payments levied from the town for local or national purposes."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 20, section 745 (volume 3)._

SCOTCH HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND.

"If a line is drawn from a point on the eastern bank of Loch Lomond, somewhat south of Ben Lomond, following in the main the line of the Grampians, and crossing the Forth at Aberfoil, the Teith at Callander, the Almond at Crieff, the Tay at Dunkeld, the Ericht at Blairgowrie, and proceeding through the hills of Brae Angus till it reaches the great range of the Mounth, then crossing the Dee at Ballater, the Spey at lower Craigellachie, till it reaches the Moray Firth at Nairn—this forms what was called the Highland Line and separated the Celtic from the Teutonic-speaking people. Within this line, with the exception of the county of Caithness which belongs to the Teutonic division, the Gaelic language forms the vernacular of the inhabitants."

_W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, volume 2, page 453._

SCOTCH-IRISH, The.

In 1607, six counties in the Irish province of Ulster, formerly belonging to the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, were confiscated by the English crown. The two earls, who had submitted and had been pardoned, after a long rebellion during the reign of queen Elizabeth, had now fled from new charges of treason, and their great estates were forfeited.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603, and 1607-1611.