Part 728

"By the death of Don Carlos, the succession to the crown of Navarre devolved to his sister Blanche, the divorced wife of Henry IV. of Castile; and that amiable princess now became an object of jealousy not only to her father but also to her younger sister, Eleanor, married to the Count of Foix, to whom John II. had promised the reversion of Navarre after his own death. Gaston de Foix, the offspring of this union, had married a sister of Louis XI.; and it had been provided in a treaty between that monarch and John II., that in order to secure the succession of the House of Foix to Navarre, Blanche should be delivered into the custody of her sister. John executed this stipulation without remorse. Blanche was conducted to the Castle of Orthès in Bearn (April 1462), where, after a confinement of nearly two years, she was poisoned by order of her sister Eleanor." After committing this crime, the latter waited nearly fifteen years for the crown which it was expected to win, and then enjoyed it but three weeks. Her father reigned until the 20th of January, 1479, when he died; the guilty daughter soon followed him. "After Eleanor's brief reign … the blood-stained sceptre of Navarre passed to her grandson Phœbus, 1479, who, however, lived only four years, and was succeeded by his sister Catherine. Ferdinand and Isabella [now occupying the thrones of Aragon and Castile] endeavoured to effect a marriage between Catherine and their own heir; but this scheme was frustrated by Magdalen, the queen-mother, a sister of Louis XI. of France, who brought about a match between her daughter and John d'Albret, a French nobleman who had large possessions on the borders of Navarre (1485). Nevertheless the Kings of Spain supported Catherine and her husband against her uncle, John de Foix, viscount of Narbonne, who pretended to the Navarese crown on the ground that it was limited to male heirs; and after the death of John, the alliance with Spain was drawn still closer by the avowed purpose of Louis XII. to support his nephew, Gaston de Foix, in the claims of his father. After the fall of that young hero at Ravenna [see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513], his pretensions to the throne of Navarre devolved to his sister, Germaine de Foix, the second wife of King Ferdinand [see SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517], an event which entirely altered the relations between the courts of Spain and Navarre. Ferdinand had now an interest in supporting the claims of the house of Foix-Narbonne; and Catherine, who distrusted him, despatched in May 1512, plenipotentiaries to the French court to negotiate a treaty of alliance." But it was too late. Ferdinand had already succeeded in diverting to Navarre an expedition which his son-in-law, Henry VIII. of England, acting in the Holy League against Louis XII., which Ferdinand now joined (see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513), had sent against Guienne. With this aid he took possession of Upper Navarre. "In the following year, he effected at Orthès a year's truce with Louis XII. (April 1st 1513), by which Louis sacrificed his ally, the King of Navarre, and afterwards, by renewing the truce, allowed Ferdinand permanently to settle himself in his new conquest. The States of Navarre had previously taken the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand as their King, and on the 15th of June 1515, Navarre was incorporated into the kingdom of Castile by the solemn act of the Cortès. The dominions of John d'Albret and Catherine were now reduced to the little territory of Bearn, but they still retained the title of sovereigns of Navarre." Six years later, in 1521, the French invaded Navarre and overran the whole kingdom. "Pampeluna alone, animated by the courage of Ignatius Loyola, made a short resistance. To this siege, the world owes the Order of the Jesuits. Loyola, whose leg had been shattered by a cannon ball, found consolation and amusement during his convalescence in reading the lives of the saints, and was thus thrown into that state of fanatical exaltation which led him to devote his future life to the service of the Papacy." Attempting to extend their invasion beyond Navarre, the French were defeated at Esquiros and driven back, losing the whole of their conquests.

_T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 1, chapters 4 and 7, and book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, chapters 2 and 23 (volumes 1 and 3)._

NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563. The kingdom remaining on the French side of the Pyrenees. Jeanne d'Albret's Bourbon marriage and the issue of it. Establishment of Protestantism in Béarn.

Besides the Spanish province which Ferdinand the Catholic appropriated and joined to Castile, and which gave its name to the Kingdom of Navarre, "that kingdom embraced a large tract of country lying on the French side of the Pyrenees, including the principality of Béarn and the counties of Foix, Armagnac, Albret, Bigorre, and Comminges. Catherine de Foix, the heiress of this kingdom, had in 1491 carried it by marriage into the house of D'Albret. Henry, the second king of Navarre belonging to this house, was in 1528 united to Marguerite d'Angoulême, the favourite and devoted sister of Francis I. of France. Pampeluna, the ancient capital of their kingdom, being in the hands of the King of Spain, Henry and Marguerite held their Court at Nérac, the chief town of the duchy belonging to the family of D'Albret. It was at Nérac that Marguerite, herself more than half a Huguenot, opened an asylum to her persecuted fellow-countrymen [see PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535]. Farel, Calvin, Beza sought temporary refuge and found glad welcome there, while to Lefevre, Clement Marot, and Gerard Roussel it became a second home. Marguerite died in 1549, leaving only one child, a daughter, who, in the event of her father having no issue by any second marriage, became heiress to the crown of Navarre. Born in 1528, Jeanne d'Albret had early and bitter experience of what heirship to such a crown involved. The Emperor Charles V. was believed to have early fixed his eye on her as a fit consort for Philip, his son and successor." To prevent this marriage, she was shut up for years, by her uncle, the French king, Francis I., in the gloomy castle of Plessis-les-Tours. When she was twelve years old he affianced her to the Duke of Cleves, notwithstanding her vigorous protests; but the alliance was subsequently broken off. "The next hand offered to Jeanne, and which she accepted, was that of Antoine, elder brother of the Prince of Condé, and head of the Bourbon family. They were married in 1548, a year after the death of Francis I., and a year before that of his sister Marguerite, Jeanne's mother. The marriage was an unfortunate one. Ambitious, yet weak and vain; frivolous and vacillating, yet headstrong and impetuous, faithless to his wife, faithless to his principles, faithless to his party, Antoine became the butt and victim of the policy of the Court. But though unfortunate in so many respects, this marriage gave to France, if not the greatest, the most fortunate, the most popular, the most beloved of all her monarchs"—namely, Henry IV.—Henry of Navarre—the first of the Bourbon dynasty of French kings. {2245} "Antoine of Navarre died at the siege of Rouen in 1562. The first use that the Queen made of the increased measure of freedom she thus acquired was to publish an edict establishing the Protestant and interdicting the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship in Béarn. So bold an act by so weak a sovereign—by one whose political position was so perilous and insecure—drew down upon her the instant and severe displeasure of the Pope," who issued against her a Bull of excommunication, in October, 1563, and assumed the right to dispose of her kingdom. This assumption was more than the French Court could permit. "The Pope had to give way, and the Bull was expunged from the ecclesiastical ordinances of the Pontificate."

_W. Hanna, The Wars of the Huguenots, chapter 4._

NAVARRE: A. D. 1568-1569. The queen joins the Huguenots in France, with Prince Henry. Invasion by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1620-1622. Protestant intolerance. Enforcement of Catholic rights. The kingdom incorporated and absorbed in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1876. Disappearance of the last municipal and provincial privileges of the old kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1873-1885.

NAVARRE: End--------

NAVE. NAVIO.

See CARAVELS.

NAVIGATION LAWS: Start--------

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1651. The first English Act.

"After the triumph of the parliamentary cause [in the English Civil War], great numbers of the royalists had sought refuge in Virginia, Barbadoes, and the other West India settlements; so that the white population of these dependencies was in general fiercely opposed to the new government, and they might be said to be in a state of rebellion after all the rest of the empire had been reduced to submission and quiet. Barbadoes, indeed, had actually received Lord Willoughby as governor under a commission from Charles II., then in Holland, and had proclaimed Charles as king. It was in these circumstances that the English parliament in 1651, with the view of punishing at once the people of the colonies and the Dutch, who had hitherto enjoyed the greater part of the carrying-trade between the West Indies and Europe, passed their famous Navigation Act, declaring that no merchandise either of Asia, Africa, or America, except only such as should be imported directly from the place of its growth or manufacture in Europe, should be imported into England, Ireland, or any of the plantations, in any but English-built ships, belonging either to English or English-plantation subjects, navigated by English commanders, and having at least three-fourths of the sailors Englishmen. It was also further enacted that no goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of any country in Europe should be imported into Great Britain except in British ships, or in such ships as were the real property of the people of the country or place in which the goods were produced, or from which they could only be, or most usually were, exported. Upon this law, which was re-enacted after the Restoration, and which down to our own day has been generally regarded and upheld as the palladium of our commerce, and the maritime Magna Charta of England, we shall only at present observe that one of its first consequences was undoubtedly the war with Holland which broke out the year after it was passed."

_G. L. Craik, History of British Commerce, chapter 7 (volume 2). _

ALSO IN: _Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, book 4, chapter 2._

_J. A. Blanqui, History of Political Economy, chapter 29._

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1660-1672. Effect upon the American colonies, and their relation to Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1849. Complete repeal of the British restrictive Acts.

"The question of the navigation laws was … brought forward [in the British Parliament, at the commencement of the session of 1849] … with a fair prospect of being settled!" The stringency of the original act of 1651 had been "slightly mitigated by another act passed in the reign of Charles II.; but the modifications thus introduced were of slight importance. A farther relaxation, made at the conclusion of the war of independence, allowed the produce of the United States to be imported in ships belonging to citizens of those states. The last amendment of the original law was obtained in the year 1825 by Mr. Huskisson, who made some important changes in it. The law, then, which the legislature had to reconsider in the year 1849 stood thus: the produce of Asia, Africa, and America might be imported from places out of Europe into the United Kingdom, if to be used therein, in foreign as well us in British ships, provided that such ships were the ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, and from which they were imported. Goods which were the produce of Europe, and which were not enumerated in the act, might be brought thence in the ships of any country. Goods sent to or from the United Kingdom to any of its possessions, or from one colony to another, must be carried in British ships, or in ships of the country in which they were produced and from which they were imported. Then followed some stringent definitions of the conditions which constituted a vessel a British ship in the sense of the act. These restrictions were not without their defenders. Even the great founder of economic science, Adam Smith, while admitting that the navigation laws were inconsistent with that perfect freedom of trade which he contended for, sanctioned their continuance on the ground that defence is much more important than opulence. But as it was more and more strongly felt that these laws were part and parcel of that baneful system of monopoly which, under the name of protection, had so long been maintained and was now so completely exploded, it began also to be seriously doubted whether they were necessary to the defence of the nation. … Therefore, on the 14th of February in this year, Mr. Labouchere, as president of the board of trade, proposed a resolution on the subject couched in the following terms: 'That it is expedient to remove the restrictions which prevent the free carriage of goods by sea to and from the United Kingdom and the British possessions abroad, and to amend the laws regulating the coasting trade of the United Kingdom, subject nevertheless to such control by her Majesty in council as may be necessary; and also to amend the laws for the registration of ships and seamen.' {2246} A long debate took place on the question of the second reading of the government measure. … 214 members followed Mr. Disraeli into the lobby, while 275 voted with the government, which therefore had a majority of 61. In the upper house Lord Brougham astonished friend and foe by coming forward as the strenuous and uncompromising opponent of the ministerial measure. … The second reading was carried by a majority of 10. The smallness of this majority caused some anxiety to the supporters of the measure with regard to its ultimate fate; but this anxiety was relieved by the withdrawal of the most conspicuous opponents of the bill, which consequently passed without farther opposition."

_W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 2, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _J. D. J. Kelley, The Question of Ships, chapter 4._

_S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 20 (volume 4)._

NAVIGATION LAWS: End----------

NAWAB-VIZIER, NEWAB-WU-ZEER, of Oude.

See OUDE; also NABOB.

NAXOS: Start--------

NAXOS: B. C. 490. Destruction by the Persians.

See GREECE: B. C. 490.

NAXOS: B. C. 466. Revolt from the Delian Confederacy. Subjugation by Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 470-466.

NAXOS: B. C. 376. Battle between the Spartans and Athenians.

A battle was fought in September, B. C. 376, off Naxos, between a Lacedæmonian fleet of 60 triremes and an Athenian fleet of 80. Forty-nine of the former were disabled or captured. "This was the first great victory … which the Athenians had gained at sea since the Peloponnesian war."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 77._

NAXOS: A. D. 1204-1567. The mediæval dukedom.

"In the partition of the [Byzantine] empire [after the conquest of Constantinople, in 1204, by the Crusaders and the Venetians], the twelve islands of the Archipelago, which had formed the theme of the Egean sea in the provincial division of the Byzantine empire, fell to the share of the crusading barons; but Mark Sanudo, one of the most influential of the Venetian nobles in the expedition, obtained possession of the principal part of the ancient theme—though whether by purchase from the Frank barons to whom it had been allotted, or by grant to himself from the emperor, is not known. Sanudo, however, made his appearance at the parliament of Ravenika as one of the great feudatories of the empire of Romania, and was invested by the emperor Henry with the title of Duke of the Archipelago, or Naxos. It is difficult to say on what precise footing Sanudo placed his relations with the republic. His conduct in the war of Crete shows that he ventured to act as a baron of Romania, or an independent prince, when he thought his personal interests at variance with his born allegiance to Venice. … The new duke and his successors were compelled by their position to acknowledge themselves, in some degree, vassals both of the empire of Romania and of the republic of Venice; yet they acted as sovereign princes." Nearly at the close of the fourteenth century the dukedom passed from the Sanudo family to the Crispo family, who reigned under the protection of Venice until 1537, when the Duke of Naxos was reduced to vassalage by the Turkish sultan Suleiman. Thirty years later, his title and authority were extinguished by the sultan, on the petition of the Greek inhabitants, who could not endure his oppressive and disgraceful government.

_G. Finlay, History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders, chapter 10, sections 1-3._

ALSO IN: _Sir J. E. Tennent, History of Modern Greece, chapter 3._

_H. F. Tozer, The Islands of the Aegean, chapter 4._

NAXOS: End----------

NAZARETH, Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).

NEANDERTHAL MAN.

The race represented by a remarkable human skull and imperfect skeleton found in 1857, in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, Rhenish Prussia, and thought to be the most primitive race of which any knowledge has yet been obtained.

_J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, page 22._

ALSO IN: _W. B. Dawkins, Cave Hunting, page 240._

NEAPOLIS, Schools of.

In the first century of the Roman empire, "Neapolis [modern Naples] had its schools and colleges, as well as Athens; its society abounded in artists and men of letters, and it enjoyed among the Romans the title of the learned, which comprehended in their view the praise of elegance as well as knowledge."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 40._

NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.

"Palaepolis is mentioned only by Livy: it was an ancient Cumaean colony, the Cumaeans having taken refuge there across the sea. Neapolis derives its name from being a much later settlement of different Greek tribes, and was perhaps not founded till Olymp. 91, about the time of the Athenian expedition to Sicily, and as a fortress of the Greeks against the Sabellians. It is not impossible that the Athenians also may have had a share in it. Both towns, however, were of Chalcidian origin and formed one united state, which at that time may have been in possession of Ischia. Many absurdities have been written about the site of Palaepolis, and most of all by Italian antiquaries. We have no data to go upon except the two statements in Livy, that Palaepolis was situated by the side of Neapolis, and that the Romans [in the second Samnite war] had pitched their camp between the two towns. The ancient Neapolis was undoubtedly situated in the centre of the modern city of Naples above the church of Sta. Rosa; the coast is now considerably advanced. People have sought for Palaepolis likewise within the compass of the modern city. … I alone should never have discovered its true site, but my friend, the Count de Serre, a French statesman, who in his early life had been in the army and had thus acquired a quick and certain miliary eye, discovered it in a walk which I took with him. The town was situated on the outer side of Mount Posilipo, where the quarantine now is."

_B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 40 (volume 1)._

"Parthenopé was an ancient Greek colony founded by the Chalcidians of Cuma on the northern part of the Bay of Naples. In after years another city sprung up a little to the south, whence the original Parthenopé was called Palæpolis or Old-town, while the new town took the name of Neapolis. The latter preserves its name in the modern Naples." Palæpolis was taken by the Romans, B. C. 327, at the beginning of the second Samnite War, and is heard of no more. Neapolis made peace with them and lived.

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 21 (volume 1)._

{2247}

NEAPOLIS (Syracuse).

See TEMENITES.

NEARDA.

See JEWS: B. C. 536-A. D. 50.

NEBRASKA: Start--------

NEBRASKA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1803. Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1854. Territorial organization. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1867. Admission to the Union.

Nebraska was organized as a State and admitted to the Union in 1867.

NEBRASKA: End--------

NECKER, Ministry of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788, to 1789 (JUNE).

NECTANSMERE, Battle of (A. D. 685).

See SCOTLAND: 7TH CENTURY.

NEERWINDEN, LANDEN, Battle of (1693).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY)

Battle of (1793).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

NEGRITO.

"The term Negrito, i. e. 'Little Negro,' [was] long applied by the Spaniards to the dark dwarfish tribes in the interior of Luzon, and some others of the Philippine Islands. Here it will be extended to the dwarfish negroid tribes in the Andaman Islands and interior of Malacca, but to no others."

_A. H. Keane, Philology and Ethnology of the Interoceanic Races (appendix to Wallace's Hellwald's Australasia), section 4._

NEGRO, The.

See AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.

NEGRO PLOT, Imagined in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1741.

NEGRO SLAVERY.

See SLAVERY: NEGRO.

NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (JANUARY), and (MARCH); and 1868-1870.

NEGRO TROOPS, in the American Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: SOUTH CAROLINA).

NEGROPONT: Start--------

NEGROPONT: The Name.

The ancient island of Eubœa received from the Venetians the name Negropont. "In the middle ages, Eubœa was called Egripo, a corruption of Euripus, the name of the town built upon the ruins of Chalcis. The Venetians, who obtained possession of the island upon the dismemberment of the Byzantine empire by the Latins, called it Negropont, probably a corruption of Egripo, and 'ponte,' a bridge."

_W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography._

NEGROPONT: A. D. 1470. Capture and Massacre by the Turks.

See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.

NEGROPONT: End--------

NEGUS, OR NEGOOS, The.

See ABYSSINIA: 15-19TH CENTURIES.

NEHAVEND, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.