Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/358

Rh 336 MALM E S B U R Y almost surrounded by the Lower Avon, and on a branch of the Great Western Railway, 92 miles west of London. Of the Benedictine house which was founded in the 7th century, and in the reign of Edward III. rose to the dignity of a mitred abbey, little more than the nave and side aisles of the conventual church now remain; this at the dissolution was changed into a parish church, instead of the old church of St Paul s. There are a town- hall, national and endowed schools, and several almshouses. In the market-place there is a richly ornamented octagonal cross supposed to date from the reign of Henry VIII. The industries include the manufacture of ribbons and pillow lace, brewing, and tanning. The population of the town in 1871 was 3142, and of the parliamentary borough (which comprises an area of 21,772 acres, mostly rural) 6879. In 1881 the numbers were 3133 and 6866. Malmcsbury is supposed to have been a British town, and also a Roman settlement. A castle is known to have existed there as early as the 7th century, at which time the monastery was also founded. It received its lirst charter from Edward the Elder, which was confirmed by Athelstan. The charter granted to it by Charles I. has undergone various modifications, and at present it is governed by a high steward, an alderman, and twelve capital burgesses. From the reign of Edward I. the town sent two members to parliament; since the Reform Act of 1832 it has returned only one. During the civil war it was twice captured by the parliamentarians and once by the royalists. Malmesbury is the birthplace of the philo sopher Hobbes. Athelstan was buried at Malmesbury, but the Gothic canopy in the church called his tomb dates from the 16th century. MALMESBURY, JAMES HARRIS, EARL OF (1746-1820), the best-known English diplomatist of the latter half of the 18th century, was born at Salisbury on April 21, 1746. He was the son of JAMES HARRIS (q.v.), the author of Hermes, and, what was important for his son s future success, M.P. for Christchurch, a lord of the- treasury under George Grenville (1763-65), and comptroller to the queen (1774-80). Educated at Winchester, Oxford, and Leyden, the younger Harris was intended for diplomacy. In 1768 he became secretary to the British embassy at Madrid, and in 1770 he was left as charge d affaires at that court on the departure of Sir James Gray until the arrival of George Pitt, afterwards Lord Rivers. This interval gave him his opportunity; he discovered the intention of Spain to attack the Falkland Islands, and was instrumental in thwarting it by putting on a bold countenance. As a reward he was appointed minister ad interim at Madrid, and in January 1772 minister plenipotentiary to the court of Prussia. His success was marked, and in 1776 he was transferred to the court of Russia. At St Petersburg he made his reputation, for he managed to get on with Catherine in spite of her predilections for France, and steered adroitly through the accumulated difficulties of the first Armed Neutrality. In 1782 Sir James Harris (he was now a Knight of the Bath) returned home from ill- health, and was appointed by his friend Fox minister at the Hague, an appointment confirmed after some delay by Pitt, which he took up in July 1784. He did very great service in furthering Pitt s policy of maintaining England s influence on the Continent by the arms of her allies, and held the threads of the diplomacy which ended ia the king of Prussia s overthrowing the republican party in Holland, which was inclined to France, and re-establishing the prince of Orange. He was in recogni tion of his services created Lord Malmesbury of Malmes bury in the county of Wilts, and permitted by the king of Prussia to bear the Prussian eagle on his arms, and by the prince of Orange to use his motto &quot;je maintiendrai.&quot; In 1789 he returned to England, and took an anxious interest in politics, which ended in his seceding from the Whig party with the duke of Portland in 1793, in which year he was sent, but in vain, to try to keep Prussia true to the first coalition against France. In 1794 he was sent to Brunswick to solicit the hand of the unfortunate Princess Caroline for the prince of Wales, to marry her as proxy, and conduct her to her husband in England. In 17 90 and 1797 he was at Paris and Lille vainly negotiating with the French Directory. After 1797 he became partially deaf, and quitted diplomacy altogether; but for his long and eminent services he was in 1800 created earl of Malmesbury, and Viscount Fitzharris, of Heron Court in the county of Hants. He now became a sort of political Nestor, consulted on foreign policy by successive foreign ministers, trusted by men of the most different ideas in political crises, and above all was the confidant, and for a short time after Pitt s death almost the political director, of Canning. Younger men were also wont to go to him for advice, and Lord Palmerston particularly, who was his ward, was tenderly attached to him, and owed many of his ideas on foreign policy directly to his teaching. II is later years were free from politics, and till his death in 1820 he lived very quietly and almost forgotten. As a statesman, Malmesbury had an influence among his contemporaries which is scarcely to be understood from his writings, but which must have owed much to personal charm of manner and persuasiveness of tongue; as a diplomatist, he seems to have deserved his reputation, and shares with Macartney, Auckland, and Whitworth the credit of raising diplomacy from a profession in which only great nobles won the prizes to a career opening the path of honour to ability. Malmesbury did not publish anything himself, except un account of the Dutah revolution, and an edition of his father s works, but his grandson the third earl published four volumes of his diaries and correspondence from 1768-1807, and afterwards two volumes of letters to and from his family and friends. MALMESBURY, WILLIAM OF, an historical writer of the 12th century, the date of whose birth is usually assigned to the year 1095, but may with more probability be placed some twenty years earlier. It may reasonably be con jectured from his own statement (&quot;utriusque gentis sanguinem traho&quot;) that he was the son of a Norman father and an English mother; he undoubtedly represents the fusion of the two races, although his sympathies as a writer are unmistakably on the side of the conquerors. He received his early education at the ancient Benedictine abbey at Malmesbury, and he speaks of Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, the great benefactor and second founder of that house, who died in 709, as his &quot; lord and patron.&quot; to whom he was indebted both for his life and his learning (Gesta Pont., sec. 273). The earliest known incident in his personal history is the fact, which he himself records, that he assisted the abbot Godefrey in collecting books to form the first library of the abbey. William himself subse quently became the librarian, and was also precentor of the abbey; in 1140 he received the offer of the abbacy, an honour which he declined, probably from a desire to secure as much leisure as possible for study. In his later life he w r as honoured by the particular friendship of Robert, earl of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry I., and a distinguished patron of learned men and letters. In politics he was a warm partisan of the empress Matilda against Stephen, and he was present at the council of Winchester convened by her supporters in 1141. His death is supposed to have occurred in or after 1142. Printed Works. William s earliest important work was the Gcsta Rcgum Anglorum, which he dedicated to his patron, the earl of Gloucester. It was originally completed in 1120, but subsequently brought down to 1128. It extends from 449 A.D. to the twenty- eighth year of the reign of Henry I., and is a record of the highest value, preserving from unknown sources numerous facts which woi Id otherwise be lost to us. In 1125 William completed his Gcsta Pontificum Anglorum. He himself tells us that the pro duction of this work cost him especial pains, but that the material for its composition was neither so abundant nor so easily reducible