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ELE within the bar, and made a bencher of his inn. He was returned to parliament in the tory interest for the borough of Weobly, which place he represented through several successive parliaments until 1796, when he was returned with Sir Francis Burdett for Boroughbridge. In 1788 he was appointed solicitor-general, and held the office five years; when, in 1793, he became attorney-general, and so continued until made chief-justice of the court of common pleas in 1799, taking his seat in the house of lords, with the title of Baron Eldon, the name of a manor in Durham which he had bought about five years before. Whilst he was attorney-general, Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Margarott, and Gerald were prosecuted for sedition in Scotland, convicted, and transported for fourteen years. Hardy, Horne Tooke, Thelwall, and others, were indicted by him for high treason. The three named only were tried, but acquitted. He conducted these trials with becoming moderation and good temper, but did not escape odium. Had he indicted them for misdemeanor, the result might have been a conviction, and his popularity have suffered less. He discharged his duty conscientiously, and in the firm belief that the offence was high treason or nothing, which opinion he ever afterwards maintained. During the last thirteen years that he practised at the bar, his income from fees was considerable. In 1785 it was above £6000, and it attained by tolerably regular progression to more than £12,000 in 1796. In the two following years, from some cause or other, he experienced a falling off of nearly £2000 a year, probably arising to some extent from the bad odour in which his state prosecutions involved him, contrasting so unfavourably with the growing popularity of his brilliant rival Erskine. All authorities concur in opinion that the lord chief-justice Eldon was a most accomplished and excellent judge. The despatch required for the discharge of the functions of that office counteracted the disposition to hesitation and delay which he afterwards exhibited, when promoted to the woolsack. He was called upon to take the office of lord chancellor on 14th April, 1801, and was installed on the 22nd. He held the chancellorship until 7th February, 1806, when, on the accession of the whig ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville, he was succeeded by Lord Erskine, but resumed the office April 1, 1807, on the return of his party to power. In 1821 he was raised to the dignities of Viscount Encombe and Earl of Eldon; and, on the 30th April, 1827, he finally resigned his seat on the woolsack, when Mr. Canning became prime minister, and Lord Lyndhurst accepted the great seal. As a lawyer Lord Eldon is entitled to unqualified praise. He was painstaking and anxious to do justice. His dilatory habits, though they tended to bring the court of chancery into disfavour, arose not from indifference or indolence, but from an earnest desire to consider well before pronouncing judgment; and to this extreme care and attention probably the high value and authority attached to his decisions may be attributed, although it is said that when circumstances demanded greater promptitude, his judgments were equally sound and unimpeachable. Lord Eldon was unquestionably a great man, though his long career is not marked by any important measure the credit of which is ascribed to him. It was, however, a period of peculiar difficulty to the holders of responsible offices under the crown. The wayward temper of the king arising from the distressing malady which afflicted him, the wide differences which existed between political parties, and the perplexing questions which were rife during the regency of the prince of Wales, as well as the unsettled state of European affairs, tended greatly to embarrass the government of which he was so active a member, and which he supported with consummate skill. Although a staunch and uncompromising defender of high church and extreme tory principles, Lord Eldon was both sincere and consistent in his character and his prejudices. He died on the 13th January, 1838, and was buried at Kingston on the 26th of that month. A handsome monument to his memory there, adorned by his likeness from the chisel of Chantrey, sets forth all the honours to which he was so deservedly promoted. He was succeeded in his title by his grandson, whose father, John, had died in 1805.—F. J. H.  ELEANOR, Queen of Portugal, daughter of Ferdinand I., king of Arragon, was married in 1428 to the infanta of Portugal, who in 1433 became Edward I., and died in 1438, leaving Eleanor the guardian of his son, Alfonso V., and regent of the kingdom. The late king's brother, the infanta Don John, however, contrived to transfer the regency to another brother, Don Pedro, duke of Coimbra—the queen retaining only the education of her son, then four years old. Her first step was to defy the decree of the states, and continue to exercise the sovereign power; and she so far succeeded, that Don Pedro was forced to leave the court, but he was recalled by a popular insurrection, and the queen was obliged to yield to him the custody of her sons. She retired to the strongholds on the domains of the prior of Crato, and raised a formidable insurrection against the regent. Driven from thence she fled to Castile, and endeavoured to persuade the king, John II., to declare war against Portugal, but his good offices were limited to a fruitless embassy. She rejected the offers of the regent to betroth his daughter to the young king, and to grant the queen a liberal pension. Leaving the court of Castile, she betook herself to Toledo, where she enjoyed the protection of a powerful family. Here she died, February 18, 1445, not without suspicions that she had been poisoned by order of Alvarez de Luna, the constable of Castile, who dreaded her influence over the mind of his sovereign.—F. M. W.  ELEANOR, Queen of Navarre, died at Tudela in 1479. She was the daughter of Juan II. of Arragon, and of Blanche, queen of Navarre, and was in 1436 married to Gaston IV., count of Foix. Her father, passing over his two eldest children, made over to Eleanor the inheritance of the crown; to which, in spite of the reclamation of the rightful heirs, and after several very dark transactions, she succeeded on the death of Juan II. in 1479. The crown, however, which she had so much coveted, was only worn by her for the short space of one month.—R. M., A.  ELEANOR, second queen of Francis I., was born at Louvain in 1498. She was the eldest sister of Charles V., and was eight years old when Philip of Austria, her father, died. She became attached in 1515 to Frederic II., brother of the elector palatine; but in 1519 she was married against her will to Emmanuel, king of Portugal, who expired December 15, 1521, leaving her with two children. Claude, queen of Francis I., having just died, she was married to that prince under a stipulation in the treaty of Cambria, July 4, 1530. On the death of Francis in 1547 without children by her, she retired first to the Low Countries, and then in 1556 to Spain. She died at Talavera, February 18, 1558, and was buried at the Escurial.—T. J.  ELEANOR, Queen of Navarre, daughter of Henry II., was married in 1375 to Charles III., king of Navarre, surnamed the Noble. Her conduct was loose. She quarrelled with her husband, and retired to her native country. Having conspired against her nephew, Henry III. of Castile, she was besieged by him in the castle of Roa, and forced to succumb. To her great disgust she was sent back to her husband, who received her at Tudela in 1395, and treated her with much kindness. When in 1403 he went to France, he appointed her regent. Having borne him eight children, she died at Pampeluna in 1416.—T. J.  ELEANOR, Queen of England, was the elder daughter of William X., count of Poitou, and granddaughter of William IX. of Poitou, who, after his marriage with Philippa, duchess of Guienne, assumed the title of Duke of Aquitaine. Hence she is also known as Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her father's death took place during her childhood, and left her sole heiress to the extensive dominions of her grandfather, who abdicated in her favour in 1137, on her marriage with Louis le Jeune, the heir-apparent to the French crown. Louis VI., the king of France, did not long survive the marriage of his son; and a few months after their union, the youthful duke and duchess of Aquitaine sat together on the throne of France. But Eleanor, who had accustomed herself to the gay and luxurious customs of Provence, found the austere and monkish solemnity of the French court exceedingly distasteful; and as she retained uncontrolled power over her hereditary dominions, she contrived frequently to relieve herself of the disagreeable restraint imposed on her in France, by periodical visits to Aquitaine, where she was greatly beloved. She accompanied Louis to Palestine in the crusade in 1147, taking with her an armed female body-guard, composed of the ladies of the court. The levity of her conduct during this expedition excited the jealousy of the king, who caused her to be narrowly watched after her return to Paris. She obtained a divorce from Louis, March 18, 1152, and six weeks afterwards she was married to Henry Plantagenet, earl of Anjou, who in 1154 ascended the throne of England. From this time till 1173 