Chapter 15

Livesof Sir George Grey have been written by W. L. and L. Rees (1892), Professor G. C. Henderson (1907) and J. Collier (1909).

(W. P. R.)

GREY, HENRY GREY,3rd Earl(1802-1894), English statesman, was born on the 28th of December 1802, the son of the 2nd Earl Grey, prime minister at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832. He entered parliament in 1826, under the title of Viscount Howick, as member for Winchelsea, which constituency he left in 1831 for Northumberland. On the accession of the Whigs to power in 1830 he was made under-secretary for the colonies, and laid the foundation of his intimate acquaintance with colonial questions. He belonged at the time to the more advanced party of colonial reformers, sharing the views of Edward Gibbon Wakefield on questions of land and emigration, and resigned in 1834 from dissatisfaction that slave emancipation was made gradual instead of immediate. In 1835 he entered Lord Melbourne’s cabinet as secretary at war, and effected some valuable administrative reforms, especially by suppressing malpractices detrimental to the troops in India. After the partial reconstruction of the ministry in 1839 he again resigned, disapproving of the more advanced views of some of his colleagues. These repeated resignations gave him a reputation for crotchetiness, which he did not decrease by his disposition to embarrass his old colleagues by his action on free trade questions in the session of 1841. During the exile of the Liberals from power he went still farther on the path of free trade, and anticipated Lord John Russell’s declaration against the corn laws. When, on Sir Robert Peel’s resignation in December 1845, Lord John Russell was called upon to form a ministry, Howick, who had become Earl Grey by the death of his father in the preceding July, refused to enter the new cabinet if Lord Palmerston were foreign secretary (see J. R. Thursfield in vol. i. and Hon. F. H. Baring in vol. xxiii. of theEnglish Historical Review). He was greatly censured for perverseness, and particularly when in the following July he accepted Lord Palmerston as a colleague without remonstrance. His conduct, nevertheless, afforded Lord John Russell an escape from an embarrassing situation. Becoming colonial secretary in 1846, he found himself everywhere confronted with arduous problems, which in the main he encountered with success. His administration formed an epoch. He was the first minister to proclaim that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and not for the mother-country’s; the first systematically to accord them self-government so far as then seemed possible; the first to introduce free trade into their relations with Great Britain and Ireland. The concession by which colonies were allowed to tax imports from the mother-countryad libitumwas not his; he protested against it, but was overruled. In the West Indies he suppressed, if he could not overcome, discontent; in Ceylon he put down rebellion; in New Zealand he suspended the constitution he had himself accorded, and yielded everything into the masterful hands of Sir George Grey. The least successful part of his administration was his treatment of the convict question at the Cape of Good Hope, which seemed an exception to his rule that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and in accordance with their own wishes, and subjected him to a humiliating defeat. After his retirement he wrote a history and defence of his colonial policy in the form of letters to Lord John Russell, a dry but instructive book (Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s Administration, 1853). He resigned with his colleagues in 1852. No room was found for him in the Coalition Cabinet of 1853, and although during the Crimean struggle public opinion pointed to him as the fittest man as minister for war, he never again held office. During the remainder of his long life he exercised a vigilant criticism on public affairs. In 1858 he wrote a work (republished in 1864) on parliamentary reform; in 1888 he wrote another on the state of Ireland; and in 1892 one on the United States tariff. In his latter years he was a frequent contributor of weighty letters toThe Timeson land, tithes, currency and other public questions. His principal parliamentary appearances were when he moved for a committee on Irish affairs in 1866, and when in 1878 he passionately opposed the policy of the Beaconsfield cabinet in India. He nevertheless supported Lord Beaconsfield at the dissolution, regarding Mr Gladstone’s accession to power with much greater alarm. He was a determined opponent of Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule policy. He died on the 9th of October 1894. None ever doubted his capacity or his conscientiousness, but he was generally deemed impracticable and disagreeable. Prince Albert, however, who expressed himself as ready to subscribe to all Grey’s principles, and applauded him for having principles, told Stockmar that, although dogmatic, he was amenable to argument; and Sir Henry Taylor credits him with “more freedom from littlenesses of feeling than I have met before in any public man.” His chief defect was perceived and expressed by his original tutor and subsequent adversary in colonial affairs, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who wrote, “With more than a common talent for understanding principles, he has no originality of thought, which compels him to take all his ideas from somebody; and no power of working out theory in practice, which compels him to be always in somebody’s hands as respects decision and action.”

The earl had no sons, and he was followed as 4th earl by his nephew Albert Henry George (b. 1851), who in 1904 became governor-general of Canada.

GREY, LADY JANE(1537-1554), a lady remarkable no less for her accomplishments than for her misfortunes, was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII. of England. Her descent from that king was traced through a line of females. His second daughter Mary, after being left a widow by Louis XII. of France, married Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, who was a favourite with her brother King Henry VIII. Of this marriage came two daughters, the elder of whom, Lady Frances Brandon, was married to Henry Grey, marquess of Dorset; and their issue, again, consisted of daughters only. Lady Jane, the subject of this article, was the eldest of three whom the marquess had by Lady Frances. Thus it will appear that even if the crown of England had ever fallen into the female line of descent from Henry VII., she could not have put in a rightful claim unless the issue of his elder daughter, Margaret, had become extinct. But Margaret had married James IV. of Scotland; and, though her descendant, James VI., was ultimately called to the English throne, Henry VIII. had placed her family after that of his second sister in the succession; so that, failing the lawful issue of Henry himself, Lady Jane would, according to this arrangement, have succeeded. It was to these circumstances that she owed her exceptional position in history, and became the victim of an ambition which was not her own.

She was born at her father’s seat named Bradgate in Leicestershire about the year 1537. Her parents, though severe disciplinarians, bestowed more than ordinary care upon her education, and she herself was so teachable and delighted so much in study that she became the marvel of the age for her acquirements. She not only excelled in needlework and in music, both vocal and instrumental, but while still very young she had thoroughly mastered Latin, Greek, French and Italian. She was able to speak and write both Greek and Latin with an accuracy that satisfied even such critics as Ascham and her tutor Dr Aylmer, afterwards bishop of London. She also acquired some knowledge of at least three Oriental tongues, Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic. In Ascham’sSchoolmasteris given a touching account of the devotion with which she pursued her studies and the harshness she experienced from her parents. The love of learning was her solace; in reading Demosthenes and Plato she found a refuge from domestic unhappiness. When about ten years old she was placed for a time in the household of Thomas, Lord Seymour, who, having obtained her wardship, induced her parents to let her stay with him, even after the death of his wife, QueenCatherine Parr, by promising to marry her to his nephew, King Edward VI. Lord Seymour, however, was attainted of high treason and beheaded in 1549, and his brother, the duke of Somerset, made some overtures to the marquess of Dorset to marry her to his son the earl of Hertford. These projects, however, came to nothing. The duke of Somerset in his turn fell a victim to the ambition of Dudley, duke of Northumberland, and was beheaded three years after his brother. Meanwhile, the dukedom of Suffolk having become extinct by the deaths of Charles Brandon and his two sons, the title was conferred upon the marquess of Dorset, Lady Jane’s father. Northumberland, who was now all-powerful, fearing a great reverse of fortune in case of the king’s death, as his health began visibly to decline, endeavoured to strengthen himself by marriages between his family and those of other powerful noblemen, especially of the new-made duke of Suffolk. His three eldest sons being already married, the fourth, who was named Lord Guilford Dudley, was accordingly wedded to Lady Jane Grey about the end of May 1553. The match received the full approval of the king, who furnished the wedding apparel of the parties by royal warrant. But Edward’s state of health warned Northumberland that he must lose no time in putting the rest of his project into execution. He persuaded the king that if the crown should descend to his sister Mary the work of the Reformation would be undone and the liberties of the kingdom would be in danger. Besides, both Mary and her sister Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate by separate acts of parliament, and the objections to Mary queen of Scots did not require to be pointed out. Edward was easily persuaded to break through his father’s will and make a new settlement of the crown by deed. The document was witnessed by the signatures of all the council and of all but one of the judges; but those of the latter body were obtained only with difficulty by threats and intimidation.

Edward VI. died on the 6th July 1553, and it was announced to Lady Jane that she was queen. She was then but sixteen years of age. The news came upon her as a most unwelcome surprise, and for some time she resisted all persuasions to accept the fatal dignity; but at length she yielded to the entreaties of her father, her father-in-law and her husband. The better to mature their plans the cabal had kept the king’s death secret for some days, but they proclaimed Queen Jane in the city on the 10th. The people received the announcement with manifest coldness, and a vintner’s boy was even so bold as to raise a cry for Queen Mary, for which he next day had his ears nailed to the pillory and afterwards cut off. Mary, however, had received early intimation of her brother’s death, and, retiring from Hunsdon into Norfolk, gathered round her the nobility and commons of those parts. Northumberland was despatched thither with an army to oppose her; but after reaching Newmarket he complained that the council had not sent him forces in sufficient numbers and his followers began to desert. News also came that the earl of Oxford had declared for Queen Mary; and as most of the council themselves were only seeking an opportunity to wash their hands of rebellion, they procured a meeting at Baynard’s Castle, revoked their former acts as done under coercion, and caused the lord mayor to proclaim Queen Mary, which he did amid the shouts of the citizens. The duke of Suffolk was obliged to tell his daughter that she must lay aside her royal dignity and become a private person once more. She replied that she relinquished most willingly a crown that she had only accepted out of obedience to him and her mother, and her nine days’ reign was over.

The leading actors in the conspiracy were now called to answer for their deeds. Northumberland was brought up to London a prisoner, tried and sent to the block, along with some of his partisans. The duke of Suffolk and Lady Jane were also committed to the Tower; but the former, by the influence of his duchess, procured a pardon. Lady Jane and her husband Lord Guilford Dudley were also tried, and received sentence of death for treason. This, however, was not immediately carried out; on the contrary, the queen seems to have wished to spare their lives and mitigated the rigour of their confinement. Unfortunately, owing to the general dislike of the queen’s marriage with Philip of Spain, Sir Thomas Wyat soon after raised a rebellion in which the duke of Suffolk and his brothers took part, and on its suppression the queen was persuaded that it was unsafe to spare the lives of Lady Jane and her husband any longer. On hearing that they were to die, Lady Jane declined a parting interview with her husband lest it should increase their pain, and prepared to meet her fate with Christian fortitude. She and her husband were executed on the same day, on the 12th of February 1554, her husband on Tower Hill, and herself within the Tower an hour afterwards, amidst universal sympathy and compassion.

See Ascham’sSchoolmaster; Burnet’sHistory of the Reformation; Howard’sLady Jane Grey; Nicolas’s LiteraryRemains of Lady Jane Grey; Tytler’sEngland under Edward VI. and Mary;The Chronicles of Queen Jane, ed. J. G. Nichols;The Accession of Queen Mary(Guaras’s narrative), ed. R. Garnett (1892); Foxe’sActs and Monuments.

GREY DE WILTONandGrey de Ruthyn. The first Baron Grey de Wilton was Reginald de Grey, who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1295 and who died in 1308. Reginald’s son John, the 2nd baron (1268-1323), was one of the lords ordainers in 1310 and was a prominent figure in English politics during the reign of Edward II. The later barons Grey de Wilton were descended from John’s eldest son Henry (d. 1342), while a younger son Roger (d. 1353) was the ancestor of the barons Grey de Ruthyn.

William, 13th Lord Grey de Wilton(d. 1562), who succeeded to the title on the death of his brother Richard, about 1520, won great fame as a soldier by his conduct in France during the concluding years of Henry VIII.’s reign, and was one of the leaders of the victorious English army at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. He was then employed on the Scottish marches and in Scotland, and in 1549 he rendered good service in suppressing the rebellion in Oxfordshire and in the west of England; in 1551 he was imprisoned as a friend of the fallen protector, the duke of Somerset, and he was concerned in the attempt made by John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, to place Lady Jane Grey on the English throne In 1553. However, he was pardoned by Queen Mary and was entrusted with the defence of Guînes. Although indifferently supported he defended the town with great gallantry, but in January 1558 he was forced to surrender and for some time he remained a prisoner in France. Under Elizabeth, Grey was again employed on the Scottish border, and he was responsible for the pertinacious but unavailing attempt to capture Leith in May 1560. He died at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire on the 14th/25th of December 1562.

He was described by William Cecil as “a noble, valiant, painful and careful gentleman,” and his son and successor, Arthur, wroteA Commentary of the Services and Charges of William, Lord Grey of Wilton, K.G.This has been edited by Sir P. de M. Grey Egerton for the Camden Society (1847).

Grey’s elder sonArthur, 14th Lord Grey de Wilton(1536-1593), was during early life with his father in France and in Scotland; he fought at the battle of St Quentin and helped to defend Guînes and to assault Leith. In July 1580 he was appointed lord deputy of Ireland, and after an initial defeat in Wicklow was successful in reducing many of the rebels to a temporary submission. Perhaps the most noteworthy event during his tenure of this office was the massacre of 600 Italians and Spaniards at Smerwick in November 1580, an action for which he was responsible. Having incurred a heavy burden of debt Grey frequently implored the queen to recall him, and in August 1582 he was allowed to return to England (see E. Spenser,View of the State of Ireland, edited by H. Morley, 1890, and R. Bagwell,Ireland under the Tudors, vol. iii., 1890). While in Ireland Grey was served as secretary by Edmund Spenser, and in book v. of theFaerie Queenethe poet represents his patron as a knight of very noble qualities named Artegall. As one of the commissioners who tried Mary queen of Scots, Grey defended the action of Elizabeth’s secretary, William Davison, with regard to this matter, and he took part in the preparations for the defence of England against the Spaniards in 1588. Hisaccount of the defence of Guînes was used by Holinshed in hisChronicles.

When he died on the 14th of October 1593 he was succeeded as 15th baron by his sonThomas(d. 1614), who while serving in Ireland incurred the enmity of Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, and of Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton; and after fighting against Spain in the Netherlands he was a member of the court which sentenced these two noblemen to death in 1601. On the accession of James I. he was arrested for his share in the “Bye” plot, an attempt made by William Watson and others to seize the king. He was tried and sentenced to death, but the sentence was not carried out and he remained in prison until his death on the 9th of July 1614. He displayed both ability and courage at his trial, remarking after sentence had been passed, “the house of Wilton hath spent many lives in their prince’s service and Grey cannot beg his.” Like his father Grey was a strong Puritan. He left no children and his barony became extinct.

In 1784 Sir Thomas Egerton, Bart., a descendant in the female line of the 14th baron, was created Baron Grey de Wilton. He died without sons in September 1814, when his barony became extinct; but the titles of Viscount Grey de Wilton and earl of Wilton, which had been conferred upon him in 1801, passed to Thomas Grosvenor (1799-1882), the second son of his daughter Eleanor (d. 1846); and her husband Robert Grosvenor, 1st marquess of Westminster. Thomas took the name of Egerton and his descendants still hold the titles.

Roger Grey, 1st Baron Grey de Ruthyn, who was summoned to parliament as a baron in 1324, saw much service as a soldier before his death on the 6th of March 1353. The second baron was his son Reginald, whose sonReginald(c.1362-1440) succeeded to the title on his father’s death in July 1388. In 1410 after a long dispute the younger Reginald won the right to bear the arms of the Hastings family. He enjoyed the favour both of Richard II. and Henry IV., and his chief military exploits were against the Welsh, who took him prisoner in 1402 and only released him upon payment of a heavy ransom. Grey was a member of the council which governed England during the absence of Henry V. in France in 1415; he fought in the French wars in 1420 and 1421 and died on the 30th of September 1440. His eldest son, Sir John Grey, K.G. (d. 1439), who predeceased his father, fought at Agincourt and was deputy of Ireland in 1427. He was the father ofEdmund Grey(d. 1489), who succeeded his grandfather as Lord Grey de Ruthyn in 1440 and was created earl of Kent in 1465.

One of Reginald Grey’s younger sons, Edward (1415-1457), succeeded his maternal grandfather as Baron Ferrers of Groby in 1445. He was the ancestor of the earls of Stamford and also of the Greys, marquesses of Dorset and dukes of Suffolk.The barony of Grey de Ruthyn was merged in the earldom of Kent until the death of Henry, the 8th earl, in November 1639. It then devolved upon Kent’s nephew Charles Longueville (1612-1643), through whose daughter Susan (d. 1676) it came to the family of Yelverton, who were earls of Sussex from 1717 to 1799. The next holder was Henry Edward Gould (1780-1810), a grandson of Henry Yelverton, earl of Sussex; and through Gould’s daughter Barbara, marchioness of Hastings (d. 1858), it passed to the last marquess of Hastings, on whose death in 1868 the barony fell into abeyance, this being terminated in 1885 in favour of Hastings’s sister Bertha (d. 1887), the wife of Augustus Wykeham Clifton. Their son, Rawdon George Grey Clifton (b. 1858), succeeded his mother as 24th holder of the barony.

The barony of Grey de Ruthyn was merged in the earldom of Kent until the death of Henry, the 8th earl, in November 1639. It then devolved upon Kent’s nephew Charles Longueville (1612-1643), through whose daughter Susan (d. 1676) it came to the family of Yelverton, who were earls of Sussex from 1717 to 1799. The next holder was Henry Edward Gould (1780-1810), a grandson of Henry Yelverton, earl of Sussex; and through Gould’s daughter Barbara, marchioness of Hastings (d. 1858), it passed to the last marquess of Hastings, on whose death in 1868 the barony fell into abeyance, this being terminated in 1885 in favour of Hastings’s sister Bertha (d. 1887), the wife of Augustus Wykeham Clifton. Their son, Rawdon George Grey Clifton (b. 1858), succeeded his mother as 24th holder of the barony.

GREYMOUTH,a seaport of New Zealand, the principal port on the west coast of South Island, in Grey county. Pop. (1906) 4569. It stands on the small estuary of the Grey or Mawhera river, has a good harbour, and railway communication with Hokitika, Reefton, &c., while the construction of a line to connect with Christchurch and Nelson was begun in 1887. The district is both auriferous and coal-bearing. Gold-dredging is a rich industry, and the coal-mines have attendant industries in coke, bricks and fire-clay. The timber trade is also well developed. The neighbouring scenery is picturesque, especially among the hills surrounding Lake Brunner (15 m. S.E.).

GREYTOWN(San Juan del Norte), the principal seaport on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, in the extreme south-eastern corner of the republic, and at the mouth of the northern channel of the San Juan river delta. Pop. (1905) about 2500. The town occupies the seaward side of a narrow peninsula, formed by the windings of the river. Most of its houses are raised on piles 2 or 3 ft. above the ground. The neighbourhood is unhealthy and unsuited for agriculture, so that almost all food-stuffs must be imported, and the cost of living is high. Greytown has suffered severely from the accumulation of sand in its once fine harbour. Between 1832 and 1848 Point Arenas, the seaward end of the peninsula, was enlarged by a sandbank more than 1 m. long; between 1850 and 1875 the depth of water over the bar decreased from about 25 ft. to 5 ft., and the entrance channel, which had been nearly ½ m. wide, was almost closed. Subsequent attempts to improve the harbour by dredging and building jetties have only had partial success; but Greytown remains the headquarters of Nicaraguan commerce with Europe and eastern America. The village called America, 1 m. N., was built as the eastern terminus of a proposed interoceanic canal.

The harbour of San Juan, discovered by Columbus, was brought into further notice by Captain Diego Machuca, who in 1529 sailed down the river from Lake Nicaragua. The date of the first Spanish settlement on the spot is not known, but in the 17th century there were fortifications at the mouth of the river. In 1796 San Juan was made a port of entry by royal charter, and new defences were erected in 1821. In virtue of the protectorate claimed by Great Britain over the Mosquito Coast (q.v.), the Mosquito Indians, aided by a British force, seized the town in 1848 and occupied it until 1860, when Great Britain ceded its protectorate to Nicaragua by the treaty of Managua. This treaty secured religious liberty and trial by jury for all civil and criminal charges in Greytown; its seventh article declared the port free, but was never enforced.

GREYWACKE,orGrauwacke(a German word signifying a grey earthy rock), the designation, formerly more generally used by English geologists than at the present day, for impure, highly composite, gritty rocks belonging to the Palaeozoic systems. They correspond to the sandstones, grits and fine conglomerates of the later periods. Greywackes are mostly grey, brown, yellow or black, dull-coloured, sandy rocks which may occur in thick or thin beds along with slates, limestones, &c., and are abundant in Wales, the south of Scotland and the Lake district of England. They contain a very great variety of minerals, of which the principal are quartz, orthoclase and plagioclase, calcite, iron oxides and graphitic carbonaceous matters, together with (in the coarser kinds) fragments of such rocks as felsite, chert, slate, gneiss, various schists, quartzite. Among other minerals found in them are biotite and chlorite, tourmaline, epidote, apatite, garnet, hornblende and augite, sphene, pyrites. The cementing material may be siliceous or argillaceous, and is sometimes calcareous. As a rule greywackes are not fossiliferous, but organic remains may be common in the finer beds associated with them. Their component particles are usually not much rounded by attrition, and the rocks have often been considerably indurated by pressure and mineral changes, such as the introduction of interstitial silica. In some districts the greywackes are cleaved, but they show phenomena of this kind much less perfectly than the slates. Although the group is so diverse that it is difficult to characterize mineralogically, it has a well-established place in petrographical classifications, because these peculiar composite arenaceous deposits are very frequent among Silurian and Cambrian rocks, and rarely occur in Secondary or Tertiary systems. Their essential features are their gritty character and their complex composition. By increasing metamorphism greywackes frequently pass into mica-schists, chloride schists and sedimentary gneisses.

(J. S. F.)

GRIBEAUVAL, JEAN BAPTISTE DE(1715-1789), French artillery general, was the son of a magistrate of Amiens and was born there on the 15th of September 1715. He entered the French royal artillery in 1732 as a volunteer, and became an officer in 1735. For nearly twenty years regimental duty and scientific work occupied him, and in 1752 he became captain of a company of miners. A few years later he was employed in a military mission in Prussia. In 1757, being then a lieutenant-colonel,he was lent to the Austrian army on the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War, and served as a general officer of artillery. The siege of Glatz and the defence of Schweidnitz were his principal exploits. The empress Maria Theresa rewarded him for his work with the rank of lieutenant field-marshal and the cross of the Maria Theresa order. On his return to France he was mademaréchal de camp, in 1764 inspector of artillery, and in 1765 lieutenant-general and commander of the order of St Louis. For some years after this he was in disfavour at court, and he became first inspector of artillery only in 1776, in which year also he received the grand cross of the St Louis order. He was now able to carry out the reforms in the artillery arm which are his chief title to fame. SeeArtillery; and for full details Gribeauval’s ownTable des constructions des principaux attirails de l’artillerie ... de M. de Gribeauval, and therèglementfor the French artillery issued in 1776. He died in 1789.

See Puységur inJournal de Paris, supplement of the 8th of July 1789; Chevalier de Passac,Précis sur M. de Gribeauval(Paris, 1816); Veyrines,Gribeauval(Paris, 1889), and Hennébert,Gribeauval, lieutenant-général des armées du roy(Paris, 1896).

GRIBOYEDOV, ALEXANDER SERGUEEVICH(1795-1829), Russian dramatic author, was born in 1795 at Moscow, where he studied at the university from 1810 to 1812. He then obtained a commission in a hussar regiment, but resigned it in 1816. Next year he entered the civil service, and in 1818 was appointed secretary of the Russian legation in Persia, whence he was transferred to Georgia. He had commenced writing early, and had produced on the stage at St Petersburg in 1816 a comedy in verse, translated from the French, calledThe Young Spouses, which was followed by other pieces of the same kind. But neither these nor the essays and verses which he wrote would have been long remembered but for the immense success gained by his comedy in verse,Goré ot uma, or “Misfortune from Intelligence” (Eng. trans. by N. Benardaky, 1857). A satire upon Russian society, or, as a high official styled it, “A pasquinade on Moscow,” its plot is slight, its merits consisting in its accurate representation of certain social and official types—such as Famousoff, the lover of old abuses, the hater of reforms; his secretary, Molchanin, servile fawner upon all in office; the aristocratic young liberal and Anglomaniac, Repetiloff; contrasted with whom is the hero of the piece, Tchatsky, the ironical satirist, just returned from the west of Europe, who exposes and ridicules the weaknesses of the rest, his words echoing that outcry of the young generation of 1820 which reached its climax in the military insurrection of 1825, and was then sternly silenced by Nicholas. Griboyedov spent the summer of 1823 in Russia, completed his play and took it to St Petersburg. There it was rejected by the censorship. Many copies were made and privately circulated, but Griboyedov never saw it published. The first edition was printed in 1833, four years after his death. Only once did he see it on the stage, when it was acted by the officers of the garrison at Erivan. Soured by disappointment he returned to Georgia, made himself useful by his linguistic knowledge to his relative Count Paskievitch-Erivansky during a campaign against Persia, and was sent to St Petersburg with the treaty of 1828. Brilliantly received there, he thought of devoting himself to literature, and commenced a romantic drama,A Georgian Night. But he was suddenly sent to Persia as minister-plenipotentiary. Soon after his arrival at Teheran a tumult arose, caused by the anger of the populace against some Georgian and Armenian captives—Russian subjects—who had taken refuge in the Russian embassy. It was stormed, Griboyedov was killed (February 11, 1829), and his body was for three days so ill-treated by the mob that it was at last recognized only by an old scar on the hand, due to a wound received in a duel. It was taken to Tiflis, and buried in the monastery of St David. There amonumentwas erected to his memory by his widow, to whom he had been but a few months married.

GRIEG, EDVARD HAGERUP(1843-1907), Norwegian musical composer, was born on the 15th of June 1843 in Bergen, where his father, Alexander Grieg (sic), was English consul. The Grieg family were of Scottish origin, but the composer’s grandfather, a supporter of the Pretender, left his home at Aberdeen after Charles Edward’s defeat at Culloden, and went to Bergen, where he carried on business. The composer’s mother, Gesine Hagerup, belonged to a pure Norwegian peasant family; and it is from the mother rather than from the father that Edvard Grieg derived his musical talent. She had been educated as a pianist and began to give her son lessons on the pianoforte when he was six years of age. His first composition, “Variations on a German melody,” was written at the age of nine. A summer holiday in Norway with his father in 1858 seems to have exercised a powerful influence on the child’s musical imagination, which was easily kindled at the sight of mountain and fjord. In the autumn of the same year, at the recommendation of Ole Bull, young Grieg entered the Leipzig Conservatorium, where he passed, like all his contemporaries, under the influence of the Mendelssohn and Schumann school of romantics. But the curriculum of academic study was too narrow for him. He dreamed half his time away and overworked during the other half. In 1862 he completed his Leipzig studies, and appeared as pianist and composer before his fellow-citizens of Bergen. In 1863 he studied in Copenhagen for a short time with Gade and Emil Hartmann, both composers representing a sentimental strain of Scandinavian temperament, from which Grieg emancipated himself in favour of the harder inspiration of Richard Nordraak. “The scales fell from my eyes,” says Grieg of his acquaintance with Nordraak. “For the first time I learned through him to know the northern folk tunes and my own nature. We made a pact to combat the effeminate Gade-Mendelssohn mixture of Scandinavism, and boldly entered upon the new path along which the northern school at present pursues its course.” Grieg now made a kind of crusade in favour of national music. In the winter of 1864-1865 he founded the Copenhagen concert-society Euterpe, which was intended to produce the works of young Norwegian composers. During the winters of 1865-1866 and 1869-1870 Grieg was in Rome. In the autumn of 1866 he settled in Christiania, where from 1867 till 1880 he conducted a musical union. From 1880 to 1882 he directed the concerts of the Harmonic Society in Bergen. In 1872 the Royal Musical Academy of Sweden made Grieg a member; in 1874 the Norwegian Storthing granted him an annual stipend of 1600 kronen. He had already been decorated with the Olaf order in 1873. In 1888 he played his pianoforte concerto and conducted his “two melodies for strings” at a Philharmonic concert in London, and visited England again in 1891, 1894 and 1896, receiving the degree of Mus.D. from the university of Cambridge in 1894. He died at Bergen on the 4th of September 1907.

As a composer Grieg’s distinguishing quality is lyrical. Whether his orchestral works or his songs or his best pianoforte works are submitted to examination, it is almost always the note of song that tells. Sometimes, as in the music to Ibsen’sPeer Gynt, or in the suite for stringed orchestra,Aus Holbergs Zeit, this characteristic is combined with a strong power for raising pictures in the listener’s mind, and the romantic “programme” tendency in Grieg’s music becomes clearer the farther writers like Richard Strauss carry this movement. Grieg’s songs may be said to be generally the more spontaneous the more closely they conform to the simple model of theVolkslied; yet the much sung “Ich liebe dich” is a song of a different kind, which has hardly ever been surpassed for the perfection with which it depicts a strong momentary emotion, and it is difficult to ascribe greater merits to songs of Grieg even so characteristic as “Solvejg’s Lied” and “Ein Schwan.” The pianoforte concerto is brilliant and spontaneous; it has been performed by most pianists of the first rank, but its essential qualities and the pure nationality of its themes have been brought out to their perfection by one player only—the Norwegian pianist Knudsen. The first and second of Grieg’s violin sonatas are agreeable, so free and artless is the flow of their melody. In his numerous piano pieces and in those of his songs which are devoid of a definitely national inspiration the impression made is less permanent. Bülow called Grieg the “Chopin of the North.” The phrase is an exaggeration rather than an expression of the truth, forthe range of the appeal in Chopin is far wider, nor has the national movement inaugurated by Grieg shown promise of great development. He is rather to be regarded as the pioneer of a musical mission which has been perfectly carried out by himself alone.

See La Mara,Edvard Grieg(Leipzig, 1898).

GRIESBACH, JOHANN JAKOB(1745-1812), German biblical critic, was born at Butzbach, a small town of Hesse-Darmstadt, where his father, Konrad Kaspar (1705-1777), was pastor, on the 4th of January 1745. He was educated at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and at the universities of Tübingen, Leipzig and Halle, where he became one of J. S. Semler’s most ardent disciples. It was Semler who induced him to turn his attention to the textual criticism of the New Testament. At the close of his undergraduate career he undertook a literary tour through Germany, Holland, France and England. On his return to Halle, he acted for some time asPrivatdozent, but in 1773 was appointed to a professorial chair; in 1775 he was translated to Jena, where the rest of his life was spent (though he received calls to other universities). He died on the 24th of March 1812. Griesbach’s fame rests upon his work in New Testament criticism, in which he inaugurated a new epoch.

His critical edition of the New Testament first appeared at Halle, in three volumes, in 1774-1775. The first volume contained the first three Gospels, synoptically arranged; the second, the Epistles and the book of Revelation. All the historical books were reprinted in one volume in 1777, the synoptical arrangement of the Gospels having been abandoned as inconvenient. Of the second edition, considerably enlarged and improved, the first volume appeared in 1796 and the second in 1806 (Halle and London). Of a third edition, edited by David Schulz, only the first volume, containing the four Gospels, appeared (1827).For the construction of his critical text Griesbach took as his basis the Elzevir edition. Where he differed from it he placed the Elzevir reading on the inner margin along with other readings he thought worthy of special consideration (these last, however, being printed in smaller type). To all the readings on this margin he attached special marks indicating the precise degree of probability in his opinion attaching to each. In weighing these probabilities he proceeded upon a particular theory which in its leading features he had derived from J. A. Bengel and J. S. Semler, dividing all the MSS. into three main groups—the Alexandrian, the Western and the Byzantine (seeBible:New Testament, “Textual Criticism”). A reading supported by only one recension he considered as having only one witness in its favour; those readings which were supported by all the three recensions, or even by two of them, especially if these two were the Alexandrian and the Western, he unhesitatingly accepted as genuine. Only when each of the three recensions gives a different reading does he proceed to discuss the question on other grounds. See hisSymbolae criticae ad supplendas et corrigendas variarum N.T. lectionum collectiones(Halle, 1785, 1793), and hisCommentarius criticus in textum Graecum N.T., which extends to the end of Mark, and discusses the more important various readings with great care and thoroughness (Jena, 1794 ff.). Among the other works of Griesbach (which are comparatively unimportant) may be mentioned his university thesisDe codicibus quatuor evangelistarum Origenianis(Halle, 1771) and a work upon systematic theology (Anleitung zur Kenntniss der populären Dogmatik, Jena, 1779). HisOpuscula, consisting chiefly of university “Programs” and addresses, were edited by Gabler (2 vols., Jena, 1824).See the article in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie, and theAllgemeine deutsche Biographie.

For the construction of his critical text Griesbach took as his basis the Elzevir edition. Where he differed from it he placed the Elzevir reading on the inner margin along with other readings he thought worthy of special consideration (these last, however, being printed in smaller type). To all the readings on this margin he attached special marks indicating the precise degree of probability in his opinion attaching to each. In weighing these probabilities he proceeded upon a particular theory which in its leading features he had derived from J. A. Bengel and J. S. Semler, dividing all the MSS. into three main groups—the Alexandrian, the Western and the Byzantine (seeBible:New Testament, “Textual Criticism”). A reading supported by only one recension he considered as having only one witness in its favour; those readings which were supported by all the three recensions, or even by two of them, especially if these two were the Alexandrian and the Western, he unhesitatingly accepted as genuine. Only when each of the three recensions gives a different reading does he proceed to discuss the question on other grounds. See hisSymbolae criticae ad supplendas et corrigendas variarum N.T. lectionum collectiones(Halle, 1785, 1793), and hisCommentarius criticus in textum Graecum N.T., which extends to the end of Mark, and discusses the more important various readings with great care and thoroughness (Jena, 1794 ff.). Among the other works of Griesbach (which are comparatively unimportant) may be mentioned his university thesisDe codicibus quatuor evangelistarum Origenianis(Halle, 1771) and a work upon systematic theology (Anleitung zur Kenntniss der populären Dogmatik, Jena, 1779). HisOpuscula, consisting chiefly of university “Programs” and addresses, were edited by Gabler (2 vols., Jena, 1824).

See the article in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie, and theAllgemeine deutsche Biographie.

GRIESBACH,a watering-place in the grand duchy of Baden, in the valley of the Rench, 1550 ft. above the sea, 6 m. W. from Freudenstadt in Württemberg. It is celebrated for its saline chalybeate waters (twelve springs), which are specific in cases of anaemia, feminine disorders and diseases of the nervous system, and were used in the 16th century. The annual number of visitors is nearly 2000. Pop. (1900) 800. From 1665 to 1805 Griesbach was part of the bishopric of Strassburg.

See Haberer,Die Renchbäder Petersthal und Griesbach(Würzburg, 1866).

GRIFFE(French for “claw”), an architectural term for the spur, an ornament carved at the angle of the square base of columns.

GRIFFENFELDT, PEDER,Count(Peder Schumacher) (1635-1699), Danish statesman, was born at Copenhagen on the 24th of August 1635, of a wealthy trading family connected with the leading civic, clerical and learned circles in the Danish capital. His tutor, Jens Vorde, who prepared him in his eleventh year for the university, praises his extraordinary gifts, his mastery of the classical languages and his almost disquieting diligence. The brilliant way in which he sustained his preliminary examination won him the friendship of the examiner, Bishop Jasper Brokman, at whose palace he first met Frederick III. The king was struck with the lad’s bright grey eyes and pleasant humorous face; and Brokman, proud of his pupil, made him translate a chapter from a Hebrew Bible first into Latin and then into Danish, for the entertainment of the scholarly monarch. In 1654 young Schumacher went abroad for eight years, to complete his education. From Germany he proceeded to the Netherlands, staying at Leiden, Utrecht and Amsterdam, and passing in 1657 to Queen’s College, Oxford, where he lived three years. The epoch-making events which occurred in England, while he was at Oxford, profoundly interested him, and coinciding with the Revolution in Denmark, which threw open a career to the middle classes, convinced him that his proper sphere was politics. In the autumn of 1660 Schumacher visited Paris, shortly after Mazarin’s death, when the young Louis XIV. first seized the reins of power. Schumacher seems to have been profoundly impressed by the administrative superiority of a strong centralised monarchy in the hands of an energetic monarch who knew his own mind; and, in politics, as in manners, France ever afterwards was his model. The last year of his travels was spent in Spain, where he obtained a thorough knowledge of the Castilian language and literature. His travels, however, if they enriched his mind, relaxed his character, and he brought home easy morals as well as exquisite manners.

On his return to Copenhagen, in 1662, Schumacher found the monarchy established on the ruins of the aristocracy, and eager to buy the services of every man of the middle classes who had superior talents to offer. Determined to make his way in this “new Promised Land,” the young adventurer contrived to secure the protection of Kristoffer Gabel, the king’s confidant, and in 1663 was appointed the royal librarian. A romantic friendship with the king’s bastard, Count Ulric Frederick Gyldenlöve, consolidated his position. In 1665 Schumacher obtained his first political post as the king’s secretary, and the same year composed the memorableKongelov(seeDenmark:History). He was now a personage at court, where he won all hearts by his amiability and gaiety; and in political matters also his influence was beginning to be felt.

On the death of Frederick III. (February 9th, 1670) Schumacher was the most trusted of all the royal counsellors. He alone was aware of the existence of the new throne of walrus ivory embellished with three silver life-size lions, and of the new regalia, both of which treasures he had, by the king’s command, concealed in a vault beneath the royal castle. Frederick III. had also confided to him a sealed packet containing theKongelov, which was to be delivered to his successor alone. Schumacher had been recommended to his son by Frederick III. on his death-bed. “Make him a great man, but do it slowly!” said Frederick, who thoroughly understood the characters of his son and of his minister. Christian V. was, moreover, deeply impressed by the confidence which his father had ever shown to Schumacher. When, on the 9th of February 1670, Schumacher delivered theKongelovto Christian V., the king bade all those about him withdraw, and after being closeted a good hour with Schumacher, appointed him his “Obergeheimesekreter.” His promotion was now almost disquietingly rapid. In May 1670 he received the titles of excellency and privy councillor; in July of the same year he was ennobled under the name of Griffenfeldt, deriving his title from the gold griffin with outspread wings which surmounted his escutcheon; in November 1673 he was created a count, a knight of the Elephant and, finally, imperial chancellor. In the course of the next few months he gathered into his hands every branch of the government: he had reached the apogee of his short-lived greatness.

But if his offices were manifold, so also were his talents. Seldom has any man united so many and such various gifts in his own person and carried them so easily—a playful wit, a vivid imagination, oratorical and literary eloquence and, above all, a profound knowledge of human nature both male and female,of every class and rank, from the king to the meanest citizen. He had captivated the accomplished Frederick III. by his literary graces and ingenious speculations; he won the obtuse and ignorant Christian V. by saving him trouble, by acting and thinking for him, and at the same time making him believe that he was thinking and acting for himself. Moreover, his commanding qualities were coupled with an organizing talent which made itself felt in every department of the state, and with a marvellous adaptability which made him an ideal diplomatist.

On the 25th of May 1671 the dignities of count and baron were introduced into Denmark “to give lustre to the court”; a few months later the order of the Danebrog was instituted as a fresh means of winning adherents by marks of favour. Griffenfeldt was the originator of these new institutions. To him monarchy was the ideal form of government. But he had also a political object. The aristocracy of birth, despite its reverses, still remained the élite of society; and Griffenfeldt, the son of a burgess as well as the protagonist of monarchy, was its most determined enemy. The new baronies and countships, owing their existence entirely to the crown, introduced a strong solvent into aristocratic circles. Griffenfeldt saw that, in future, the first at court would be the first everywhere. Much was also done to promote trade and industry, notably by the revival of theKammer Kollegium, or board of trade, and the abolition of some of the most harmful monopolies. Both the higher and the provincial administrations were thoroughly reformed with the view of making them more centralized and efficient; and the positions and duties of the various magistrates, who now also received fixed salaries, were for the first time exactly defined. But what Griffenfeldt could create, Griffenfeldt could dispense with, and it was not long before he began to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the new departments of state by private conferences with their chiefs. Nevertheless it is indisputable that, under the single direction of this master-mind, the Danish state was now able, for a time, to utilize all its resources as it had never done before.

In the last three years of his administration, Griffenfeldt gave himself entirely to the conduct of the foreign policy of Denmark. It is difficult to form a clear idea of this, first, because his influence was perpetually traversed by opposite tendencies; in the second place, because the force of circumstances compelled him, again and again, to shift his standpoint; and finally because personal considerations largely intermingled with his foreign policy, and made it more elusive and ambiguous than it need have been. Briefly, Griffenfeldt aimed at restoring Denmark to the rank of a great power. He proposed to accomplish this by carefully nursing her resources, and in the meantime securing and enriching her by alliances, which would bring in large subsidies while imposing a minimum of obligations. Such a conditional and tentative policy, on the part of a second-rate power, in a period of universal tension and turmoil, was most difficult; but Griffenfeldt did not regard it as impossible. The first postulate of such a policy was peace, especially peace with Denmark’s most dangerous neighbour, Sweden. The second postulate was a sound financial basis, which he expected the wealth of France to supply in the shape of subsidies to be spent on armaments. Above all things Denmark was to beware of making enemies of France and Sweden at the same time. An alliance, on fairly equal terms, between the three powers, would, in these circumstances, be the consummation of Griffenfeldt’s “system”; an alliance with France to the exclusion of Sweden would be the next best policy; but an alliance between France and Sweden, without the admission of Denmark, was to be avoided at all hazards. Had Griffenfeldt’s policy succeeded, Denmark might have recovered her ancient possessions to the south and east comparatively cheaply. But again and again he was overruled. Despite his open protests and subterraneous counter-mining, war was actually declared against Sweden in 1675, and his subsequent policy seemed so obscure and hazardous to those who did not possess the clue to the perhaps purposely tangled skein, that the numerous enemies whom his arrogance and superciliousness had raised up against him, resolved to destroy him.

On the 11th of March 1676, while on his way to the royal apartments, Griffenfeldt was arrested in the king’s name and conducted to the citadel, a prisoner of state. A minute scrutiny of his papers, lasting nearly six weeks, revealed nothing treasonable; but it provided the enemies of the fallen statesman with a deadly weapon against him in the shape of an entry in his private diary, in which he had imprudently noted that on one occasion Christian V. in a conversation with a foreign ambassador had “spoken like a child.” On the 3rd of May Griffenfeldt was tried not by the usual tribunal, in such cases theHöjesteret, or supreme court, but by an extraordinary tribunal of 10 dignitaries, none of whom was particularly well disposed towards the accused. Griffenfeldt, who was charged with simony, bribery, oath-breaking, malversation andlèse-majesté, conducted his own defence under every imaginable difficulty. For forty-six days before his trial he had been closely confined in a dungeon without lights, books or writing materials. Every legal assistance was illegally denied him. Nevertheless he proved more than a match for the forensic ability arrayed against him, and his first plea in defence is in a high degree dignified and manly. Finally, he was condemned to degradation and decapitation; though one of the ten judges not only refused to sign the sentence, but remonstrated in private with the king against its injustice. And indeed its injustice was flagrant. The primary offence of the ex-chancellor was the taking of bribes, which no twisting of the law could convert into a capital offence, while the charge of treason had not been substantiated. Griffenfeldt was pardoned on the scaffold, at the very moment when the axe was about to descend. On hearing that the sentence was commuted to life-long imprisonment, he declared that the pardon was harder than the punishment, and vainly petitioned for leave to serve his king for the rest of his life as a common soldier. For the next two and twenty years Denmark’s greatest statesman lingered out his life in a lonely state-prison, first in the fortress of Copenhagen, and finally at Munkholm on Trondhjem fiord. He died at Trondhjem on the 12th of March 1699. Griffenfeldt married Kitty Nansen, the granddaughter of the great Burgomaster Hans Nansen, who brought him half a million rix-dollars. She died in 1672, after bearing him a daughter.

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