1A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in the final volume.
1A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in the final volume.
PRINCIPAL UNSIGNED ARTICLES
Husband and Wife.
Hyacinth.
Hyderabad.
Hydrogen.
Hydropathy.
Hydrophobia.
Ice.
Ice-Yachting.
Idaho.
Illinois.
Illumination.
Illyria.
Image.
Impeachment.
Income Tax.
Indiana.
Indian Mutiny.
Indicator.
Infant.
Infanticide.
Infinite.
Influenza.
Inheritance.
Injunction.
Ink.
Inkerman.
International, The.
Intestacy.
Inverness-shire.
Investiture.
Iodine.
Iowa.
Ipecacuanha.
Iris.
Iron.
Irrigation.
HUSBAND,properly the “head of a household,” but now chiefly used in the sense of a man legally joined by marriage to a woman, his “wife”; the legal relations between them are treated below underHusband and Wife. The word appears in O. Eng. ashúsbonda, answering to the Old Norwegianhúsbóndi, and means the owner or freeholder of ahus, or house. The last part of the word still survives in “bondage” and “bondman,” and is derived frombua, to dwell, which, like Lat.colere, means also to till or cultivate, and to have a household. “Wife,” in O. Eng.wif, appears in all Teutonic languages except Gothic; cf. Ger.Weib, Dutchwijf, &c., and meant originally simply a female, “woman” itself being derived fromwifman, the pronunciation of the pluralwimmenstill preserving the originali. Many derivations of “wife” have been given; thus it has been connected with the root of “weave,” with the Gothicwaibjan, to fold or wrap up, referring to the entangling clothes worn by a woman, and also with the root ofvibrare, to tremble. These are all merely guesses, and the ultimate history of the word is lost. It does not appear outside Teutonic languages. Parallel to “husband” is “housewife,” the woman managing a household. The earlierhúswifwas pronouncedhussif, and this pronunciation survives in the application of the word to a small case containing scissors, needles and pins, cottons, &c. From this form also derives “hussy,” now only used in a depreciatory sense of a light, impertinent girl. Beyond the meaning of a husband as a married man, the word appears in connexion with agriculture, in “husbandry” and “husbandman.” According to some authorities “husbandman” meant originally in the north of England a holder of a “husbandland,” a manorial tenant who held two ox-gangs or virgates, and ranked next below the yeoman (see J. C. Atkinson inNotes and Queries, 6th series, vol. xii., and E. Bateson,History of Northumberland, ii., 1893). From the idea of the manager of a household, “husband” was in use transferred to the manager of an estate, and the title was held by certain officials, especially in the great trading companies. Thus the “husband” of the East India Company looked after the interests of the company at the custom-house. The word in this sense is practically obsolete, but it still appears in “ship’s husband,” an agent of the owners of a ship who looks to the proper equipping of the vessel, and her repairs, procures and adjusts freights, keeps the accounts, makes charter-parties and acts generally as manager of the ship’s employment. Where such an agent is himself one of the owners of the vessel, the name of “managing owner” is used. The “ship’s husband” or “managing owner” must register his name and address at the port of registry (Merchant Shipping Act 1894, § 59). From the use of “husband” for a good and thrifty manager of a household, the verb “to husband” means to economize, to lay up a store, to save.
HUSBAND AND WIFE,Law relating to. For the modes in which the relation of husband and wife may be constituted and dissolved, seeMarriageandDivorce. The present article will deal only with the effect of marriage on the legal position of the spouses. The person chiefly affected is the wife, who probably in all political systems becomes subject, in consequence of marriage, to some kind of disability. The most favourable system scarcely leaves her as free as an unmarried woman; and the most unfavourable subjects her absolutely to the authority of her husband. In modern times the effect of marriage on property is perhaps the most important of its consequences, and on this point the laws of different states show wide diversity of principles.
The history of Roman law exhibits a transition from an extreme theory to its opposite. The position of the wife in the earliest Roman household was regulated by the law ofManus. She fell under the “hand” of her husband,—became one of his family, along with his sons and daughters, natural or adopted, and his slaves. The dominion which, so far as the children was concerned, was known as thepatria potestas, was, with reference to the wife, called themanus. The subject members of the family, whether wife or children, had, broadly speaking, no rights of their own. If this institution implied the complete subjection of the wife to the husband, it also implied a much closer bond of union between them than we find in the later Roman law. The wife on her husband’s death succeeded, like the children, to freedom and a share of the inheritance.Manus, however, was not essential to a legal marriage; its restraints were irksome and unpopular, and in course of time it ceased to exist, leaving no equivalent protection of the stability of family life. The later Roman marriage left the spouses comparatively independent of each other. The distance between the two modes of marriage may be estimated by the fact that,while under the former the wife was one of the husband’s immediate heirs, under the latter she was called to the inheritance only after his kith and kin had been exhausted, and only in preference to the treasury. It seems doubtful how far she had, during the continuance of marriage, a legal right to enforce aliment from her husband, although if he neglected her she had the unsatisfactory remedy of an easy divorce. The law, in fact, preferred to leave the parties to arrange their mutual rights and obligations by private contracts. Hence the importance of the law of settlements (Dotes). TheDosand theDonatio ante nuptiaswere settlements by or on behalf of the husband or wife, during the continuance of the marriage, and the law seems to have looked with some jealousy on gifts made by one to the other in any less formal way, as possibly tainted with undue influence. During the marriage the husband had the administration of the property.
Themanusof the Roman law appears to be only one instance of an institution common to all primitive societies. On the continent of Europe after many centuries, during which local usages were brought under the influence of principles derived from the Roman law, a theory of marriage became established, the leading feature of which is thecommunity of goodsbetween husband and wife. Describing the principle as it prevails in France, Story (Conflict of Laws, § 130) says: “This community or nuptial partnership (in the absence of any special contract) generally extends to all the movable property of the husband and wife, and to the fruits, income and revenue thereof.... It extends also to all immovable property of the husband and wife acquired during the marriage, but not to such immovable property as either possessed at the time of the marriage, or which came to them afterwards by title of succession or by gift. The property thus acquired by this nuptial partnership is liable to the debts of the parties existing at the time of the marriage; to the debts contracted by the husband during the community, or by the wife during the community with the consent of the husband; and to debts contracted for the maintenance of the family.... The husband alone is entitled to administer the property of the community, and he may alien, sell or mortgage it without the concurrence of the wife.” But he cannot dispose by will of more than his share of the common property, nor can he part with it gratuitouslyinter vivos. The community is dissolved by death (natural or civil), divorce, separation of body or separation of property. On separation of body or of property the wife is entitled to the full control of her movable property, but cannot alien her immovable property, without her husband’s consent or legal authority. On the death of either party the property is divided in equal moieties between the survivor and the heirs of the deceased.
Law of England.—The English common law as usual followed its own course in dealing with this subject, and in no department were its rules more entirely insular and independent. The text writers all assumed two fundamental principles, which between them established a system of rights totally unlike that just described. Husband and wife were said to be one person in the eye of the law—unica persona, quia caro una et sanguis unus. Hence a man could not grant or give anything to his wife, because she was himself, and if there were any compacts between them before marriage they were dissolved by the union of persons. Hence, too, the old rule of law, now greatly modified, that husband and wife could not be allowed to give evidence against each other, in any trial, civil or criminal. The unity, however, was one-sided only; it was the wife who was merged in the husband, not the husband in the wife. And when the theory did not apply, the disabilities of “coverture” suspended the active exercise of the wife’s legal faculties. The old technical phraseology described husband and wife asbaronandfeme; the rights of the husband were baronial rights. From one point of view the wife was merged in the husband, from another she was as one of his vassals. A curious example is the immunity of the wife in certain cases from punishment for crime committed in the presence and on the presumed coercion of the husband. “So great a favourite,” says Blackstone, “is the female sex of the laws of England.”
The application of these principles with reference to the property of the wife, and her capacity to contract, may now be briefly traced.
Thefreehold propertyof the wife became vested in the husband and herself during the coverture, and he had the management and the profits. If the wife had been in actual possession at any time during the marriage of an estate of inheritance, and if there had been a child of the marriage capable of inheriting, then the husband became entitled on his wife’s death to hold the estate for his own life as tenant by thecurtesy of England(curialitas).1Beyond this, however, the husband’s rights did not extend, and the wife’s heir at last succeeded to the inheritance. The wife could not part with her real estate without the concurrence of the husband; and even so she must be examined apart from her husband, to ascertain whether she freely and voluntarily consented to the deed.
With regard to personal property, it passed absolutely at common law to the husband. Specific things in the possession of the wife (chosesin possession) became the property of the husband at once; things not in possession, but due and recoverable from others (chosesin action), might be recovered by the husband. Achosein action not reduced into actual possession, when the marriage was dissolved by death, reverted to the wife if she was the survivor; if the husband survived he could obtain possession by taking out letters of administration. Achosein action was to be distinguished from a specific thing which, although the property of the wife, was for the time being in the hands of another. In the latter case the property was in the wife, and passed at once to the husband; in the former the wife had a merejus in personam, which the husband might enforce if he chose, but which was still capable of reverting to the wife if the husband died without enforcing it.
Thechattels realof the wife (i.e., personal property, dependent on, and partaking of, the nature of realty, such as leaseholds) passed to the husband, subject to the wife’s right of survivorship, unless barred by the husband by some act done during his life. A disposition by will did not bar the wife’s interest; but any dispositioninter vivosby the husband was valid and effective.
The courts of equity, however, greatly modified the rules of the common law by the introduction of the wife’sseparate estate,i.e.property settled to the wife for her separate use, independently of her husband. The principle seems to have been originally admitted in a case of actual separation, when a fund was given for the maintenance of the wife while living apart from her husband. And the conditions under which separate estate might be enjoyed had taken the Court of Chancery many generations to develop. No particular form of words was necessary to create a separate estate, and the intervention of trustees, though common, was not necessary. A clear intention to deprive the husband of his common law rights was sufficient to do so. In such a case a married woman was entitled to deal with her property as if she was unmarried, although the earlier decisions were in favour of requiring her binding engagements to be in writing or under seal. But it was afterwards held that any engagements, clearly made with reference to the separate estate, would bind that estate, exactly as if the woman had been afeme sole. Connected with the doctrine of separate use was the equitable contrivance ofrestraint on anticipationwith which later legislation has not interfered, whereby property might be so settled to the separate use of a married woman that she could not, during coverture, alienate it or anticipate the income. No such restraint is recognized in the ease of a man or of afeme sole, and it depends entirely on the separate estate; and the separate estate has its existence only during coverture, so that a woman to whom such an estate is given may dispose of it so long as she is unmarried, but becomes bound by the restraint as soon as she is married. In yet another way the court of Chancery interfered to protect the interests of married women. When ahusband sought the aid of that court to get possession of his wife’schosesin action, he was required to make a provision for her and her children out of the fund sought to be recovered. This is called the wife’sequity to a settlement, and is said to be based on the original maxim of Chancery jurisprudence, that “he who seeks equity must do equity.” Two other property interests of minor importance are recognised. The wife’spin-moneyis a provision for the purchase of clothes and ornaments suitable to her husband’s station, but it is not an absolute gift to the separate use of the wife; and a wife surviving her husband cannot claim for more than one year’s arrears of pin-money.Paraphernaliaare jewels and other ornaments given to the wife by her husband for the purpose of being worn by her, but not as her separate property. The husband may dispose of them by actinter vivosbut not by will, unless the will confers other benefits on the wife, in which case she must elect between the will and the paraphernalia. She may also on the death of the husband claim paraphernalia, provided all creditors have been satisfied, her right being superior to that of any legatee.
The corresponding interest of the wife in the property of the husband is much more meagre and illusory. Besides a general right to maintenance at her husband’s expense, she has at common law a right to dower (q.v.) in her husband’s lands, and to apars rationabilis(third) of his personal estate, if he dies intestate. The former, which originally was a solid provision for widows, has by the ingenuity of conveyancers, as well as by positive enactment, been reduced to very slender dimensions. It may be destroyed by a mere declaration to that effect on the part of the husband, as well as by his conveyance of the land or by his will.
The common practice of regulating the rights of husband, wife and children by marriage settlements obviates the hardships of the common law—at least for the women of the wealthier classes. The legislature by the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870, 1874, 1882 (which repealed and consolidated the acts of 1870 and 1874), 1893 and 1907 introduced very considerable changes. The chief provisions of the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, which enormously improved the position of women unprotected by marriage settlement, are, shortly, that a married woman is capable of acquiring, holding and disposing of by will or otherwise, any real and personal property, in the same manner as if she were afeme sole, without the intervention of any trustee. The property of a woman married after the beginning of the act, whether belonging to her at the time of marriage or acquired after marriage, is held by her as afeme sole. The same is the case with property acquired after the beginning of the act by a woman married before the act. After marriage a woman remains liable for antenuptial debts and liabilities, and as between her and her husband, in the absence of contract to the contrary, her separate property is deemed primarily liable. The husband is only liable to the extent of property acquired from or through his wife. The act also contained provisions as to stock, investment, insurance, evidence and other matters. The effect of the act was to render obsolete the law as to what created a separate use or a reduction into possession ofchosesin action, as to equity to a settlement, as to fraud on the husband’s marital rights, and as to the inability of one of two married persons to give a gift to the other. Also, in the case of a gift to a husband and wife in terms which would make them joint tenants if unmarried, they no longer take as one person but as two. The act contained a special saving of existing and future settlements; a settlement being still necessary where it is desired to secure only the enjoyment of the income to the wife and to provide for children. The act by itself would enable the wife, without regard to family claims, instantly to part with the whole of any property which might come to her. Restraint on anticipation was preserved by the act, subject to the liability of such property for antenuptial debts, and to the power given by the Conveyancing Act 1881 to bind a married woman’s interest notwithstanding a clause of restraint. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1893 repealed two clauses in the act of 1882, the exact bearing of which had been a matter of controversy. It provided specifically that every contract thereinafter entered into by a married woman, otherwise than as an agent, should be deemed to be a contract entered into by her with respect to and be binding upon her separate property, whether she was or was not in fact possessed of or entitled to any separate property at the time when she entered into such contract, that it should bind all separate property which she might at any time or thereafter be possessed of or entitled to, and that it should be enforceable by process of law against all property which she might thereafter, while discovert, be possessed of or entitled to. The act of 1907 enabled a married woman, without her husband, to dispose of or join in disposing of, real or personal property held by her solely or jointly as trustee or personal representative, in like manner as if she were afeme sole. It also provided that a settlement or agreement for settlement whether before or after marriage, respecting the property of the woman, should not be valid unless executed by her if she was of full age or confirmed by her after she attained full age. The Married Women’s Property Act 1908 removed a curious anomaly by enacting that a married woman having separate property should be equally liable with single women and widows for the maintenance of parents who are in receipt of poor relief.
The British colonies generally have adopted the principles of the English acts of 1882 and 1893.
Law of Scotland.—The law of Scotland differs less from English law than the use of a very different terminology would lead us to suppose. The phrasecommunio bonorumhas been employed to express the interest which the spouses have in themovableproperty of both, but its use has been severely censured as essentially inaccurate and misleading. It has been contended that there was no real community of goods, and no partnership or societas between the spouses. The wife’s movable property, with certain exceptions, and subject to special agreements, became as absolutely the property of the husband as it did in English law. The notion of acommuniowas, however, favoured by the peculiar rights of the wife and children on the dissolution of the marriage. Previous to the Intestate Movable Succession (Scotland) Act 1855 the law stood as follows. The fund formed by the movable property of both spouses may be dealt with by the husband as he pleases during life; it is increased by his acquisitions and diminished by his debts. The respective shares contributed by husband and wife return on the dissolution of the marriage to them or their representatives if the marriage be dissolved within a year and a day, and without a living child. Otherwise the division is into two or three shares, according as children are existing or not at the dissolution of the marriage. On the death of the husband, his children take one-third (calledlegitim), the widow takes one-third (jus relictae), and the remaining one-third (thedead part) goes according to his will or to his next of kin. If there be no children, thejus relictaeand the dead’s part are each one-half. If the wife die before the husband, her representatives, whether children or not, are creditors for the value of her share. The statute above-mentioned, however, enacts that “where a wife shall predecease her husband, the next of kin, executors or other representatives of such wife, whether testate or intestate, shall have no right to any share of the goods in communion; nor shall any legacy or bequest or testamentary disposition thereof by such wife, affect or attach to the said goods or any portion thereof.” It also abolishes the rule by which the shares revert if the marriage does not subsist for a year and a day. Several later acts apply to Scotland some of the principles of the English Married Women’s Property Acts. These are the Married Women’s Property (Scotland) Act 1877, which protects the earnings, &c., of wives, and limits the husband’s liability for antenuptial debts of the wife, the Married Women’s Policies of Assurance (Scotland) Act 1880, which enables a woman to contract for a policy of assurance for her separate use, and the Married Women’s Property (Scotland) Act 1881, which abolished thejus mariti.A wife’sheritableproperty does not pass to the husband on marriage, but he acquires a right to the administration and profits. His courtesy, as in English law, is also recognized. On the other hand, a widow has aterceor life-rent of a third part of the husband’s heritable estate, unless she has accepted a conventional provision.Continental Europe.—Since 1882 English legislation in the matter of married women’s property has progressed from perhaps the most backward to the foremost place in Europe. By a curious contrast, the only two European countries where, in the absence of a settlement to the contrary, independence of the wife’s property was recognized, were Russia and Italy. But there is now a marked tendency towards contractual emancipation. Sweden adopted a law on this subject in 1874, Denmark in 1880, Norway in 1888. Germany followed, the Civil Code which came into operation in 1900 (Art. 1367) providing that the wife’s wages or earnings shall form part of herVorbehaltsgutor separate property, which a previous article(1365) placed beyond the husband’s control. As regards property accruing to the wife in Germany by succession, will or giftinter vivos, it is only separate property where the donor has deliberately stipulated exclusion of the husband’s right.In France it seemed as if the system of community of property was ingrained in the institutions of the country. But a law of 1907 has brought France into line with other countries. This law gives a married woman sole control over earnings from her personal work and savings therefrom. She can with such money acquire personalty or realty, over the former of which she has absolute control. But if she abuses her rights by squandering her money or administering her property badly or imprudently the husband may apply to the court to have her freedom restricted.American Law.—In the United States, the revolt against the common law theory of husband and wife was carried farther than in England, and legislation early tended in the direction of absolute equality between the sexes. Each state has, however, taken its own way and selected its own time for introducing modifications of the existing law, so that the legislation on this subject is now exceedingly complicated and difficult. James Schouler (Law of Domestic Relations) gives an account of the general result in the different states to which reference may be made. The peculiar system of Homestead Laws in many of the states (seeHomesteadandExemption Laws) constitutes an inalienable provision for the wife and family of the householder.
Law of Scotland.—The law of Scotland differs less from English law than the use of a very different terminology would lead us to suppose. The phrasecommunio bonorumhas been employed to express the interest which the spouses have in themovableproperty of both, but its use has been severely censured as essentially inaccurate and misleading. It has been contended that there was no real community of goods, and no partnership or societas between the spouses. The wife’s movable property, with certain exceptions, and subject to special agreements, became as absolutely the property of the husband as it did in English law. The notion of acommuniowas, however, favoured by the peculiar rights of the wife and children on the dissolution of the marriage. Previous to the Intestate Movable Succession (Scotland) Act 1855 the law stood as follows. The fund formed by the movable property of both spouses may be dealt with by the husband as he pleases during life; it is increased by his acquisitions and diminished by his debts. The respective shares contributed by husband and wife return on the dissolution of the marriage to them or their representatives if the marriage be dissolved within a year and a day, and without a living child. Otherwise the division is into two or three shares, according as children are existing or not at the dissolution of the marriage. On the death of the husband, his children take one-third (calledlegitim), the widow takes one-third (jus relictae), and the remaining one-third (thedead part) goes according to his will or to his next of kin. If there be no children, thejus relictaeand the dead’s part are each one-half. If the wife die before the husband, her representatives, whether children or not, are creditors for the value of her share. The statute above-mentioned, however, enacts that “where a wife shall predecease her husband, the next of kin, executors or other representatives of such wife, whether testate or intestate, shall have no right to any share of the goods in communion; nor shall any legacy or bequest or testamentary disposition thereof by such wife, affect or attach to the said goods or any portion thereof.” It also abolishes the rule by which the shares revert if the marriage does not subsist for a year and a day. Several later acts apply to Scotland some of the principles of the English Married Women’s Property Acts. These are the Married Women’s Property (Scotland) Act 1877, which protects the earnings, &c., of wives, and limits the husband’s liability for antenuptial debts of the wife, the Married Women’s Policies of Assurance (Scotland) Act 1880, which enables a woman to contract for a policy of assurance for her separate use, and the Married Women’s Property (Scotland) Act 1881, which abolished thejus mariti.
A wife’sheritableproperty does not pass to the husband on marriage, but he acquires a right to the administration and profits. His courtesy, as in English law, is also recognized. On the other hand, a widow has aterceor life-rent of a third part of the husband’s heritable estate, unless she has accepted a conventional provision.
Continental Europe.—Since 1882 English legislation in the matter of married women’s property has progressed from perhaps the most backward to the foremost place in Europe. By a curious contrast, the only two European countries where, in the absence of a settlement to the contrary, independence of the wife’s property was recognized, were Russia and Italy. But there is now a marked tendency towards contractual emancipation. Sweden adopted a law on this subject in 1874, Denmark in 1880, Norway in 1888. Germany followed, the Civil Code which came into operation in 1900 (Art. 1367) providing that the wife’s wages or earnings shall form part of herVorbehaltsgutor separate property, which a previous article(1365) placed beyond the husband’s control. As regards property accruing to the wife in Germany by succession, will or giftinter vivos, it is only separate property where the donor has deliberately stipulated exclusion of the husband’s right.
In France it seemed as if the system of community of property was ingrained in the institutions of the country. But a law of 1907 has brought France into line with other countries. This law gives a married woman sole control over earnings from her personal work and savings therefrom. She can with such money acquire personalty or realty, over the former of which she has absolute control. But if she abuses her rights by squandering her money or administering her property badly or imprudently the husband may apply to the court to have her freedom restricted.
American Law.—In the United States, the revolt against the common law theory of husband and wife was carried farther than in England, and legislation early tended in the direction of absolute equality between the sexes. Each state has, however, taken its own way and selected its own time for introducing modifications of the existing law, so that the legislation on this subject is now exceedingly complicated and difficult. James Schouler (Law of Domestic Relations) gives an account of the general result in the different states to which reference may be made. The peculiar system of Homestead Laws in many of the states (seeHomesteadandExemption Laws) constitutes an inalienable provision for the wife and family of the householder.
1Curtesy or courtesy has been explained by legal writers as “arisingby favourof the law of England.” The word has nothing to do with courtesy in the sense of complaisance.
1Curtesy or courtesy has been explained by legal writers as “arisingby favourof the law of England.” The word has nothing to do with courtesy in the sense of complaisance.
HUSHI(RumanianHuşi), the capital of the department of Falciu, Rumania; on a branch of the Jassy-Galatz railway, 9 m. W. of the river Pruth and the Russian frontier. Pop. (1900) 15,404, about one-fourth being Jews. Hushi is an episcopal see. The cathedral was built in 1491 by Stephen the Great of Moldavia. There are no important manufactures, but a large fair is held annually in September for the sale of live-stock, and wine is produced in considerable quantities. Hushi is said to have been founded in the 15th century by a colony of Hussites, from whom its name is derived. The treaty of the Pruth between Russia and Turkey was signed here in 1711.
HUSKISSON, WILLIAM(1770-1830), English statesman and financier, was descended from an old Staffordshire family of moderate fortune, and was born at Birch Moreton, Worcestershire, on the 11th of March 1770. Having been placed in his fourteenth year under the charge of his maternal great-uncle Dr Gem, physician to the English embassy at Paris, in 1783 he passed his early years amidst a political fermentation which led him to take a deep interest in politics. Though he approved of the French Revolution, his sympathies were with the more moderate party, and he became a member of the “club of 1789,” instituted to support the new form of constitutional monarchy in opposition to the anarchical attempts of the Jacobins. He early displayed his mastery of the principles of finance by aDiscoursdelivered in August 1790 before this society, in regard to the issue of assignats by the government. TheDiscoursgained him considerable reputation, but as it failed in its purpose he withdrew from the society. In January 1793 he was appointed by Dundas to an office created to direct the execution of the Aliens Act; and in the discharge of his delicate duties he manifested such ability that in 1795 he was appointed under-secretary at war. In the following year he entered parliament as member for Morpeth, but for a considerable period he took scarcely any part in the debates. In 1800 he inherited a fortune from Dr Gem. On the retirement of Pitt in 1801 he resigned office, and after contesting Dover unsuccessfully he withdrew for a time into private life. Having in 1804 been chosen to represent Liskeard, he was on the restoration of the Pitt ministry appointed secretary of the treasury, holding office till the dissolution of the ministry after the death of Pitt in January 1806. After being elected for Harwich in 1807, he accepted the same office under the duke of Portland, but he withdrew from the ministry along with Canning in 1809. In the following year he published a pamphlet on the currency system, which confirmed his reputation as the ablest financier of his time; but his free-trade principles did not accord with those of his party. In 1812 he was returned for Chichester. When in 1814 he re-entered the public service, it was only as chief commissioner of woods and forests, but his influence was from this time very great in the commercial and financial legislation of the country. He took a prominent part in the corn-law debates of 1814 and 1815; and in 1819 he presented a memorandum to Lord Liverpool advocating a large reduction in the unfunded debt, and explaining a method for the resumption of cash payments, which was embodied in the act passed the same year. In 1821 he was a member of the committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the agricultural distress then prevailing, and the proposed relaxation of the corn laws embodied in the report was understood to have been chiefly due to his strenuous advocacy. In 1823 he was appointed president of the board of trade and treasurer of the navy, and shortly afterwards he received a seat in the cabinet. In the same year he was returned for Liverpool as successor to Canning, and as the only man who could reconcile the Tory merchants to a free trade policy. Among the more important legislative changes with which he was principally connected were a reform of the Navigation Acts, admitting other nations to a full equality and reciprocity of shipping duties; the repeal of the labour laws; the introduction of a new sinking fund; the reduction of the duties on manufactures and on the importation of foreign goods, and the repeal of the quarantine duties. In accordance with his suggestion Canning in 1827 introduced a measure on the corn laws proposing the adoption of a sliding scale to regulate the amount of duty. A misapprehension between Huskisson and the duke of Wellington led to the duke proposing an amendment, the success of which caused the abandonment of the measure by the government. After the death of Canning in the same year Huskisson accepted the secretaryship of the colonies under Lord Goderich, an office which he continued to hold in the new cabinet formed by the duke of Wellington in the following year. After succeeding with great difficulty in inducing the cabinet to agree to a compromise on the corn laws, Huskisson finally resigned office in May 1829 on account of a difference with his colleagues in regard to the disfranchisement of East Retford. On the 15th of September of the following year he was accidentally killed by a locomotive engine while present at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway.
See theLife of Huskisson, by J. Wright (London, 1831).
See theLife of Huskisson, by J. Wright (London, 1831).
HUSS(orHus), JOHN (c.1373-1415), Bohemian reformer and martyr, was born at Hussinecz,1a market village at the foot of the Böhmerwald, and not far from the Bavarian frontier, between 1373 and 1375, the exact date being uncertain. His parents appear to have been well-to-do Czechs of the peasant class. Of his early life nothing is recorded except that, notwithstanding the early loss of his father, he obtained a good elementary education, first at Hussinecz, and afterwards at the neighbouring town of Prachaticz. At, or only a very little beyond, the usual age he entered the recently (1348) founded university of Prague, where he became bachelor of arts in 1393, bachelor of theology in 1394, and master of arts in 1396. In 1398 he was chosen by the Bohemian “nation” of the university to an examinership for the bachelor’s degree; in the same year he began to lecture also, and there is reason to believe that the philosophical writings of Wycliffe, with which he had been for some years acquainted, were his text-books. In October 1401 he was made dean of the philosophical faculty, and for the half-yearly period from October 1402 to April 1403 he held the office of rector of the university. In 1402 also he was made rector or curate (capellarius) of the Bethlehem chapel, which had in 1391 been erected and endowed by some zealous citizens of Prague for the purpose of providing good popular preaching in the Bohemian tongue. Thisappointmenthad a deep influence on the already vigorous religious life of Huss himself; and one of the effects of the earnest and independent study of Scripture into which it led him was a profound conviction of the great value not only of the philosophical but also of the theological writings of Wycliffe.
This newly-formed sympathy with the English reformer did not, in the first instance at least, involve Huss in any conscious opposition to the established doctrines of Catholicism, or in any direct conflict with the authorities of the church; and forseveral years he continued to act in full accord with his archbishop (Sbynjek, or Sbynko, of Hasenburg). Thus in 1405 he, with other two masters, was commissioned to examine into certain reputed miracles at Wilsnack, near Wittenberg, which had caused that church to be made a resort of pilgrims from all parts of Europe. The result of their report was that all pilgrimage thither from the province of Bohemia was prohibited by the archbishop on pain of excommunication, while Huss, with the full sanction of his superior, gave to the world his first published writing, entitledDe Omni Sanguine Christi Glorificato, in which he declaimed in no measured terms against forged miracles and ecclesiastical greed, urging Christians at the same time to desist from looking for sensible signs of Christ’s presence, but rather to seek Him in His enduring word. More than once also Huss, together with his friend Stanislaus of Znaim, was appointed to be synod preacher, and in this capacity he delivered at the provincial councils of Bohemia many faithful admonitions. As early as the 28th of May 1403, it is true, there had been held a university disputation about the new doctrines of Wycliffe, which had resulted in the condemnation of certain propositions presumed to be his; five years later (May 20, 1408) this decision had been refined into a declaration that these, forty-five in number, were not to be taught in any heretical, erroneous or offensive sense. But it was only slowly that the growing sympathy of Huss with Wycliffe unfavourably affected his relations with his colleagues in the priesthood. In 1408, however, the clergy of the city and archiepiscopal diocese of Prague laid before the archbishop a formal complaint against Huss, arising out of strong expressions with regard to clerical abuses of which he had made use in his public discourses; and the result was that, having been first deprived of his appointment as synodal preacher, he was, after a vain attempt to defend himself in writing, publicly forbidden the exercise of any priestly function throughout the diocese. Simultaneously with these proceedings in Bohemia, negotiations had been going on for the removal of the long-continued papal schism, and it had become apparent that a satisfactory solution could only be secured if, as seemed not impossible, the supporters of the rival popes, Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII., could be induced, in view of the approaching council of Pisa, to pledge themselves to a strict neutrality. With this end King Wenceslaus of Bohemia had requested the co-operation of the archbishop and his clergy, and also the support of the university, in both instances unsuccessfully, although in the case of the latter the Bohemian “nation,” with Huss at its head, had only been overborne by the votes of the Bavarians, Saxons and Poles. There followed an expression of nationalist and particularistic as opposed to ultramontane and also to German feeling, which undoubtedly was of supreme importance for the whole of the subsequent career of Huss. In compliance with this feeling a royal edict (January 18, 1409) was issued, by which, in alleged conformity with Paris usage, and with the original charter of the university, the Bohemian “nation” received three votes, while only one was allotted to the other three “nations” combined; whereupon all the foreigners, to the number of several thousands, almost immediately withdrew from Prague, an occurrence which led to the formation shortly afterwards of the university of Leipzig.
It was a dangerous triumph for Huss; for his popularity at court and in the general community had been secured only at the price of clerical antipathy everywhere and of much German ill-will. Among the first results of the changed order of things were on the one hand the election of Huss (October 1409) to be again rector of the university, but on the other hand the appointment by the archbishop of an inquisitor to inquire into charges of heretical teaching and inflammatory preaching brought against him. He had spoken disrespectfully of the church, it was said, had even hinted that Antichrist might be found to be in Rome, had fomented in his preaching the quarrel between Bohemians and Germans, and had, notwithstanding all that had passed, continued to speak of Wycliffe as both a pious man and an orthodox teacher. The direct result of this investigation is not known, but it is impossible to disconnect from it the promulgation by Pope Alexander V., on the 20th of December 1409, of a bull which ordered the abjuration of all Wycliffite heresies and the surrender of all his books, while at the same time—a measure specially levelled at the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel—all preaching was prohibited except in localities which had been by long usage set apart for that use. This decree, as soon as it was published in Prague (March 9, 1410), led to much popular agitation, and provoked an appeal by Huss to the pope’s better informed judgment; the archbishop, however, resolutely insisted on carrying out his instructions, and in the following July caused to be publicly burned, in the courtyard of his own palace, upwards of 200 volumes of the writings of Wycliffe, while he pronounced solemn sentence of excommunication against Huss and certain of his friends, who had in the meantime again protested and appealed to the new pope (John XXIII.). Again the populace rose on behalf of their hero, who, in his turn, strong in the conscientious conviction that “in the things which pertain to salvation God is to be obeyed rather than man,” continued uninterruptedly to preach in the Bethlehem chapel, and in the university began publicly to defend the so-called heretical treatises of Wycliffe, while from king and queen, nobles and burghers, a petition was sent to Rome praying that the condemnation and prohibition in the bull of Alexander V. might be quashed. Negotiations were carried on for some months, but in vain; in March 1411 the ban was anew pronounced upon Huss as a disobedient son of the church, while the magistrates and councillors of Prague who had favoured him were threatened with a similar penalty in ease of their giving him a contumacious support. Ultimately the whole city, which continued to harbour him, was laid under interdict; yet he went on preaching, and masses were celebrated as usual, so that at the date of Archbishop Sbynko’s death in September 1411, it seemed as if the efforts of ecclesiastical authority had resulted in absolute failure.
The struggle, however, entered on a new phase with the appearance at Prague in May 1412 of the papal emissary charged with the proclamation of the papal bulls by which a religious war was decreed against the excommunicated King Ladislaus of Naples, and indulgence was promised to all who should take part in it, on terms similar to those which had been enjoyed by the earlier crusaders to the Holy Land. By his bold and thorough-going opposition to this mode of procedure against Ladislaus, and still more by his doctrine that indulgence could never be sold without simony, and could not be lawfully granted by the church except on condition of genuine contrition and repentance, Huss at last isolated himself, not only from the archiepiscopal party under Albik of Unitschow, but also from the theological faculty of the university, and especially from such men as Stanislaus of Znaim and Stephen Paletz, who until then had been his chief supporters. A popular demonstration, in which the papal bulls had been paraded through the streets with circumstances of peculiar ignominy and finally burnt, led to intervention by Wenceslaus on behalf of public order; three young men, for having openly asserted the unlawfulness of the papal indulgence after silence had been enjoined, were sentenced to death (June 1412); the excommunication against Huss was renewed, and the interdict again laid on all places which should give him shelter—a measure which now began to be more strictly regarded by the clergy, so that in the following December Huss had no alternative but to yield to the express wish of the king by temporarily withdrawing from Prague. A provincial synod, held at the instance of Wenceslaus in February 1413, broke up without having reached any practical result; and a commission appointed shortly afterwards also failed to bring about a reconciliation between Huss and his adversaries. The so-called heretic meanwhile spent his time partly at Kozihradek, some 45 m. south of Prague, and partly at Krakowitz in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital, occasionally giving a course of open-air preaching, but finding his chief employment in maintaining that copious correspondence of which some precious fragments still are extant, and in the composition of the treatise,De Ecclesia, which subsequently furnished most of the material for the capital charges broughtagainst him, and was formerly considered the most important of his works, though it is mainly a transcript of Wycliffe’s work of the same name.
During the year 1413 the arrangements for the meeting of a general council at Constance were agreed upon between Sigismund and Pope John XXIII. The objects originally contemplated had been the restoration of the unity of the church and its reform in head and members; but so great had become the prominence of Bohemian affairs that to these also a first place in the programme of the approaching oecumenical assembly required to be assigned, and for their satisfactory settlement the presence of Huss was necessary. His attendance was accordingly requested, and the invitation was willingly accepted as giving him a long-wished-for opportunity both of publicly vindicating himself from charges which he felt to be grievous, and of loyally making confession for Christ. He set out from Bohemia on the 14th of October 1414, not, however, until he had carefully ordered all his private affairs, with a presentiment, which he did not conceal, that in all probability he was going to his death. The journey, which appears to have been undertaken with the usual passport, and under the protection of several powerful Bohemian friends (John of Chlum, Wenceslaus of Duba, Henry of Chlum) who accompanied him, was a very prosperous one; and at almost all the halting-places he was received with a consideration and enthusiastic sympathy which he had hardly expected to meet with anywhere in Germany. On the 3rd of November he arrived at Constance; shortly afterwards there was put into his hands the famous imperial “safe conduct,” the promise of which had been one of his inducements to quit the comparative security he had enjoyed in Bohemia. This safe conduct, which had been frequently printed, stated that Huss should, whatever judgment might be passed on him, be allowed to return freely to Bohemia. This by no means provided for his immunity from punishment. If faith to him had not been broken he would have been sent back to Bohemia to be punished by his sovereign, the king of Bohemia. The treachery of King Sigismund is undeniable, and was indeed admitted by the king himself. The safe conduct was probably indeed given by him to entice Huss to Constance. On the 4th of December the pope appointed a commission of three bishops to investigate the case against the heretic, and to procure witnesses; to the demand of Huss that he might be permitted to employ an agent in his defence a favourable answer was at first given, but afterwards even this concession to the forms of justice was denied. While the commission was engaged in the prosecution of its enquiries, the flight of Pope John XXIII. took place on the 20th of March, an event which furnished a pretext for the removal of Huss from the Dominican convent to a more secure and more severe place of confinement under the charge of the bishop of Constance at Gottlieben on the Rhine. On the 4th of May the temper of the council on the doctrinal questions in dispute was fully revealed in its unanimous condemnation of Wycliffe, especially of the so-called “forty-five articles” as erroneous, heretical, revolutionary. It was not, however, until the 5th of June that the case of Huss came up for hearing; the meeting, which was an exceptionally full one, took place in the refectory of the Franciscan cloister. Autograph copies of his workDe Ecclesiaand of the controversial tracts which he had written against Paletz and Stanislaus of Znaim having been acknowledged by him, the extracted propositions on which the prosecution based their charge of heresy were read; but as soon as the accused began to enter upon his defence, he was assailed by violent outcries, amidst which it was impossible for him to be heard, so that he was compelled to bring his speech to an abrupt close, which he did with the calm remark: “In such a council as this I had expected to find more propriety, piety and order.” It was found necessary to adjourn the sitting until the 7th of June, on which occasion the outward decencies were better observed, partly no doubt from the circumstance that Sigismund was present in person. The propositions which had been extracted from theDe Ecclesiawere again brought up, and the relations between Wycliffe and Huss were discussed, the object of the prosecution being to fasten upon the latter the charge of having entirely adopted the doctrinal system of the former, including especially a denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The accused repudiated the charge of having abandoned the Catholic doctrine, while expressing hearty admiration and respect for the memory of Wycliffe. Being next asked to make an unqualified submission to the council, he expressed himself as unable to do so, while stating his willingness to amend his teaching wherever it had been shown to be false. With this the proceedings of the day were brought to a close. On the 8th of June the propositions extracted from theDe Ecclesiawere again taken up with some fulness of detail; some of these he repudiated as incorrectly given, others he defended; but when asked to make a general recantation he steadfastly declined, on the ground that to do so would be a dishonest admission of previous guilt. Among the propositions he could heartily abjure was that relating to transubstantiation; among those he felt constrained unflinchingly to maintain was one which had given great offence, to the effect that Christ, not Peter, is the head of the church to whom ultimate appeal must be made. The council, however, showed itself inaccessible to all his arguments and explanations, and its final resolution, as announced by Pierre d’Ailly, was threefold: first, that Huss should humbly declare that he had erred in all the articles cited against him; secondly, that he should promise on oath neither to hold nor teach them in the future; thirdly, that he should publicly recant them. On his declining to make this submission he was removed from the bar. Sigismund himself gave it as his opinion that it had been clearly proved by many witnesses that the accused had taught many pernicious heresies, and that even should he recant he ought never to be allowed to preach or teach again or to return to Bohemia, but that should he refuse recantation there was no remedy but the stake. During the next four weeks no effort was spared to shake the determination of Huss; but he steadfastly refused to swerve from the path which conscience had once made clear. “I write this,” says he, in a letter to his friends at Prague, “in prison and in chains, expecting to-morrow to receive sentence of death, full of hope in God that I shall not swerve from the truth, nor abjure errors imputed to me by false witnesses.” The sentence he expected was pronounced on the 6th of July in the presence of Sigismund and a full sitting of the council; once and again he attempted to remonstrate, but in vain, and finally he betook himself to silent prayer. After he had undergone the ceremony of degradation with all the childish formalities usual on such occasions, his soul was formally consigned by all those present to the devil, while he himself with clasped hands and uplifted eyes reverently committed it to Christ. He was then handed over to the secular arm, and immediately led to the place of execution, the council meanwhile proceeding unconcernedly with the rest of its business for the day. Many incidents recorded in the histories make manifest the meekness, fortitude and even cheerfulness with which he went to his death. After he had been tied to the stake and the faggots had been piled, he was for the last time urged to recant, but his only reply was: “God is my witness that I have never taught or preached that which false witnesses have testified against me. He knows that the great object of all my preaching and writing was to convert men from sin. In the truth of that gospel which hitherto I have written, taught and preached, I now joyfully die.” The fire was then kindled, and his voice as it audibly prayed in the words of the “Kyrie Eleison” was soon stifled in the smoke. When the flames had done their office, the ashes that were left and even the soil on which they lay were carefully removed and thrown into the Rhine.
Not many words are needed to convey a tolerably adequate estimate of the character and work of the “pale thin man in mean attire,” who in sickness and poverty thus completed the forty-sixth year of a busy life at the stake. The value of Huss as a scholar was formerly underrated. The publication of hisSuper IV. Sententiarumhas proved that he was a man of profound learning. Yet his principal glory will always be founded on hisspiritual teaching. It might not be easy to formulate precisely the doctrines for which he died, and certainly some of them, as, for example, that regarding the church, were such as many Protestants even would regard as unguarded and difficult to harmonize with the maintenance of external church order; but his is undoubtedly the honour of having been the chief intermediary in handing on from Wycliffe to Luther the torch which kindled the Reformation, and of having been one of the bravest of the martyrs who have died in the cause of honesty and freedom, of progress and of growth towards the light.