Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, with a government led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. The political crisis that followed Cromwell's death in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents stating a regnal year did so as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649.

Charles's English parliament enacted laws known as the Clarendon Code, designed to shore up the position of the re-established Church of England. Charles acquiesced to the Clarendon Code even though he favoured a policy of religious tolerance. The major foreign policy issue of his early reign was the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1670, he entered into the Treaty of Dover, an alliance with his cousin King Louis XIV of France. Louis agreed to aid him in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and pay him a pension, and Charles secretly promised to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified future date. Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it. In 1679, Titus Oates's fabrication of a supposed Popish Plot sparked the Exclusion Crisis when it was revealed that Charles's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, had become a Catholic. The crisis saw the birth of the pro-exclusion Whig and anti-exclusion Tory parties. Charles sided with the Tories and, after the discovery of the Rye House Plot to murder Charles and James in 1683, some Whig leaders were executed or forced into exile. Charles dissolved the English Parliament in 1681 and ruled alone until his death in 1685.

Following his restoration, Charles became known for his affability and friendliness, and for allowing his subjects easy access to his person. However, he also showed an almost impenetrable reserve, especially concerning his political agendas. His court gained a reputation for moral laxity. Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza produced no surviving children, but the king acknowledged at least 12 illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James.

Early life, civil war and exile

Charles was born at St James's Palace on 29 May 1630, eldest surviving son of Charles I, king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his wife Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII of France. Charles was their second child (the first being a son born about a year before, who had died within a day). He was baptised on 27 June in the Chapel Royal by William Laud, a future archbishop of Canterbury, and during his infancy was supervised by the Protestant Countess of Dorset. His godparents included his maternal uncle Louis XIII and maternal grandmother, Marie de' Medici, the Dowager Queen of France, both of whom were Catholics. At birth, Charles automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, and the possessor of several other associated titles. At or around his eighth birthday, he was designated Prince of Wales, though he was never formally invested.

In August 1642, the long-running dispute between Charles I and Parliament culminated in the outbreak of the First English Civil War. In October, Prince Charles and his younger brother James were present at the Battle of Edgehill and spent the next two years based in the Royalist capital of Oxford. In January 1645, Charles was given his own Council and made titular head of Royalist forces in the West Country. By spring 1646, most of the region had been occupied by Parliamentarian forces and Charles went into exile to avoid capture. From Falmouth, he went first to the Isles of Scilly, then to Jersey, and finally to France, where his mother was already living under the protection of his first cousin, the eight-year-old Louis XIV. Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646.

During the Second English Civil War in 1648, Charles moved to The Hague, where his sister Mary and his brother-in-law William II, Prince of Orange, seemed more likely to provide substantial aid to the Royalist cause than his mother's French relations. Although part of the Parliamentarian fleet defected, it did not reach Scotland in time to join up with the Royalist Engager army led by the Duke of Hamilton before it was defeated at Preston by the New Model Army.

At The Hague, Charles had a brief affair with Lucy Walter, who later falsely claimed that they had secretly married. Her son, James Crofts (afterwards Duke of Monmouth and Duke of Buccleuch), was one of Charles's many illegitimate children who became prominent in British society. Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to save him, the execution of Charles I took place in January 1649, and England became a republic. On 5 February, the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II as "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland" at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he agreed to establish Presbyterianism as the state religion in all three of his kingdoms.

When negotiations with the Scots stalled, Charles authorised Lord Montrose to land in the Orkney Islands with a small army to threaten the Scots with invasion, in the hope of forcing an agreement more to his liking. Montrose feared that Charles would accept a compromise, and so chose to invade mainland Scotland anyway. He was captured and executed. Charles reluctantly promised that he would abide by the terms of a treaty agreed between him and the Scots Parliament at Breda, and support the Solemn League and Covenant, which authorised Presbyterian church governance across Britain. Upon his arrival in Scotland on 23 June 1650, he formally agreed to the Covenant; his abandonment of Episcopal church governance, although winning him support in Scotland, left him unpopular in England. Charles himself soon came to despise the "villainy" and "hypocrisy" of the Covenanters. Charles was provided with a Scottish court, and the record of his food and household expenses at Falkland Palace and Perth survives.

Charles's Scottish coronation led to the Anglo-Scottish war (1650–1652) and on 3 September 1650, the Covenanters were defeated at Dunbar by a much smaller force commanded by Oliver Cromwell. The Scots were divided between moderate Engagers and the more radical Kirk Party, who even fought each other. Disillusioned by these divisions, Charles rode north to join an Engager force in October, an event which became known as "the Start", but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him. Nevertheless, the Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of Scotland at Scone Abbey on 1 January 1651. With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England, but many of their most experienced soldiers had been excluded on religious grounds by the Kirk Party, whose leaders also refused to participate, among them Lord Argyll. Opposition to what was primarily a Scottish army meant few English Royalists joined as it moved south, and the invasion ended in defeat at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Charles managed to escape and landed in Normandy six weeks later on 16 October, even though there was a reward of £1,000 on his head, anyone caught helping him was at risk of being put to death, and he was difficult to disguise, being over , which was unusually tall for the time.

Under the Instrument of Government passed by Parliament, Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, effectively placing the British Isles under military rule. Charles lived a life of leisure at Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris, living on a grant from Louis XIV of 600 livres a month. Charles could not obtain sufficient finance or support to mount a serious challenge to Cromwell's government. Despite the Stuart family connections through Henrietta Maria and the Princess of Orange, France and the Dutch Republic allied themselves with Cromwell's government from 1654, forcing Charles to leave France and turn to Spain for aid, which at that time ruled the Southern Netherlands.

Charles made the Treaty of Brussels with Spain in 1656. This gathered Spanish support for a restoration in return for Charles's contribution to the war against France. Charles raised a ragtag army from his exiled subjects; this small, underpaid, poorly-equipped and ill-disciplined force formed the nucleus of the post-Restoration army. The Commonwealth made the Treaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in the Netherlands. Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles's younger brother James, Duke of York. At the Battle of the Dunes in 1658, as part of the larger Spanish force, Charles's army of around 2,000 clashed with Commonwealth troops fighting with the French. By the end of the battle Charles's force was about 1,000 and with Dunkirk given to the English the prospect of a Royalist expedition to England was dashed.

Restoration

After the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, Charles's initial chances of regaining the Crown seemed slim; Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard. However, the new Lord Protector had little experience of either military or civil administration. In 1659, the Rump Parliament was recalled and Richard Cromwell resigned. During the civil and military unrest that followed, George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy. Monck and his army marched into the City of London, and forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the Long Parliament who had been excluded in December 1648, during Pride's Purge. Parliament dissolved itself, and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years. The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.

The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians. The so-called Convention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed the Declaration of Breda, in which Charles promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience, and Anglican church policy would not be harsh. He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except the regicides. Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on 8 May 1660. In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year and had already declared for Charles. On 14 May, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.

Charles set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on 25 May 1660 and reached London on 29 May, his 30th birthday. Although Charles and Parliament granted amnesty to nearly all of Cromwell's supporters in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were specifically excluded. In the end nine of the regicides were executed: they were hanged, drawn and quartered, whereas others were given life imprisonment or excluded from office for life. The bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to posthumous decapitations.

The English Parliament granted Charles an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million, generated largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of Charles's reign. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of the royal household and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the hearth tax.

In the latter half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his siblings Henry and Mary of smallpox. At around the same time, Anne Hyde, the daughter of Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde, revealed that she was pregnant by Charles's brother James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was created Earl of Clarendon and his position as Charles's favourite minister was strengthened.

Clarendon Code

The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and, shortly after Charles's English coronation, the second English Parliament of the reign assembled. Dubbed the Cavalier Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and Anglican. It sought to discourage non-conformity to the Church of England and passed several acts to secure Anglican dominance. The Corporation Act 1661 required municipal officeholders to swear allegiance; the Act of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer compulsory; the Conventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England; and the Five Mile Act 1665 prohibited expelled non-conforming clergymen from coming within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banished. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for the remainder of Charles's reign. The Acts became known as the Clarendon Code, after Lord Clarendon, even though he was not directly responsible for them and even spoke against the Five Mile Act.

The Restoration was accompanied by social change. Puritanism lost its momentum. Theatres reopened after having been closed during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell, and bawdy "Restoration comedy" became a recognisable genre. Theatre licences granted by Charles required that female parts be played by "their natural performers", rather than by boys as was often the practice before; and Restoration literature celebrated or reacted to the restored court, which included libertines such as Lord Rochester. Of Charles II, Rochester supposedly said:

To which Charles is reputed to have replied "that the matter was easily accounted for: For that his discourse was his own, his actions were the ministry's".

Great Plague and Great Fire
In 1665, the Great Plague of London began, peaking in September with up to 7,000 deaths per week. Charles, his family, and the court fled London in July to Salisbury; Parliament met in Oxford. Plague cases ebbed over the winter, and Charles returned to London in February 1666.

After a long spell of hot and dry weather through mid-1666, the Great Fire of London started on 2 September 1666 in Pudding Lane. Fanned by strong winds and fed by wood and fuel stockpiled for winter, the fire destroyed about 13,200 houses and 87 churches, including St Paul's Cathedral. Charles and his brother James joined and directed the firefighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire.

Foreign policy and marriage

Since 1640, Portugal had been fighting a war against Spain to restore its independence after a dynastic union of sixty years between the crowns of Spain and Portugal. Portugal had been helped by France, but in the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Portugal was abandoned by its French ally. Negotiations with Portugal for Charles's marriage to Catherine of Braganza began during his father's reign and upon the restoration, Queen Luísa of Portugal, acting as regent, reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance. On 23 June 1661, a marriage treaty was signed; England acquired Catherine's dowry of the port of Tangier in North Africa, the Seven Islands of Bombay in India (which had a major influence on the development of the British Empire), valuable trading privileges in Brazil and the East Indies, religious and commercial freedom in Portugal and two million Portuguese crowns (equivalent to £300,000 then); while Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine. Catherine journeyed from Portugal to Portsmouth on 13–14 May 1662, but was not visited by Charles there until 20 May. The next day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies—a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by a public Anglican service.

The same year, in an unpopular move, Charles sold Dunkirk to his first cousin King Louis XIV of France for about £375,000. The channel port, although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited finances, as it cost the Treasury £321,000 per year.

Before Charles's restoration, the Navigation Acts of 1650 had hurt Dutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly, and had started the First Dutch War (1652–1654). To lay foundations for a new beginning, envoys of the States General appeared in November 1660 with the Dutch Gift. The Second Dutch War (1665–1667) was started by English attempts to muscle in on Dutch possessions in Africa and North America. The conflict began well for the English, with the capture of New Amsterdam (renamed New York in honour of Charles's brother James, Duke of York) and a victory at the Battle of Lowestoft, but in 1667 the Dutch launched a surprise attack on England (the Raid on the Medway) when they sailed up the River Thames to where a major part of the English fleet was docked. Almost all of the ships were sunk except for the flagship, Royal Charles, which was taken back to the Netherlands as a prize. The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda.

As a result of the Second Dutch War, Charles dismissed Lord Clarendon, whom he used as a scapegoat for the war. Clarendon fled to France when impeached for high treason (which carried the penalty of death). Power passed to five politicians known collectively by a whimsical acronym as the Cabal—Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) and Lauderdale. In fact, the Cabal rarely acted in concert, and the court was often divided between two factions led by Arlington and Buckingham, with Arlington the more successful.

In 1668, England allied itself with Sweden, and with its former enemy the Netherlands, to oppose Louis XIV in the War of Devolution. Louis made peace with the Triple Alliance, but he continued to maintain his aggressive intentions towards the Netherlands. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the Treaty of Dover, under which Louis would pay him £160,000 each year. In exchange, Charles agreed to supply Louis with troops and to announce his conversion to Catholicism "as soon as the welfare of his kingdom will permit". Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret. It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to convert.

Meanwhile, by a series of five charters, Charles granted the East India Company the rights to autonomous government of its territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over its possessions in the Indies. Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of Bombay to the company for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold. The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain; Tangier was abandoned in 1684. In 1670, Charles granted control of the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin to the Hudson's Bay Company by royal charter, and named the territory Rupert's Land, after his cousin Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the company's first governor.

Conflict with Parliament
Although previously favourable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the king's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672, Charles issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence, in which he purported to suspend all penal laws against Catholics and other religious dissenters. In the same year, he openly supported Catholic France and started the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

The Cavalier Parliament opposed the Declaration of Indulgence on constitutional grounds by claiming that the king had no right to arbitrarily suspend laws passed by Parliament. Charles withdrew the Declaration, and also agreed to the Test Act, which not only required public officials to receive the sacrament under the forms prescribed by the Church of England, but also later forced them to denounce transubstantiation and the Catholic Mass as "superstitious and idolatrous". Clifford, who had converted to Catholicism, resigned rather than take the oath, and died shortly after, possibly from suicide.

By 1674, England had gained nothing from the Anglo-Dutch War, and the Cavalier Parliament refused to provide further funds, forcing Charles to make peace. The power of the Cabal waned and that of Clifford's replacement, Lord Danby grew, as did opposition towards him and the court. Politicians and peers believed that Charles II favoured a pro-French foreign policy that desired to emulate the absolutist (and Catholic) sovereignty of Louis XIV. In numerous pamphlets and parliamentary speeches between 1675 and 1678, "popery and arbitrary government" were decried for fear of the loss of English liberties and freedoms.

Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir; her four pregnancies had ended in miscarriages and stillbirths in 1662, February 1666, May 1668, and June 1669. Charles's heir presumptive was therefore his unpopular Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. Partly to assuage public fears that the royal family was too Catholic, Charles agreed that James's daughter, Mary, should marry the Protestant William of Orange. In 1678, Titus Oates, who had been alternately an Anglican and Jesuit priest, falsely warned of a "Popish Plot" to assassinate the king, even accusing the queen of complicity. Charles did not believe the allegations, but ordered his chief minister Lord Danby to investigate. While Danby seems to have been rightly sceptical about Oates's claims, the Cavalier Parliament took them seriously. The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria; judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.

Later in 1678, Danby was impeached by the House of Commons on the charge of high treason. Although much of the nation had sought war with Catholic France, Charles had secretly negotiated with Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement under which England would remain neutral in return for money. Danby had publicly professed that he was hostile to France, but had reservedly agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. Unfortunately for him, the House of Commons failed to view him as a reluctant participant in the scandal, instead believing that he was the author of the policy. To save Danby from the impeachment trial, Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament in January 1679.

The new English Parliament, which met in March of the same year, was quite hostile to Charles. Many members feared that he had intended to use the standing army to suppress dissent or impose Catholicism. However, with insufficient funds voted by Parliament, Charles was forced to gradually disband his troops. Having lost the support of Parliament, Danby resigned his post of Lord High Treasurer, but received a pardon from the king. In defiance of the royal will, the House of Commons declared that the dissolution of Parliament did not interrupt impeachment proceedings, and that the pardon was therefore invalid. When the House of Lords attempted to impose the punishment of exile—which the Commons thought too mild—the impeachment became stalled between the two Houses. As he had been required to do so many times during his reign, Charles bowed to the wishes of his opponents, committing Danby to the Tower of London, in which he was held for another five years.

Science

In Charles's early childhood, William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, was governor of the royal household and Brian Duppa, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was his tutor. Neither man thought that the study of science subjects was appropriate for a future king, and Newcastle even advised against studying any subject too seriously. However, as Charles grew older, the renowned surgeon William Harvey was appointed his tutor. He was famous for his work on blood circulation in the human body and already held the position of physician to Charles I; his studies were to influence Charles's own attitude to science. As the king's chief physician, Harvey accompanied Charles I to the Battle of Edgehill and, although some details are uncertain, he had charge of Prince Charles and the Duke of York in the morning, but the two boys were back with the king for the start of battle. Later in the afternoon, with their father concerned for their safety, the two princes left the battlefield accompanied by Sir W. Howard and his pensioners.

During his exile, in France, Charles continued his education, including physics, chemistry and mathematics. His tutors included the cleric John Earle, well known for his satirical book Microcosmographie, with whom he studied Latin and Greek, and Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher and author of Leviathan, with whom he studied mathematics. In France, Charles assisted his childhood friend, the Earl of Buckingham, with his experiments in chemistry and alchemy, with the Earl convinced he was close to producing the philosopher's stone. Although some of Charles's studies, while abroad, may have helped to pass the time, on his return to England he was already knowledgeable in the mathematics of navigation and was a competent chemist. Such was his knowledge of naval architecture that he was able to participate in technical discussions on the subject with Samuel Pepys, William Petty and John Evelyn.

The new concepts and discoveries being found at this time fascinated Charles, not only in science and medicine, but in topics such as botany and gardening. A French traveller, Sorbier, while visiting the English court, was astonished by the extent of the king's knowledge. The king freely indulged in his many interests, including astronomy, which had been stimulated by a visit to Gresham College, in October 1660, to see the telescopes made by the astronomer Sir Paul Neile. Charles was so impressed by what he saw that he ordered his own 36' telescope which he had installed in the Privy Garden at Whitehall. He would invite his friends and acquaintances to view the heavens through his new telescope and, in May 1661, Evelyn describes his visit to the Garden, with several other scientists, to view Saturn's rings. Charles also had a laboratory installed, in Whitehall, with easy access to his bedroom.

From the beginning of his reign, Charles appointed experts to assist him in his scientific pursuits. These included: Timothy Clarke a celebrated anatomist, who performed some dissections for the king; Robert Morison as his chief botanist (Charles had his own botanical garden); Edmund Dickinson, a chemist and alchemist, who was tasked with carrying out experiments in the king's laboratory;  Sir Thomas Williams, who was skillful in compounding and inventing medicines, some of which were prepared in the royal presence; and Nicasius le Febure (or Nicolas LeFevre), who was invited to England as royal professor of chemistry and apothecary to the king's household. Evelyn visited his laboratory with the king.

In addition to his many other interests, the king was fascinated by clock mechanisms and had clocks distributed all around Whitehall, including seven of them in his bedroom. Robert Bruce (later Earl of Ailesbury), a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, complained that the continual noise of the clocks chiming disturbed his sleep, whenever it was necessary for him to stay close by to the king. Also, Charles had a sundial installed in the Privy Garden, by which he could set his personal pocket watch. (For a while, the king personally recorded the performance of the latest spring-balance watch, presented to him by Robert Hooke.)

In 1662, Charles was pleased to grant a royal charter to a group of scientists and others who had established a formal society in 1660 to give a more academic and learned approach to science and to conduct experiments in physics and mathematics. Sir Robert Moray, a member of Charles's court, played an important part in achieving this outcome, and he was to be the first president of this new Royal Society. Over the years, Moray was an important go-between for Charles and the Society, and his standing with the king was so high that he was given access to the royal laboratory to perform his own experiments there.

Charles never attended a Society meeting, but he remained aware of the activities there from his discussions with Society members, especially Moray. In addition, Robert Boyle gave him a private viewing of the Boyle/Hooke air-pump, which was used at many of the Wednesday meetings. However, Charles preferred experiments which had an immediate practical outcome and he laughed at the efforts of the Society members "to weigh air". He seemed unable to grasp the significance of the basic laws of physics being established at that time, including Boyle's Law and Hooke's Law and the concept of atmospheric pressure and the barometer and the importance of air for the support of life.

Although Charles lost interest in the activities of the society, he continued to support scientific and commercial endeavours. He founded the Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital in 1673 and, two years later, following concerns over French advances in astronomy, he founded the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. He maintained an interest in chemistry and regularly visited his private laboratory. There, dissections were occasionally carried out, and observed by the king. Pepys noted in his diary that on the morning of Friday, 15 January 1669, while he was walking to Whitehall, he met the king who invited him to view his chemistry laboratory. Pepys confessed to finding what he saw there beyond him.

Charles developed painful gout in later life which limited the daily walks that he took regularly when younger. His keenness was now channelled to his laboratory where he would devote himself to his experiments, for hours at a time, sometimes helped by Moray. Charles was particularly interested in alchemy, which he had first encountered many years earlier, during his exile with the Duke of Buckingham. Charles resumed his experiments with mercury and would spend whole mornings attempting to distill it. Heating mercury in an open crucible releases mercury vapour, which is toxic and may have contributed to his later ill health.

Later years
Charles faced a political storm over his brother James, a Catholic, being next in line to the throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (previously Baron Ashley and a member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart in 1673). Lord Shaftesbury's power base was strengthened when the House of Commons of 1679 introduced the Exclusion Bill, which sought to exclude the Duke of York from the line of succession. Some even sought to confer the Crown on the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate children. The Abhorrers—those who thought the Exclusion Bill was abhorrent—were named Tories (after a term for dispossessed Irish Catholic bandits), while the Petitioners—those who supported a petitioning campaign in favour of the Exclusion Bill—were called Whigs (after a term for rebellious Scottish Presbyterians).

Absolute monarch
Fearing that the Exclusion Bill would be passed, and bolstered by some acquittals in the continuing Plot trials, which seemed to him to indicate a more favourable public mood towards Catholicism, Charles dissolved the English Parliament, for a second time that year, in mid-1679. Charles's hopes for a more moderate Parliament were not fulfilled; within a few months he had dissolved Parliament yet again, after it sought to pass the Exclusion Bill. When a new Parliament assembled at Oxford in March 1681, Charles dissolved it for a fourth time after just a few days. During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was prosecuted (albeit unsuccessfully) for treason in 1681 and later fled to Holland, where he died. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled without Parliament.

Charles's opposition to the Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated the Rye House Plot, a plan to murder him and the Duke of York as they returned to London after horse races in Newmarket. A great fire, however, destroyed Charles's lodgings at Newmarket, which forced him to leave the races early, thus inadvertently avoiding the planned attack. News of the failed plot was leaked. Protestant politicians such as the Earl of Essex, Algernon Sydney, Lord Russell and the Duke of Monmouth were implicated in the plot. Essex slit his own throat while imprisoned in the Tower of London; Sydney and Russell were executed for high treason on very flimsy evidence; and the Duke of Monmouth went into exile at the court of William of Orange. Lord Danby and the surviving Catholic lords held in the Tower were released and the king's Catholic brother, James, acquired greater influence at court. Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation.

Thus through the last years of Charles's reign, his approach towards his opponents changed, and he was compared by Whigs to the contemporary Louis XIV of France, with his form of government in those years termed "slavery". Many of them were prosecuted and their estates seized, with Charles replacing judges and sheriffs at will and packing juries to achieve conviction. To destroy opposition in London, Charles first disenfranchised many Whigs in the 1682 municipal elections, and in 1683 the London charter was forfeited. In retrospect, the use of the judicial system by Charles (and later his brother and heir James) as a tool against opposition, helped establish the idea of separation of powers between the judiciary and the Crown in Whig thought.

Death
Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am, four days later, at the Palace of Whitehall. The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction). Charles had a laboratory among his many interests, where prior to his illness he had been experimenting with mercury. Mercuric poisoning can produce irreversible kidney damage; but the case for this being a cause of his death is unproven. In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments that included bloodletting, purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery, which may have exacerbated his uraemia through dehydration instead of helping to alleviate it.

On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve". He told his courtiers, "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying", and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church in the presence of Father John Huddleston, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear. He was buried in Westminster Abbey "without any manner of pomp" on 14 February.

Charles was succeeded by his brother James II and VII.

Legacy

The escapades of Charles after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester remained important to him throughout his life. He delighted and bored listeners with tales of his escape for many years. Numerous accounts of his adventures were published, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration. Though not averse to his escape being ascribed to divine providence, Charles himself seems to have delighted most in his ability to sustain his disguise as a man of ordinary origins, and to move unrecognised through his realm. Ironic and cynical, Charles took pleasure in stories that demonstrated the undetectable nature of any inherent majesty he possessed.

Charles had no legitimate children, but acknowledged a dozen by seven mistresses, including five by Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, for whom the Dukedom of Cleveland was created. His other mistresses included Moll Davis, Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Killigrew, Catherine Pegge, Lucy Walter and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. As a result, in his lifetime he was often nicknamed "Old Rowley", the name of his favourite racehorse, notable as a stallion.

Charles's subjects resented paying taxes that were spent on his mistresses and their children, many of whom received dukedoms or earldoms. The present Dukes of Buccleuch, Richmond, Grafton and St Albans descend from Charles in unbroken male line. Charles II is an ancestor of both King Charles III's first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, and his second wife, Queen Camilla. Charles and Diana's son, William, Prince of Wales, is likely to be the first British monarch descended from Charles II.

Charles's eldest son, the Duke of Monmouth, led a rebellion against James II, but was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685, captured and executed. James was eventually dethroned in 1688, in the course of the Glorious Revolution.

In the words of his contemporary John Evelyn, "a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections, debonair, easy of access, not bloody or cruel". John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, wrote more lewdly of Charles:

Looking back on Charles's reign, Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terrible despotism. Professor Ronald Hutton summarises a polarised historiography:

Hutton says Charles was a popular king in his own day and a "legendary figure" in British history.

The anniversary of the Restoration (which was also Charles's birthday)—29 May—was recognised in England until the mid-nineteenth century as Oak Apple Day, after the Royal Oak in which Charles hid during his escape from the forces of Oliver Cromwell. Traditional celebrations involved the wearing of oak leaves but these have now died out. Charles II is depicted extensively in art, literature and media. Charleston, South Carolina, and South Kingstown, Rhode Island, are named after him. King Charles's Island and Charles Island are previous names of both Floreana Island and Española Island in the Galapagos Archipelago, both in his honour.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles
The official style of Charles II was "Charles the Second, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English monarch since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.

Honours
 KG: Knight of the Garter, 21 May 1638

Arms
Charles's coat of arms as Prince of Wales was the royal arms (which he later inherited), differenced by a label of three points Argent. His arms as monarch were: Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland).

Issue
By Lucy Walter (c. 1630 – 1658):

 James Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), created Duke of Monmouth (1663) in England and Duke of Buccleuch (1663) in Scotland. Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met, and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II, but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers, Colonel Robert Sidney, rather than Charles. Lucy Walter had a daughter, Mary Crofts, born after James in 1651, but Charles II was not the father, since he and Walter parted in September 1649.

By Elizabeth Killigrew (1622–1680), daughter of Sir Robert Killigrew, married Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon, in 1660:

 Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy (1650–1684), married firstly James Howard and secondly William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth

By Catherine Pegge:

 Charles FitzCharles (1657–1680), known as "Don Carlo", created Earl of Plymouth (1675)
 Catherine FitzCharles (born 1658; she either died young or became a nun at Dunkirk)

By Barbara Villiers (1641–1709), wife of Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine, and created Duchess of Cleveland in her own right:

 Lady Anne Palmer (Fitzroy) (1661–1722), married Thomas Lennard, 1st Earl of Sussex. She may have been the daughter of Roger Palmer, but Charles accepted her.
 Charles Fitzroy (1662–1730), created Duke of Southampton (1675), became 2nd Duke of Cleveland (1709)
 Henry Fitzroy (1663–1690), created Earl of Euston (1672), Duke of Grafton (1675)
 Charlotte Fitzroy (1664–1717), married Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield
 George Fitzroy (1665–1716), created Earl of Northumberland (1674), Duke of Northumberland (1678)
 (Barbara (Benedicta) Fitzroy (1672–1737) – She was probably the child of John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, who was another of Cleveland's many lovers, and was never acknowledged by Charles as his own daughter.)

By Nell Gwyn (1650–1687):

 Charles Beauclerk (1670–1726), created Duke of St Albans (1684)
 James, Lord Beauclerk (1671–1680)

By Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kérouaille (1649–1734), created Duchess of Portsmouth in her own right (1673):

 Charles Lennox (1672–1723), created Duke of Richmond (1675) in England and Duke of Lennox (1675) in Scotland.

By Mary 'Moll' Davis, courtesan and actress of repute:

 Lady Mary Tudor (1673–1726), married Edward Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater; after Edward's death, she married Henry Graham (of Levens), and upon his death she married James Rooke.

Other probable mistresses include:

 Christabella Wyndham
 Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin
 Winifred Wells – one of Queen Catherine's Maids of Honour
 Jane Roberts – the daughter of a clergyman
 Mrs Knight – a famous singer
 Elizabeth Berkeley, née Bagot, Dowager Countess of Falmouth – the widow of Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth
 Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Countess of Kildare

Letters claiming that Marguerite or Margaret de Carteret bore Charles a son named James de la Cloche in 1646 are dismissed by historians as forgeries.

Genealogical tables

Notes

References

Works cited

Further reading

 . Dictated in 1680.

External links

 Charles II at the official website of the British monarchy
 Charles II at the official website of the Royal Collection Trust
 Charles II at BBC History

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1630 births
1685 deaths
17th-century English monarchs
17th-century English nobility
17th-century Irish monarchs
17th-century Scottish monarchs
17th-century Scottish peers
British expatriates in the Dutch Republic
Burials at Westminster Abbey
Children of Charles I of England
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism
Dukes of Cornwall
Dukes of Rothesay
English pretenders to the French throne
English Roman Catholics
Fellows of the Royal Society
Lord High Stewards of Scotland
House of Stuart
Knights of the Garter
Lord High Admirals of England
People from Westminster
People of the English Civil War
English princes
Princes of Scotland
Princes of Wales
Sons of kings
People of the War of Devolution

Charles II of England


Charles Saatchi  ( ; ; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.  The brothers led the business – the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s – until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year, the brothers formed a new agency called M&C Saatchi.

Saatchi is also known for his art collection and for owning Saatchi Gallery, and in particular for his sponsorship of the Young British Artists (YBAs), including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. In 2013, he received a police caution for assaulting his wife, Nigella Lawson.

Early life
Charles Saatchi is Jewish, born in Baghdad, Iraq, the second of four sons, to the wealthy family of Nathan Saatchi and Daisy Ezer. The name "Saatchi" ساعتچی (sā'ātchi), which means "watchmaker" in Persian, originates from a Turkish name from Iran. This name has a long history in Iran and its bearers are mostly Jewish. Saatchi's brothers are David (born 1937), Maurice (born 1946) and Philip (born 1953).

In 1947 his father, a textile merchant, anticipated the flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews were to take would soon make it difficult to avoid persecution and relocated his family to Finchley, north London. Nathan Saatchi purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time, rebuilt a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into an eight-bedroom house in Hampstead Lane, Highgate.

Saatchi attended Christ's College, a secondary school in Finchley, north London. During this time, he developed an obsession with US pop culture, including the music of Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry.  He has described as "life-changing" the experience of viewing a Jackson Pollock painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He then progressed to study at the London College of Communication.

Advertising career

Early career
In 1965, Saatchi undertook his first advertising role as a copywriter in the London office of Benton & Bowles, where he met Doris Lockhart (later his first wife). Saatchi paired up with art director Ross Cramer and they worked as a team at Collett Dickenson Pearce and John Collins & Partners before leaving in 1967 to open creative consultancy Cramer Saatchi.

Unusually for a creative consultancy, they took on employees: John Hegarty  – previously Saatchi's art director at Benton & Bowles, who would later go on to run rival agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty – and Jeremy Sinclair, who as of 2016 still retains a senior role at M&C Saatchi. In addition to offering consulting with ad agencies they also took on some clients directly.

Saatchi and Saatchi
In 1970, he started the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi with his brother Maurice, which by 1986 – following its acquisition of advertising firm Ted Bates – had grown to be the largest ad agency in the world, with over 600 offices. Successful campaigns in the UK included Silk Cut's advertisements in preparation for the ban on named tobacco advertising, and the Conservative Party's 1979 general election victory – led by Margaret Thatcher through the slogan "Labour Isn't Working".

M&C Saatchi
At the turn of 1995, Saatchi and his brother left the agency, and together founded the rival M&C Saatchi agency, taking with them many of their management and creative staff, as well as a number of clients – including British Airways.

Art

In 1969, at age 26, Saatchi purchased his first work of art by Sol LeWitt, a New York minimalist. Saatchi initially patronised the Lisson Gallery in Marylebone, London, which specialised in American minimalist works. He later purchased an entire show by Robert Mangold.

In the early 1980s, Saatchi purchased a  cement-floored and steel-girded warehouse at 98A Boundary Road in the residential London suburb of St John's Wood. The building was transformed by architect Max Gordon into the Saatchi Gallery, which was subsequently opened to the public in February 1985 to exhibit the art Saatchi had collected.

At one point the Saatchi collection contained 11 works by Donald Judd, 21 by Sol LeWitt, 23 by Anselm Kiefer, 17 Andy Warhols and 27 by Julian Schnabel.

His taste has mutated from American abstraction and minimalism to the Young British Artists (YBAs), whose work he first saw at Goldsmith's Art School. At the YBAs' 1990 Gambler exhibition, Saatchi bought Damien Hirst's first major 'animal' installation, A Thousand Years. In 1991, he acquired major artworks by Hirst and Marc Quinn, becoming instrumental in launching their careers. His renown as a patron peaked in 1997, when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy as the exhibition Sensation, which travelled to Berlin and New York causing headlines and some offence (for example, to the families of children murdered by Myra Hindley, who was portrayed in one of the works), and consolidating the position of Hirst, Emin and other YBAs.

In 2009, he published the book My Name Is Charles Saatchi And I Am An Artoholic. Subtitled "Everything You Need To Know About Art, Ads, Life, God And Other Mysteries And Weren't Afraid To Ask", it presents Saatchi's answers to a number of questions submitted by members of the public and journalists.

From November to December 2009, he had a television programme on the BBC called School of Saatchi in which he gave young aspiring artists an opportunity to showcase their work. He made no appearance in the programme, only communicating through an assistant.

In July 2010, Charles Saatchi announced he would be donating the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public.

The Saatchi Gallery featured in a list of the most visited art museums in the world, based on an attendance survey for 2014, compiled by The Art Newspaper,  with 1,505,608 visitors. In the same survey, the gallery was shown to have hosted 15 of the 20 most visited exhibitions in London over the last 5 years.

In October 2020, Charles Saatchi's daughter, Phoebe Saatchi-Yates and husband Arthur Yates, opened Saatchi Yates on Cork Street, London.

Publications
Books published by Charles Saatchi include:

 Looking Over Your Opponent's Shoulder. (1998) Bow Publications.
 Charles Saatchi: Question. (2010) Phaidon.
 My Name Is Charles Saatchi And I Am An Artoholic. (2012) Phaidon.
 Be the Worst You Can be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue. (2012) Abrams.
 The Naked Eye. (2013) Booth-Clibborn Editions.
 Babble. (2013) Booth-Clibborn Editions.
 Known Unknowns. (2014) Booth-Clibborn Editions.
 DEAD, A Celebration of Mortality. (2015) Booth-Clibborn Editions.
 Beyond Belief: Racist, Sexist, Rude, Crude and Dishonest: The Golden Age of Madison Avenue. (2015) Booth-Clibborn Editions.

Television
 The Real Saatchis: Masters of Illusion (1999, Channel 4)
 School of Saatchi (2009, BBC Two)

Philanthropy
He and his brother founded an independent Jewish synagogue, named Saatchi Shul in Maida Vale, London, England, in 1998, in honour of their parents.

In December 1998, Saatchi donated 130 artworks to a Christie's auction that raised £1.7 million, creating scholarship bursaries at four London art schools.

In February 1999, he gave an additional 100 pieces of artwork from his collection to the Arts Council of Great Britain.

In July 2010, Charles Saatchi announced he would be donating the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public. The donation was estimated to be worth £30 million.

Personal life
According to the Times Online, Saatchi is "reclusive", even hiding from clients when they visited his agency's offices and, as of February 2009, has only ever granted two newspaper interviews. He does not attend his own exhibition openings; when asked why by the Sunday Telegraph, he replied: "I don't go to other people's openings, so I extend the same courtesy to my own."

In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK, he was grouped with his brother Maurice, with an estimated joint fortune of £120 million.

Marriages
Saatchi first met Doris Lockhart Dibley (as she was then known) in 1965 when she was a copy group head above him at Benton & Bowles. She was a native of Memphis, Tennessee, and Kevin Goldman describes her as "a sophisticated woman who spoke several languages, knew a great deal about art and wine and who had graduated from Smith College and the Sorbonne". She became known during their marriage as an art and design journalist, with particular knowledge of American art and minimalism. They lived together for six years before getting married in 1973 and divorcing in 1990.

Saatchi's second wife was Kay Hartenstein (to whom he was married from 1990 to 2001), an American Condé Nast advertising executive from Little Rock, Arkansas. Together they have a daughter, Phoebe.

In 2003, Saatchi married his third wife, British journalist, author and cook Nigella Lawson. In January 2011, Saatchi and Lawson moved from their former home in Belgravia to a new home in Chelsea, London. This was a double fronted seven-bedroom villa converted from its former use as a warehouse and 200 metres from Saatchi's contemporary art gallery in King's Road. They lived with her two children Cosima and Bruno, as well as Phoebe.

In June 2013, while dining at Scott's, a London seafood restaurant, Saatchi was photographed with his hands around Lawson's throat. The day after the pictures were published, Saatchi said they were misleading and depicted only a "playful tiff". He was formally cautioned for assault and voluntarily accepted the caution following an investigation by the police.

In early July of the same year it was announced that the couple were to divorce. Lawson cited ongoing unreasonable behaviour in her divorce petition. On 31 July 2013, seven weeks after the incident, Saatchi and Lawson were granted a decree nisi. They reached a private financial settlement. R v Grillo and Grillo, a trial for fraud involving the former couple's two Italian-born personal assistants, sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, began on 27 November 2013.

In the same year Saatchi began a relationship with Trinny Woodall, an English beauty entrepreneur and author. The couple has split.

References

Further reading
 Hatton, Rita and Walker, John A. Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi, Institute of Artology, 2005.
 Kent, Sarah. Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s, Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, 2003.
 Goldman, Kevin Conflicting Accounts – The Creation & Crash of the Saatchi & Saatchi Empire, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997.

External links
The Saatchi Gallery

Guardian Interview, 6 September 2006
Saatchi answers reader's questions on Times Online, 4 April 2010
Saatchi Says He'll Give Britain His Gallery and Over $37 Million in Art, The New York Times, 1 July 2010

1943 births
Living people
British art collectors
Jewish art collectors
British advertising executives
British people of Iraqi-Jewish descent
Iraqi emigrants to the United Kingdom
Iraqi Jews
Museum founders
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Businesspeople from Baghdad
People educated at Christ's College, Finchley
Charles
Alumni of the London College of Communication

Charles Saatchi


John Phillips (1631–1706) was an English author, the brother of Edward Phillips, and a nephew of John Milton.

Life
Anne Phillips, mother of John and Edward, was the sister of John Milton, the poet. In 1652, John Phillips published a Latin reply to the anonymous attack on Milton entitled Pro Rege et populo anglicano. He appears to have acted as unofficial secretary to Milton, but, unable to obtain regular political employment, and (like his brother) chafing against the discipline he was under, he published in 1655, a bitter attack on Puritanism titled a Satyr against Hypocrites (1655). In 1656, he was summoned before the privy council for his share in a book of licentious poems, Sportive Wit, which was suppressed by the authorities, but almost immediately replaced by a similar collection, Wit and Drollery.

In Montelion (1660) he ridiculed the astrological almanacs of William Lilly. Two other skits of this name, in 1661 and 1662, also full of coarse royalist wit, were probably by another hand. In 1678, he supported the agitation of Titus Oates, writing on his behalf, says Anthony Wood, many lies and villanies. Dr Oates's Narrative of the Popish Plot indicated it was the first of these tracts. In the same year he published the first English translation of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 'Six Voyages' recounting a lifetime of travel in the Middle East and South Asia.

He began a monthly historical review in 1688, entitled Modern History or a Monthly Account of all considerable Occurrences, Civil, Ecclesiastical and Military, followed in 1690, by The Present State of Europe, or a Historical and Political Mercury, which was supplemented by a preliminary volume giving a history of events from 1688. He executed many translations from the French language, and a version (1687) of Don Quixote, which has been called by Quixote translator Samuel Putnam the worst English translation ever made of the novel. Putnam goes so far as to say in his Translator's Preface that Phillips's version "cannot be called a translation". This is largely because Phillips actually changes the novel by substituting references to famous English locales in place of the original Spanish ones, and including references to things British not found in the original novel.

An extended account of the brothers is given by Wood in Athenæ Oxononienses (ed. Bliss, iv. 764 seq.), where a long list of their works is dealt with. This formed the basis of William Godwin's Lives of Edward and John Phillips (1815), with which was reprinted Edward Phillips's Life of John Milton.

References

External links

1631 births
1706 deaths
English writers
Place of birth unknown
Date of death unknown
Place of death unknown
Date of birth unknown
English male writers

John Phillips (author)


Gwinnett Technical College is a public technical school in the U.S. state of Georgia with campuses in Lawrenceville and Alpharetta.  It is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Since opening its doors as the Gwinnett Area Technical School in 1984, the college has added numerous programs of study, made two name changes, expanded its facilities and experienced enrollment growth. Currently, the Lawrenceville campus is 88 acres and the Alpharetta-North Fulton Campus is 25 acres.

Founding, growth, and name changes
In 1984, to meet the demand for technological training, the Gwinnett Area Technical School was founded. The school subsequently expanded its offerings to include a wider variety of high-tech programs. In 1988, the name was changed to Gwinnett Technical Institute, aligning Gwinnett Tech with the network of state technical institutes under the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education (DTAE).

The following year, DTAE approved Gwinnett Tech to grant associate degrees in applied technology (AAT) in six programming areas, which paved the way for Gwinnett Tech to pursue accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Gwinnett Technical Institute changed its name on July 6, 2000, to Gwinnett Technical College to better reflect its position within the region's higher education market. The name change was made possible by Georgia's A+ Education Reform Act of 2000, which allowed technical institutes with proper accreditation to be designated as colleges.

References

External links

Technical College System of Georgia
Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Universities and colleges established in 1984
Education in Gwinnett County, Georgia
Buildings and structures in Gwinnett County, Georgia
1984 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)

Gwinnett Technical College


Ray Wilkinson (April 14, 1925 – December 4, 2004) was a long-time agricultural news anchor and reporter for Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Wilkinson was born in Lombard, Illinois. Wilkinson served in World War II and briefly did a radio stint in Savannah, Georgia before moving to North Carolina. Wilkinson first came to North Carolina in 1948, where he worked for several radio stations in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He then moved to Raleigh in 1963 to work for Capitol Broadcasting, the parent owner of WRAL-TV. He was responsible for covering farm news and all things agricultural and was well known for his intensive coverage of agricultural markets. Working in both television and radio at Capitol, he was the general manager of the Tobacco Radio Network. Wilkinson was responsible for taking the Tobacco Radio Network from a small local radio broadcast to one that was broadcast from Virginia to Florida. Wilkinson is probably best known for his Cecil and Leonard jokes. The jokes were centered on the lives and happenings of Cecil and Leonard, two fictional country friends in eastern North Carolina. He was known for his dedicated support of the revitalization efforts of historic Halifax, North Carolina. Wilkinson died December 4, 2004, in Raleigh, North Carolina, from complications of Parkinson's disease at the age of 79.

External links
 Bio at CBC

1925 births
2004 deaths
Neurological disease deaths in North Carolina
Deaths from Parkinson's disease
American television news anchors

Ray Wilkinson


Club Defensores de Almagro (also known for its acronym CADA) is an Argentine social club from Balvanera neighborhood, Buenos Aires. The institution is mostly known for its football team, which won the Primera D title in 1970.

History
Encouraged by the great popularity that football had amongst its members, the club affiliated to the Argentine Football Association to play at Primera D, then called "Tercera de Ascenso".

Teams that took part in the 1970 championship were split into two zones, one of ten and the other of nine teams, named Norte and Sur respectively. The best four teams of each zone would pass to the next stage in order to proclaim a champion.

Defensores de Almagro obtained the Primera D (then called Primera de Aficionados) title after finishing 1st in Sección Sur with 32 points. The squad won 15 matches, drew one and was only defeated once. In the next stage, Defensores finished with nine victories, three draws and two losses, obtaining the club's only official title to date.

The squad was coached by Daniel Kreyness, who was only 27 at that time. Defensores became champion after defeating Club Central Argentino (now Central Ballester) 2-1 in General Lamadrid stadium. One of the most remarkable moments of the campaign was the match against Acassuso, which Defensores won 5-4 after trailing 0-4 in the first half.

The final positions of the tournament were: Defensores de Almagro (champion, promoted to Primera C) 21 points; Sportivo Barracas 16, Central Argentino 15, Piraña and Deportivo Merlo 14, Porteño Athletic Club 13, Acassuso 11 and Villa San Carlos 8.

In 1971 Defensores de Almagro played at Primera C, where the team did not make a good performance and was relegated to the lowest division again. Soon after, the club disaffiliated from the Argentine Football Association and never returned to play any tournament organized by the AFA. Nowadays the institution focuses on football at children and youth levels only.

Titles
Primera D: 1
 1970

Colors
Defensores de Almagro wore a blue jersey, although some sources cite the light blue, white and black striped jersey as the club's colors, due to a confusion with Club Almagro, the team based in Tres de Febrero Partido, which is not related to Defensores.

References

External links
Club blog (fans site)

Football clubs in Buenos Aires
Football clubs disaffiliated from the Argentine Football Association
Association football clubs established in 1945

Club Atlético Defensores de Almagro


The Atlantic Plain is one of eight different United States physiographic (Physical part of) regions. The Atlantic Coast of the United States comprises the coastal states of Delaware, Florida, Maine, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Virginia, and Puerto Rico. The land next to the Atlantic coast are made up of sandy beaches, marshlands, bays, and barrier islands. This big part is made up of the Continental Shelf and Coastal Plain provinces. It is the flattest of the U.S. physiographic divisions and is over 2,200 miles (3,500 km) in length from Cape Cod to the Mexican border and goes south an additional 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the Yucatán Peninsula. The central and southern Atlantic Coast is seen by barrier and drowned valley coasts. The coastal Atlantic plain features long barriers interrupted by inlets, large embayments with drowned river valleys, and extensive wetlands and marshes. The Atlantic plain slowly lowers to sea level from the inland highlands in a series of terraces. This continues far into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, forming the continental shelf. The difference at the land-sea interface is so hard to see that the boundary between them is often indistinct(hard to see), especially along stretches of the Louisiana bayous and the Florida Everglades.

Coastal Plains
The Atlantic Coastal Plain is a region of low elevation along the East Coast of the United States. It is 2,200 miles long, from Long Island, to the Georgia/Florida part of the Eastern Continental Divide. The plain is bordered on the west by the Piedmont plateau, which is a flat area bordered by the main Appalachian mountains, and where the plateau and the plain meet is called the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line. It is bordered to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Floridian province. The Outer Lands region forms the insular northeastern extension of the Atlantic coastal plain.

Elevation
The plain is not very high, averaging around 900 or less feet from sea level. It extends about 50 to 100 kilometers inland. The coastal plain is very wet, with many rivers, marshes, and swampland. It is composed mainly of sedimentary rock and sediment, and the land is usually used for agriculture. The coastal plain also has the Carolina Sandhills as well. Sometimes, on maps, the coastal plain is split into two northern and southern regions. Sea levels rising is also an issue, because ocean water (Or salty water) starts to kill plants that can't use saltwater in photosynthesis. Groundwater supplies are also vulnerable along the East Coast. With industrial and urban development (like houses, factories, and roads), many inland salt (with saltwater) marshes are disappearing.

Life in the Atlantic Plain

Plant Life
Vegetation is also experiencing issues with the rapid changes the plain is going through, too. Forests are common on this plain. In the north, there are hardwood forests that include white, black, red, chestnut and scarlet oaks. The forests in a wider area include hickory, long-leaf pines, sweet gum, magnolia and bay leaf trees.

Animal Life
Many animals also inhabit the region, like toads, salamanders and frogs. Gray foxes inhabit the whole region, while the Lower Keys marsh rabbit and manatees live in mainly the Florida Keys. Fish, including the threatened Alabama sturgeon, inhabit the area too. Waterfowl, wading birds and a variety of shorebirds make their home in the region.

References

Atlantic Plain


Peter Egerton Warburton (1813—1889) was an English naval and military officer who became famous as an explorer of Australia. He served as the Commissioner of Police in South Australia.  He was employed by the South Australian government to replace Benjamin Herschel Babbage, because they felt Babbage was moving to slowly. Warburton led several trips into the desert between 1856 and 1874. He found a gap through the ring of salt lakes north of Adelaide in South Australia, which had blocked northward exploration. He visited the artesian springs which he named Coward Springs. He also explored the Davenport Range which he named after Sir Samuel Davenport, a South Australian politician.

In 1872 he became the first person to cross Australia from the centre, at Alice Springs to the coast of Western Australia. He had to cross the Great Sandy Desert, a trip which left him blind in one eye. He was so ill he completed the trip tied to his camel. They were forced to eat most of their camels. He said they only reason the group survived was through the skills of Charley, their Indigenous Australian guide, Charley.  Warburton was made a CMG and given £1000 as a reward in 1875.

References

1813 births
1889 deaths

Exploration of Australia
British military people
English explorers
Australian police officers

Peter Warburton


Cob, or clom in Wales, is a natural building material.

Cob is made from "subsoil" (soil below the top layer), water, some kind of fibrous organic material (usually straw), and sometimes lime. The contents of subsoil varies and if it does not contain the right mixture is can be modified with sand or clay. Cob is fireproof, resists seismic activity, and inexpensive.  It can be used to create artistic, sculptural forms and has been revived in recent years by the natural building and sustainability movements.

Cob material is known by many names including adobe, lump clay, puddled clay, chalk mud, wichert, clay daubins, swish (African), torchis (French), bauge (French), bousille (French mud with moss).

The material has a long life-span even in rainy climates, provided a tall foundation and large roof overhang are present.

References

Building materials

Cob (material)


Édouard Ignace Andlauer (15 December 1830 – 14 December 1909) was a French composer and organist.

Life
Andlauer was born in Andlau (Alsace) where his father was a schoolteacher. From a very early age, he showed aptitudes for music. After receiving his first musical instruction in his father's home, he took organ lessons from Joseph Wackenthaler, organist of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, and piano lessons with Conrad Berg. His musical talent developed rapidly and he entered the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, directed by François-Joseph Fétis, as student of Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, and Charles Auguste de Bériot. He won the first prize for harmony and organ.

At the end of his studies, on 1 September 1848 at the age of just 18, he obtained, in competition, the vacant position of organist at St. George's Church, Haguenau. In addition to his position as organist, he headed the Société chorale from 1857 to 1861.

A distinguished teacher, Andlauer trained many students. One of them, Balthasar Waizenecker, entered the new School of Religious Music in Paris founded in 1853 by Niedermeyer, where he won the first prizes; later followed by the two Dürrenwachter brothers, organists in Constantine and Bône, as well as Ducret, organist in Niort. Among Andlauer' were also Clément Lippacher, organist at the Église Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile in Paris, composer of the ballet Viviane, operettas Joséphine vendue par ses sœurs and Les Papillons, and a series of compositions including the sacred drama Le Christ; P. Young (Jung) of New-York, composer of The Roman Hymnal and English and Latin Hymnus, Miss Numann and Miss Scherrer.

Andlauer contributed to the chamber music concerts, arranged since 1849 by the professors of the Municipal Music School, in which world-renowned artists took part, Teresa Milanollo, Levassor, Schwaederlé, Wuille, Rucquoi, Mme Jaëll, Gleichauff, Nosscck. He has composed works for organ, piano and voice. Several of his organ pieces have become popular, such as his organ fantasy, Marienthalerlied: , in honour of the Virgin of Marienthal. He founded the Cécilia, directed for many years the singing of the circle of young people, L'Aloysia, and accepted, in 1879, the position of piano master at the school of municipal music and often made organ evaluations.

On the occasion of his jubilee, on 1 September 1899, Emperor Wilhelm II awarded him the 4th class Order of the Crown.

His son, Eugene, born in 1867, who also studied at the Brussels Conservatory, was an organist at the St. George's Church, Selestat (1888-1938).

Selected works
1895: Impromptu, for piano
1898: Fillette, little waltz for piano

Notes and references

External links

 Notice d'Édouard Ignace Andlauer

1830 births
1909 deaths
Musicians from Bas-Rhin
Royal Conservatory of Brussels alumni
French classical organists
French male organists
French Romantic composers
19th-century organists
19th-century French musicians
20th-century French male musicians
19th-century French male musicians
Male classical organists

Édouard Ignace Andlauer


Revision week is a period in the UK and other Commonwealth countries preceding examinations in high schools, higher education institutions, and military colleges. In American colleges, this period is known as a Reading Period. Generally, this period is one week long and free of classes or assessment, permitting students to spend the period revising material, generally in preparation for final exams. With the exception of Canadian post-secondary institutions, is not often allocated for mid-semester or ongoing assessment. Each day of such a period may be referred to as a reading day. Hell week is used in many similar educational contexts, such as police or military training.

The term "revision week" is chiefly used in Commonwealth countries, where it is also known as "swotvac" or "stuvac". For post-secondary institutions in anglophone Canada, it is common to have "reading week" or "mid-term break" during the third week of February, coinciding with Family Day. While in francophone Canada, "semaine d'études," "semaine d'activités libres," or "semaine de lecture," typically falls on the first or second week of March. Some Canadian post-secondary institutions have even adopted reading weeks for the fall academic term, either in October or November, typically coinciding with Thanksgiving or Remembrance Day respectively. In the US this period is generally referred to as reading period or (as slang) dead week or dead days.

Swotvac
The term swotvac (swot vac, swotvac) is commonly used in Commonwealth countries, particularly Australia, to refer to this period. The term is a blend of the swot and vac (vacation), indicating the period free of classes. "Swot"  (or less commonly swat) is a dialectal word (Scottish) originally meaning "to sweat", which found use as a slang word describing a student paying careful attention to his work. Swot as a verb suggests acting like a swot, studying for one's exams.

The use of the uncommon and outmoded word 'swot' has led to the backronym  Study Week Or Take VACation or Study WithOut Teaching  (or Tuition)  VACation. There are many other different backronyms that can be derived, and the term stuvac (STUdy VACation, STUdent VACation) is also found.

Though once popular and used by universities as the official name for the week, the term seems to have fallen from favour and replaced with study week. As of 2014, however, it is still used by at least three of Australia's Group of 8 universities on the academic calendar.

Dead week
Dead week, or hell week, is US slang for the week before college and university final examinations. The week is often characterized by heightened test anxiety, students working to overcome procrastinating their test preparation or writing  term papers. This can lead to sleep deprivation, irritability, and vomiting. There are often all-night studying sessions, and greater use of stimulants like coffee, caffeine tablets, energy drinks, Adderall, or other prescription amphetamines.

Many campus dormitories or residence halls require near silence for most of the day during the week before finals. There may also be a moratorium on paper assignments, exams, and student organizational activities during dead week. Libraries may also be open for extended hours, or might stay available all night.

Examples
 Iowa State University — Dead Week has become an official University-recognized event. Student organizations are not allowed to meet. There are 23/7 mandatory quiet hours in the student dormitories (the non-quiet, 24th hour is dubbed Rowdy Hour)
 Yale University — The Pundits, a nominally anonymous student group, organizes a naked run through Bass Library, where many students study for their exams. The event is usually around midnight and the runners hand out candy to the crowd.
 Stanford University — Students engage in the "primal scream" at midnight every night of Dead Week. Professors are banned from assigning additional homework and may not cover new material. The university bans all on-campus parties during dead week and finals week.
 Cornell University — Students scream as loudly as possible out of their windows at midnight the night before the first day of finals. This is known as the midnight scream.
 Columbia University — Students open their windows at midnight and scream as loudly as possible on the Sunday of finals week each semester, popularly known as the Primal Scream. The tradition helps students release their pent up stress and anxiety about exams. At midnight the eve of the first Monday of finals, students participate in a Spring Pillow Fight.
 Georgia Tech — Professors that give traditional exams may assign homework and projects during dead week, but may not assign tests, quizzes, lab reports and lab practicums. Professors that give a non traditional exam, such as a project or lab report, may give homework and the alternate exam assignment during dead week or finals week.  Tests, quizzes, and additional lab reports and lab practicums are not allowed during dead week. In either case, professors cannot give any assignment besides the exam during finals week.  In practice, many professors take advantage of this and assign homework and projects during dead week. On the Friday of Dead Week, freShGA (freshman leadership organization) hosts its annual One Night Stand. Starting at 10pm and going until 4am, students spend the Friday of Dead Week at the Campus Recreation Center for a night of sport competitions, relays, and tournaments with free food and amazing prizes. Also, Midnight Madness occurs every night during dead week  and students scream to vent frustration at midnight. The band also "unofficially" partakes in the Midnight bud, where the band members coincidentally show up in the freshmen quad at midnight. Traditionally, "To hell with Georgia" is sung and the fight songs are played. Then, the band travels to North Avenue Apartments and repeats. The Midnight bud occurs on the final night of exams.
 Northwestern University — A tradition known as the "Primal Scream" that takes place at 9 pm on the Sunday night before finals week. The Primal Scream marks the end of reading week, a time when most classes are not in session, and the beginning of finals week.
 University of California, Berkeley — Students may choose to participate in a naked run through Moffitt Library in an effort to relieve their stress.
University of California, Los Angeles — Operating on the quarter system, there is no 'dead week.' Instead, students engage in a 'primal scream' at midnight of every night of finals week. The Undie Run, where students run in their underwear from the intersection of Strathmore and Gayley to Royce Hall, occurs at midnight on the Friday of finals week.
 University of Vermont — Students get together at midnight on the last day of classes for the naked bike ride through Athletic Campus. Students can bike or run.
 Michigan State University — During the Sunday–Thursday of finals week students across campus open their windows at midnight and scream.
Penn State University - During the Sunday of finals week right at sunset, students gather at Mifflin Street and run naked down the hill. This is known as the Mifflin Streak.

Timing
It is scheduled after all the regular class lectures and before final exams. In some universities, reading days in the Fall semesters are being scheduled two days before Thanksgiving holidays to extend the holiday weekend like a spring break. However, this break is followed by the last week of classes and final examination week.

Duration
In many cases, student governments have lobbied to introduce, extend, or preserve reading days as a day exclusively for study and have run into conflict with teachers who like to use it as an additional day for lectures or exams. Another issue is that some students may prefer to take exams on reading day in order to get the semester over with.

See also
 Dead week
Schoolies week, vacation week following exams
Study skills

References

External links

Reading day policy out of touch with students, The Daily Campus, 11 November 2015
OPINION: Reading day: Wrong place, wrong time, Technician, Charlie Melville, Correspondent 27 Apr 2017
 Editorial: UConn must have early weekday reading days, The Daily Campus, 27 April 2017
 Therapy dogs, chocolate, Play-Doh: Universities offer ways to cope with finals, The College Fix, Jeremy Beaman, 8 May 2017

Academic culture
Educational time organization
Reading Week
Student culture in the United States

Revision week


Mount Pleasant Township is a township in Wabasha County, Minnesota, in the United States.  The population was 475 at the 2000 census.

Mount Pleasant Township was organized in 1858, and so named on account of the scenic overlooks from area summits.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 36.0 square miles (93.2 km), all of it land.  The township contains two properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the 1858 Lake City and Rochester Stage Road–Mount Pleasant Section and the 1880 Patrick H. Rahilly House.

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 475 people, 153 households, and 128 families residing in the township.  The population density was 13.2 people per square mile (5.1/km).  There were 158 housing units at an average density of 4.4/sq mi (1.7/km).  The racial makeup of the township was 98.95% White, 0.21% Native American, 0.63% Asian, 0.21% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.21% of the population.

There were 153 households, out of which 49.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 72.5% were married couples living together, 3.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 15.7% were non-families. 13.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.  The average household size was 3.10 and the average family size was 3.40.

In the township the population was spread out, with 34.1% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, and 6.9% who were 65 years of age or older.  The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 119.9 males.  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 114.4 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $40,625, and the median income for a family was $46,071. Males had a median income of $32,500 versus $20,750 for females. The per capita income for the township was $16,591.  About 6.3% of families and 9.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.0% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.

References

Townships in Wabasha County, Minnesota
Rochester metropolitan area, Minnesota
Townships in Minnesota

Mount Pleasant Township, Wabasha County, Minnesota


Dame Margaret Anne Begg DBE (born 6 December 1955) is a Scottish politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen South from 1997 to 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she was Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee from 2010 to 2015.

Upon her election to Parliament, Begg became the first permanent wheelchair user in the House of Commons since the 19th century.

Education and early career
Margaret Anne Begg was educated in Brechin, Angus at Damacre Primary School and Brechin High School. She earned an MA in History and Politics at the University of Aberdeen, and a Secondary Teaching Certificate from the Aberdeen College of Education in 1978.

After gaining her teaching certificate, Begg taught English and History at Webster's High School, Kirriemuir. She became the principal English teacher at Arbroath Academy in 1988.

Parliamentary career
Following her involvement in teaching unions, Begg joined the Labour Party in 1983. She was selected to stand for Parliament, through an all-women shortlist, as Labour candidate for Aberdeen South. Begg was encouraged to stand by Frank Doran, the former Labour MP for the constituency. At the 1997 general election, she defeated incumbent Conservative MP and government minister Raymond Robertson. She became the second ever permanent wheelchair user in the House of Commons upon her election.

She was re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2010, becoming the first Labour MP to retain her constituency for more than a single term. At the 2015 general election, Begg lost her seat to SNP candidate Callum McCaig.

Begg made her maiden speech on 21 May 1997. She served as secretary of the All-party parliamentary group (APPG) on the BBC, and chair of the APPGs on Equalities, the Oil and Gas Industry, Chronic Pain, and Commercial Radio. She was a member of the Panel of Chairs and Vice Chair of the Speaker's Conference, tasked with looking at the under representation of disadvantaged groups in the Commons. Begg served as Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee from June 2010 until the dissolution of Parliament in 2015.

Votes and political views
Begg voted in favour of banning smoking in restaurants in April 2003. In December 2004 and October 2005, she voted in favour of the Identity Cards Bill. She voted in favour of allowing unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples to adopt, and in favour of the Civil Partnership Bill.

In March 2002, she voted to ban the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. She voted in favour of the NHS Foundation Trust proposal and against the replacement of the Trident system.

She voted in favour of adding clauses to a bill that allow the Secretary of State to detain indefinitely, pending deportation, anyone he suspects is a terrorist, even if the law forbids that person's deportation from ever taking place. She voted against allowing people detained at a police station to be fingerprinted and searched for identifying birthmarks unless it is in connection with a terrorism investigation.

In March 2003, she voted against the declaration of war against Iraq.

In June 2003, she voted against a motion that would have recalled the Prime Minister's assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used at 45 minutes' notice, and launching an independent inquiry into the intelligence received and the decisions that were based on it. In June 2007, she voted against a motion calling for an independent inquiry by a committee of Privy Counsellors into the Iraq War.

In November 2008, Begg was one of 18 MPs who signed a Commons motion backing a Team GB football team at the 2012 Olympics, saying football "should not be any different from other competing sports and our young talent should be allowed to show their skills on the world stage". The football governing bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all opposed to a Great Britain team, fearing it would stop them competing as individual nations in future tournaments.

During the 2009 MPs expenses scandal, Begg was one of the first Scottish MPs to take the step of publishing all of her claims under the Additional Costs Allowance on her website before they were released by the House of Commons authorities saying that it was "important people can see how MPs spend taxpayers' money."

In June 2011, Begg crossed swords with Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, over the issue of disabled people being allowed to work for less than minimum wage if they so choose in order to establish themselves in employment. Davies explained that he was representing the views of constituents anxious to get a foothold on the earnings ladder, but Begg believed that this was simply an attempt to discriminate against disabled people.

National campaigns
Begg is a vocal campaigner for allowing embryonic stem cells to be used in the research for treatments of diseases, including currently incurable conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. She has also been heavily involved in lobbying the Department of Health against an all-out ban on the pain-relief drug co-proxamol, used by many people who live with chronic pain conditions.

She has also taken the lead in lobbying the government on issues such as the Seafarer's Earnings Deduction and compensation for trawlermen who lost their livelihoods during the Cod Wars. In the 2009 Budget, Begg also won a concession from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling MP, that "those caring responsibilities of grandparents of working age will count towards their entitlement to the basic state pension." Begg had campaigned for grandparents of working age to receive National Insurance Credits in recognition of the fact that their caring role may impact on their contributions to their state pension entitlement.

In the Commons, Begg criticised fraudsters who take advantage of vulnerable people through mail scams and pyramid schemes.

Local campaigns
Begg was critical of Aberdeen City Council's budget cuts in 2008, and dubbed their behaviour as "draconian" after the council set a debt collection agency on an 80-year-old partially sighted woman for £17.50.

Begg wrote to the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond requesting a change to the house buying system in Scotland. She also criticised plans to close an Aberdeen school 18 months after it had been saved, saying that they were "closing the school by stealth."

Personal life and honours
Begg lives with Gaucher's disease and has been a wheelchair user since 1984. She won the Disabled Scot of the Year award in 1988.

In November 1999, she was knocked from her wheelchair in a road accident outside Aberdeen Airport. Begg sustained a broken leg and wrist, and was hospitalised for three months.

She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours, for 'services to disabled people and to equal opportunities'.

References

External links
 Anne Begg MP profile , LabourOnline.org; accessed 31 August 2014.

 Anne Begg's Profile New Statesman; accessed 31 August 2014.

1955 births
20th-century Scottish women politicians
20th-century Scottish politicians
21st-century Scottish women politicians
21st-century Scottish politicians
Living people
Politicians with paraplegia
British politicians with disabilities
People from Brechin
Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Aberdeen constituencies
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
Scottish schoolteachers
Alumni of the University of Aberdeen
UK MPs 2010–2015
Scottish Labour MPs
People educated at Brechin High School
Wheelchair users

Anne Begg


Baron Milner of Leeds, of Roundhay in the City of Leeds, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 20 December 1951 for the Labour politician James Milner. His only son, the second Baron, was one of the ninety elected hereditary peers that were allowed to remain in the House of Lords after the House of Lords Act of 1999. Like his father Lord Milner of Leeds sat on the Labour benches.  the title is held by the latter's only son, the third Baron, who succeeded in 2003.

Barons Milner of Leeds (1951)
James Milner, 1st Baron Milner of Leeds (1889–1967)
(Arthur James) Michael Milner, 2nd Baron Milner of Leeds (1923–2003)
Richard James Milner, 3rd Baron Milner of Leeds (b. 1959)

There is no heir to the barony.

References

Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.

Baronies in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Noble titles created in 1951
Noble titles created for UK MPs

Baron Milner of Leeds