VOLUME XVII SLICE VIII Matter to Mecklenburg (continued 4)

Meanwhile the king had formed an alliance with Henry VII. king of England, and Ferdinand II., king of Aragon, to defend the possessions of the duchess Anne, daughter and successor of Francis, duke of Brittany. Early in 1490 he took a further step and was betrothed to the duchess, and later in the same year the marriage was celebrated by proxy; but Brittany was still occupied by French troops, and Maximilian was unable to go to the assistance of his bride. The sequel was startling. In December 1491 Anne was married to Charles VIII., king of France, and Maximilian’s daughter Margaret, who had resided in France since her betrothal, was sent back to her father. The inaction of Maximilian at this time is explained by the condition of affairs in Hungary, where the death of king Matthias Corvinus had brought about a struggle for this throne. The Roman king, who was an unsuccessful candidate, took up arms, drove the Hungarians from Austria, and regained Vienna, which had been in the possession of Matthias since 1485; but he was compelled by want of money to retreat, and on the 7th of November 1491 signed the treaty of Pressburg with Ladislaus, king of Bohemia, who had obtained the Hungarian throne. By this treaty it was agreed that Maximilian should succeed to the crown in case Ladislaus left no legitimate male issue. Having defeated the invading Turks at Villach in 1492, the king was eager to take revenge upon the king of France; but the states of the Netherlands would afford him no assistance. The German diet was indifferent, and in May 1493 he agreed to the peace of Senlis and regained Artois and Franche-Comté.

In August 1493 the death of the emperor left Maximilian sole ruler of Germany and head of the house of Habsburg; and on the 16th of March 1494 he married at Innsbruck Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan (d. 1476). At this time Bianca’s uncle, Ludovico Sforza, was invested with the duchy of Milan in return for the substantial dowry which his niece brought to the king. Maximilian harboured the idea of driving the Turks from Europe; but his appeal to all Christian sovereigns was ineffectual. In 1494 he was again in the Netherlands, where he led an expedition against the rebels of Gelderland, assisted Perkin Warbeck to make a descent upon England, and formally handed over the government of the Low Countries to Philip. His attention was next turned to Italy, and, alarmed at the progress of Charles VIII. in the peninsula, he signed the league of Venice in March 1495, and about the same time arranged a marriage between his son Philip and Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon. The need for help to prosecute the war in Italy caused the king to call the diet to Worms in March 1495, when he urged the necessity of checking the progress of Charles. As during his father’s lifetime Maximilian had favoured the reforming party among the princes, proposals for the better government of the empire were brought forward at Worms as a necessary preliminary to financial and military support. Some reforms were adopted, the public peace was proclaimed without any limitation of time and a general tax was levied. The three succeeding years were mainly occupied with quarrels with the diet, with two invasions of France, and a war in Gelderland against Charles, count of Egmont, who claimed that duchy, and was supported by French troops. The reforms of 1495 were rendered abortive by the refusal of Maximilian to attend the diets or to take any part in the working of the new constitution, and in 1497 he strengthened his own authority by establishing an Aulic Council (Reichshofrath), which he declared was competent to deal with all business of the empire, and about the same time set up a court to centralize the financial administration of Germany.

In February 1499 the king became involved in a war with the Swiss, who had refused to pay the imperial taxes or to furnish a contribution for the Italian expedition. Aided by France they defeated the German troops, and the peace of Basel in September 1499 recognized them as virtually independent of the empire. About this time Maximilian’s ally, Ludovico of Milan, was taken prisoner by Louis XII., king of France, and Maximilian was again compelled to ask the diet for help. An elaborate scheme for raising an army was agreed to, and in return a council of regency (Reichsregiment) was established, which amounted, in the words of a Venetian envoy, to a deposition of the king. The relations were now very strained between the reforming princes and Maximilian, who, unable to raise an army, refused to attend the meetings of the council at Nuremberg, while both parties treated for peace with France. The hostility of the king rendered the council impotent. He was successful in winning the support of many of the younger princes, and in establishing a new court of justice, the members of which were named by himself. The negotiations with France ended in the treaty of Blois, signed in September 1504, when Maximilian’s grandson Charles was betrothed to Claude, daughter of Louis XII., and Louis, invested with the duchy of Milan, agreed to aid the king of the Romans to secure the imperial crown. A succession difficulty in Bavaria-Landshut was only decided after Maximilian had taken up arms and narrowly escaped with his life at Regensburg. In the settlement of this question, made in 1505, he secured a considerable increase of territory, and when the king met the diet at Cologne in 1505 he was at the height of his power. His enemies at home were crushed, and their leader, Berthold, elector of Mainz, was dead; while the outlook abroad was more favourable than it had been since his accession.

It is at this period that Ranke believes Maximilian to have entertained the idea of a universal monarchy; but whatever hopes he may have had were shattered by the death of his son Philip and the rupture of the treaty of Blois. The diet of Cologne discussed the question of reform in a halting fashion, but afforded the king supplies for an expedition into Hungary, to aid his ally Ladislaus, and to uphold his own influence in the East. Having established his daughter Margaret as regent for Charles in the Netherlands, Maximilian met the diet at Constance in 1507, when the imperial chamber (Reichskammergericht) was revised and took a more permanent form, and help was granted for an expedition to Italy. The king set out for Rome to secure his coronation, but Venice refused to let him pass through her territories; and at Trant, on the 4th of February 1508, he took the important step of assuming the title of Roman Emperor Elect, to which he soon received the assent of pope Julius II. He attacked the Venetians, but finding the war unpopular with the trading cities of southern Germany, made a truce with the republic for three years. The treaty of Blois had contained a secret article providing for an attack on Venice, and this ripened into the league of Cambray, which was joined by the emperor in December 1509. He soon took the field, but after his failure to capture Padua the league broke up; and his sole ally, the French king, joined him in calling a general council at Pisa to discuss the question of Church reform. A breach with pope Julius followed, and at this time Maximilian appears to have entertained, perhaps quite seriously, the idea of seating himself in the chair of St Peter. After a period of vacillation he deserted Louis and joined the Holy League, which had been formed to expel the French from Italy; but unable to raise troops, he served with the English forces as a volunteer and shared in the victory gained over the French at the battle of the Spurs near Thérouanne on the 16th of August 1513. In 1500 the diet had divided Germany into six circles, for the maintenance of peace, to which the emperor at the diet of Cologne in 1512 added four others. Having made an alliance with Christian II., king of Denmark, and interfered to protect the Teutonic Order against Sigismund I., king of Poland, Maximilian was again in Italy early in 1516 fighting the French who had overrun Milan. His want of success compelled him on the 4th of December 1516 to sign the treaty of Brussels, which left Milan in the hands of the French king, while Verona was soon afterwards transferred to Venice. He attempted in vain to secure the election of his grandson Charles as king of the Romans, and in spite of increasing infirmity was eager to lead the imperial troops against the Turks. At the diet of Augsburg in 1518 the emperor heard warnings of the Reformation in the shape of complaints against papal exactions, and a repetition of the complaints preferred at the diet of Mainz in 1517 about the administration of Germany. Leaving the diet, he travelled to Wels in Upper Austria, where he died on the 12th of January 1519. He was buried in the church of St George in Vienna Neustadt, and a superb monument, which may still be seen, was raised to his memory at Innsbruck.

Maximilian had many excellent personal qualities. He was not handsome, but of a robust and well-proportioned frame. Simple in his habits, conciliatory in his bearing, and catholic in his tastes, he enjoyed great popularity and rarely made a personal enemy. He was a skilled knight and a daring huntsman, and although not a great general, was intrepid on the field of battle. His mental interests were extensive. He knew something of six languages, and could discuss art, music, literature or theology. He reorganized the university of Vienna and encouraged the development of the universities of Ingolstadt and Freiburg. He was the friend and patron of scholars, caused manuscripts to be copied and medieval poems to be collected. He was the author of military reforms, which included the establishment of standing troops, called Landsknechte, the improvement of artillery by making cannon portable, and some changes in the equipment of the cavalry. He was continually devising plans for the better government of Austria, and although they ended in failure, he established the unity of the Austrian dominions. Maximilian has been called the second founder of the house of Habsburg, and certainly by bringing about marriages between Charles and Joanna and between his grandson Ferdinand and Anna, daughter of Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, he paved the way for the vast empire of Charles V. and for the influence of the Habsburgs in eastern Europe. But he had many qualities less desirable. He was reckless and unstable, resorting often to lying and deceit, and never pausing to count the cost of an enterprise or troubling to adapt means to ends. For absurd and impracticable schemes in Italy and elsewhere he neglected Germany, and sought to involve its princes in wars undertaken solely for private aggrandizement or personal jealousy. Ignoring his responsibilities as ruler of Germany, he only considered the question of its government when in need of money and support from the princes. As the “last of the knights” he could not see that the old order of society was passing away and a new order arising, while he was fascinated by the glitter of the medieval empire and spent the better part of his life in vague schemes for its revival. As “a gifted amateur in politics” he increased the disorder of Germany and Italy and exposed himself and the empire to the jeers of Europe.

Maximilian was also a writer of books, and his writings display his inordinate vanity. His Geheimes Jagdbuch, containing about 2500 words, is a treatise purporting to teach his grandsons the art of hunting. He inspired the production of The Dangers and Adventures of the Famous Hero and Knight Sir Teuerdank, an allegorical poem describing his adventures on his journey to marry Mary of Burgundy. The emperor’s share in the work is not clear, but it seems certain that the general scheme and many of the incidents are due to him. It was first published at Nuremberg by Melchior Pfintzing in 1517, and was adorned with woodcuts by Hans Leonhard Schäufelein. The Weisskunig was long regarded as the work of the emperor’s secretary, Marx Treitzsaurwein, but it is now believed that the greater part of the book at least is the work of the emperor himself. It is an unfinished autobiography containing an account of the achievements of Maximilian, who is called “the young white king.” It was first published at Vienna in 1775. He also is responsible for Freydal, an allegorical account of the tournaments in which he took part during his wooing of Mary of Burgundy; Ehrenpforten, Triumphwagen and Der weisen könige Stammbaum, books concerning his own history and that of the house of Habsburg, and works on various subjects, as Das Stahlbuch, Die Baumeisterei and Die Gärtnerei. These works are all profusely illustrated, some by Albrecht Dürer, and in the preparation of the woodcuts Maximilian himself took the liveliest interest. A facsimile of the original editions of Maximilian’s autobiographical and semi-autobiographical works has been published in nine volumes in the Jahrbücher der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Kaiserhauses (Vienna, 1880-1888). For this edition S. Laschitzer wrote an introduction to Sir Teuerdank, Q. von Leitner to Freydal, and N. A. von Schultz to Der Weisskunig. The Holbein society issued a facsimile of Sir Teuerdank (London, 1884) and Triumphwagen (London, 1883).

See Correspondance de l’empereur Maximilien I. et de Marguerite d’Autriche, 1507-1519, edited by A. G. le Glay (Paris, 1839); Maximilians I. vertraulicher Briefwechsel mit Sigmund Prüschenk, edited by V. von Kraus (Innsbruck, 1875); J. Chmel, Urkunden, Briefe und Aktenstücke zur Geschichte Maximilians I. und seiner Zeit. (Stuttgart, 1845) and Aktenstücke und Briefe zur Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg im Zeitalter Maximilians I. (Vienna, 1854-1858); K. Klüpfel, Kaiser Maximilian I. (Berlin, 1864); H. Ulmann, Kaiser Maximilian I. (Stuttgart, 1884); L. P. Gachard, Lettres inédites de Maximilien I. sur les affaires des Pays Bas (Brussels, 1851-1852); L. von Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker, 1494-1514 (Leipzig, 1874); R. W. S. Watson, Maximilian I. (London, 1902); A. Jäger, Über Kaiser Maximilians I. Verhältnis zum Papstthum (Vienna, 1854); H. Ulmann, Kaiser Maximilians I. Absichten auf das Papstthum (Stuttgart, 1888), and A. Schulte, Kaiser Maximilian I. als Kandidat für den päpstlichen Stuhl (Leipzig, 1906).

(A. W. H.*)

MAXIMILIAN II. (1527-1576), Roman emperor, was the eldest son of the emperor Ferdinand I. by his wife Anne, daughter of Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and was born in Vienna on the 31st of July 1527. Educated principally in Spain, he gained some experience of warfare during the campaign of Charles V. against France in 1544, and also during the war of the league of Schmalkalden, and soon began to take part in imperial business. Having in September 1548 married his cousin Maria, daughter of Charles V., he acted as the emperor’s representative in Spain from 1548 to 1550, returning to Germany in December 1550 in order to take part in the discussion over the imperial succession. Charles V. wished his son Philip (afterwards king of Spain) to succeed him as emperor, but his brother Ferdinand, who had already been designated as the next occupant of the imperial throne, and Maximilian objected to this proposal. At length a compromise was reached. Philip was to succeed Ferdinand, but during the former’s reign Maximilian, as king of the Romans, was to govern Germany. This arrangement was not carried out, and is only important because the insistence of the emperor seriously disturbed the harmonious relations which had hitherto existed between the two branches of the Habsburg family; and the estrangement went so far that an illness which befell Maximilian in 1552 was attributed to poison given to him in the interests of his cousin and brother-in-law, Philip of Spain. About this time he took up his residence in Vienna, and was engaged mainly in the government of the Austrian dominions and in defending them against the Turks. The religious views of the king of Bohemia, as Maximilian had been called since his recognition as the future ruler of that country in 1549, had always been somewhat uncertain, and he had probably learned something of Lutheranism in his youth; but his amicable relations with several Protestant princes, which began about the time of the discussion over the succession, were probably due more to political than to religious considerations. However, in Vienna he became very intimate with Sebastian Pfauser (1520-1569), a court preacher with strong leanings towards Lutheranism, and his religious attitude caused some uneasiness to his father. Fears were freely expressed that he would definitely leave the Catholic Church, and when Ferdinand became emperor in 1558 he was prepared to assure Pope Paul IV. that his son should not succeed him if he took this step. Eventually Maximilian remained nominally an adherent of the older faith, although his views were tinged with Lutheranism until the end of his life. After several refusals he consented in 1560 to the banishment of Pfauser, and began again to attend the services of the Catholic Church. This uneasiness having been dispelled, in November 1562 Maximilian was chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at Frankfort, where he was crowned a few days later, after assuring the Catholic electors of his fidelity to their faith, and promising the Protestant electors that he would publicly accept the confession of Augsburg when he became emperor. He also took the usual oath to protect the Church, and his election was afterwards confirmed by the papacy. In September 1563 he was crowned king of Hungary, and on his father’s death, in July 1564, succeeded to the empire and to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia.

The new emperor had already shown that he believed in the necessity for a thorough reform of the Church. He was unable, however, to obtain the consent of Pope Pius IV. to the marriage of the clergy, and in 1568 the concession of communion in both kinds to the laity was withdrawn. On his part Maximilian granted religious liberty to the Lutheran nobles and knights in Austria, and refused to allow the publication of the decrees of the council of Trent. Amid general expectations on the part of the Protestants he met his first Diet at Augsburg in March 1566. He refused to accede to the demands of the Lutheran princes; on the other hand, although the increase of sectarianism was discussed, no decisive steps were taken to suppress it, and the only result of the meeting was a grant of assistance for the Turkish War, which had just been renewed. Collecting a large and splendid army Maximilian marched to defend his territories; but no decisive engagement had taken place when a truce was made in 1568, and the emperor continued to pay tribute to the sultan for Hungary. Meanwhile the relations between Maximilian and Philip of Spain had improved; and the emperor’s increasingly cautious and moderate attitude in religious matters was doubtless due to the fact that the death of Philip’s son, Don Carlos, had opened the way for the succession of Maximilian, or of one of his sons, to the Spanish throne. Evidence of this friendly feeling was given in 1570, when the emperor’s daughter, Anne, became the fourth wife of Philip; but Maximilian was unable to moderate the harsh proceedings of the Spanish king against the revolting inhabitants of the Netherlands. In 1570 the emperor met the diet at Spires and asked for aid to place his eastern borders in a state of defence, and also for power to repress the disorder caused by troops in the service of foreign powers passing through Germany. He proposed that his consent should be necessary before any soldiers for foreign service were recruited in the empire; but the estates were unwilling to strengthen the imperial authority, the Protestant princes regarded the suggestion as an attempt to prevent them from assisting their coreligionists in France and the Netherlands, and nothing was done in this direction, although some assistance was voted for the defence of Austria. The religious demands of the Protestants were still unsatisfied, while the policy of toleration had failed to give peace to Austria. Maximilian’s power was very limited; it was inability rather than unwillingness that prevented him from yielding to the entreaties of Pope Pius V. to join in an attack on the Turks both before and after the victory of Lepanto in 1571; and he remained inert while the authority of the empire in north-eastern Europe was threatened. His last important act was to make a bid for the throne of Poland, either for himself or for his son Ernest. In December 1575 he was elected by a powerful faction, but the diet which met at Regensburg was loath to assist; and on the 12th of October 1576 the emperor died, refusing on his deathbed to receive the last sacraments of the Church.

By his wife Maria he had a family of nine sons and six daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Rudolph, who had been chosen king of the Romans in October 1575. Another of his sons, Matthias, also became emperor; three others, Ernest, Albert and Maximilian, took some part in the government of the Habsburg territories or of the Netherlands, and a daughter, Elizabeth, married Charles IX. king of France.

The religious attitude of Maximilian has given rise to much discussion, and on this subject the writings of W. Maurenbrecher, W. Goetz and E. Reimann in the Historische Zeitschrift, Bände VII., XV., XXXII. and LXXVII. (Munich, 1870 fol.) should be consulted, and also O. H. Hopfen, Maximilian II. und der Kompromisskatholizismus (Munich, 1895); C. Haupt, Melanchthons und seiner Lehrer Einfluss auf Maximilian II. (Wittenberg, 1897); F. Walter, Die Wahl Maximilians II. (Heidelberg, 1892); W. Goetz, Maximilians II. Wahl zum römischen Könige (Würzburg, 1891), and T. J. Scherg, Über die religiöse Entwickelung Kaiser Maximilians II. bis zu seiner Wahl zum römischen Könige (Würzburg, 1903). For a more general account of his life and work see Briefe und Akten zur Geschichte Maximilians II., edited by W. E. Schwarz (Paderborn, 1889-1891); M. Koch, Quellen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Maximilian II. in Archiven gesammelt (Leipzig, 1857-1861); R. Holtzmann, Kaiser Maximilian II. bis zu seiner Thronbesteigung (Berlin, 1903); E. Wertheimer, Zur Geschichte der Türkenkriege Maximilians II. (Vienna, 1875); L. von Ranke, Über die Zeiten Ferdinands I. und Maximilians II. in Band VII. of his Sämmtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1874), and J. Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Bände IV. to VIII. (Freiburg, 1885-1894), English translation by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie (London, 1896 fol.).

MAXIMILIAN (1832-1867), emperor of Mexico, second son of the archduke Francis Charles of Austria, was born in the palace of Schönbrunn, on the 6th of July 1832. He was a particularly clever boy, showed considerable taste for the arts, and early displayed an interest in science, especially botany. He was trained for the navy, and threw himself into this career with so much zeal that he quickly rose to high command, and was mainly instrumental in creating the naval port of Trieste and the fleet with which Tegethoff won his victories in the Italian War. He had some reputation as a Liberal, and this led, in February 1857, to his appointment as viceroy of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom; in the same year he married the Princess Charlotte, daughter of Leopold I., king of the Belgians. On the outbreak of the war of 1859 he retired into private life, chiefly at Trieste, near which he built the beautiful chateau of Miramar. In this same year he was first approached by Mexican exiles with the proposal to become the candidate for the throne of Mexico. He did not at first accept, but sought to satisfy his restless desire for adventure by a botanical expedition to the tropical forests of Brazil. In 1863, however, under pressure from Napoleon III., and after General Forey’s capture of the city of Mexico and the plebiscite which confirmed his proclamation of the empire, he consented to accept the crown. This decision was contrary to the advice of his brother, the emperor Francis Joseph, and involved the loss of all his rights in Austria. Maximilian landed at Vera Cruz on the 28th of May 1864; but from the very outset he found himself involved in difficulties of the most serious kind, which in 1866 made apparent to almost every one outside of Mexico the necessity for his abdicating. Though urged to this course by Napoleon himself, whose withdrawal from Mexico was the final blow to his cause, Maximilian refused to desert his followers. Withdrawing, in February 1867, to Querétaro, he there sustained a siege for several weeks, but on the 15th of May resolved to attempt an escape through the enemy’s lines. He was, however, arrested before he could carry out this resolution, and after trial by court-martial was condemned to death. The sentence was carried out on the 19th of June 1867. His remains were conveyed to Vienna, where they were buried in the imperial vault early in the following year. (See Mexico.)

Maximilian’s papers were published at Leipzig in 1867, in seven volumes, under the title Aus meinem Leben, Reiseskizzen, Aphorismen, Gedichte. See Pierre de la Gorce, Hist. du Second Empire, IV., liv. xxv. ii. (Paris, 1904); article by von Hoffinger in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xxi. 70, where authorities are cited.

MAXIMINUS, GAIUS JULIUS VERUS, Roman emperor from A.D. 235 to 238, was born in a village on the confines of Thrace. He was of barbarian parentage and was brought up as a shepherd. His immense stature and enormous feats of strength attracted the attention of the emperor Septimius Severus. He entered the army, and under Caracalla rose to the rank of centurion. He carefully absented himself from court during the reign of Heliogabalus, but under his successor Alexander Severus, was appointed supreme commander of the Roman armies. After the murder of Alexander in Gaul, hastened, it is said, by his instigation, Maximinus was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers on the 19th of March 235. The three years of his reign, which were spent wholly in the camp, were marked by great cruelty and oppression; the widespread discontent thus produced culminated in a revolt in Africa and the assumption of the purple by Gordian (q.v.). Maximinus, who was in Pannonia at the time, marched against Rome, and passing over the Julian Alps descended on Aquileia; while detained before that city he and his son were murdered in their tent by a body of praetorians. Their heads were cut off and despatched to Rome, where they were burnt on the Campus Martius by the exultant crowd.

Capitolinus, Maximini duo; Herodian vi. 8, vii., viii. 1-5; Zosimus i. 13-15.

MAXIMINUS [Maximin], GALERIUS VALERIUS, Roman emperor from A.D. 308 to 314, was originally an Illyrian shepherd named Daia. He rose to high distinction after he had joined the army, and in 305 he was raised by his uncle, Galerius, to the rank of Caesar, with the government of Syria and Egypt. In 308, after the elevation of Licinius, he insisted on receiving the title of Augustus; on the death of Galerius, in 311, he succeeded to the supreme command of the provinces of Asia, and when Licinius and Constantine began to make common cause with one another Maximinus entered into a secret alliance with Maxentius. He came to an open rupture with Licinius in 313, sustained a crushing defeat in the neighbourhood of Heraclea Pontica on the 30th of April, and fled, first to Nicomedia and afterwards to Tarsus, where he died in August following. His death was variously ascribed “to despair, to poison, and to the divine justice.” Maximinus has a bad name in Christian annals, as having renewed persecution after the publication of the toleration edict of Galerius, but it is probable that he has been judged too harshly.

See Maxentius; Zosimus ii. 8; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 40.

MAXIMS, LEGAL. A maxim is an established principle or proposition. The Latin term maxima is not to be found in Roman law with any meaning exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the modern sense of the word, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on Regulae definitiones, and Sententiae juris are, in some measure, collections of maxims (see an article on “Latin Maxims in English Law” in Law Mag. and Rev. xx. 285); Fortescue (De laudibus, c. 8) and Du Cange treat maxima and regula as identical. The attitude of early English commentators towards the maxims of the law was one of unmingled adulation. In Doctor and Student (p. 26) they are described as “of the same strength and effect in the law as statutes be.” Coke (Co. Litt. 11 A) says that a maxim is so called “Quia maxima est ejus dignitas et certissima auctoritas, atque quod maxime omnibus probetur.” “Not only,” observes Bacon in the Preface to his Collection of Maxims, “will the use of maxims be in deciding doubt and helping soundness of judgment, but, further, in gracing argument, in correcting unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and substantial sense of law, in reclaiming vulgar errors, and, generally, in the amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the whole law.” A similar note was sounded in Scotland; and it has been well observed that “a glance at the pages of Morrison’s Dictionary or at other early reports will show how frequently in the older Scots law questions respecting the rights, remedies and liabilities of individuals were determined by an immediate reference to legal maxims” (J. M. Irving, Encyclo. Scots Law, s.v. “Maxims”). In later times less value has been attached to the maxims of the law, as the development of civilization and the increasing complexity of business relations have shown the necessity of qualifying the propositions which they enunciate (see Stephen, Hist. Crim. Law, ii. 94 n: Yarmouth v. France, 1887, 19 Q.B.D., per Lord Esher, at p. 653, and American authorities collected in Bouvier’s Law Dict. s.v. “Maxim”). But both historically and practically they must always possess interest and value.

A brief reference need only be made here, with examples by way of illustration, to the field which the maxims of the law cover.

Commencing with rules founded on public policy, we may note the famous principle—Salus populi suprema lex (xii. Tables: Bacon, Maxims, reg. 12)—“the public welfare is the highest law.” It is on this maxim that the coercive action of the State towards individual liberty in a hundred matters is based. To the same category belong the maxims—Summa ratio est quae pro religione facit (Co. Litt. 341 a)—“the best rule is that which advances religion”—a maxim which finds its application when the enforcement of foreign laws or judgments supposed to violate our own laws or the principles of natural justice is in question; and Dies dominicus non est juridicus, which exempts Sunday from the lawful days for juridical acts. Among the maxims relating to the crown, the most important are Rex non potest peccare (2 Rolle R. 304)—“The King can do no wrong”—which enshrines the principle of ministerial responsibility, and Nullum tempus occurrit regi (2 Co. Inst. 273)—“lapse of time does not bar the crown,” a maxim qualified by various enactments in modern times. Passing to the judicial office and the administration of justice, we may refer to the rules—Audi alteram partem—a proposition too familiar to need either translation or comment; Nemo debet esse judex in propriâ suâ causâ (12 Co. Rep. 114)—“no man ought to be judge in his own cause”—a maxim which French law, and the legal systems based upon or allied to it, have embodied in an elaborate network of rules for judicial challenge; and the maxim which defines the relative functions of judge and jury, Ad quaestionem facti non respondent judices, ad quaestionem legis non respondent juratores (8 Co. Rep. 155). The maxim Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem (Ch. Prec. 329) is certainly erroneous as it stands, as a judge has no right to “extend his jurisdiction.” If justitiam is substituted for jurisdictionem, as Lord Mansfield said it should be (1 Burr. 304), the maxim is near the truth. A group of maxims supposed to embody certain fundamental principles of legal right and obligations may next be referred to: (a) Ubi jus ibi remedium (see Co. Litt. 197 b)—a maxim to which the evolution of the flexible “action on the case,” by which wrongs unknown to the “original writs” were dealt with, was historically due, but which must be taken with the gloss Damnum absque injuria—“there are forms of actual damage which do not constitute legal injury” for which the law supplies no remedy; (b) Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam (2 Blackstone, 122)—and its allied maxim, Lex non cogit ad impossibilia (Co. Litt. 231 b)—on which the whole doctrine of vis major (force majeure) and impossible conditions in the law of contract has been built up. In this category may also be classed Volenti non fit injuria (Wingate, Maxims), out of which sprang the theory—now profoundly modified by statute—of “common employment” in the law of employers’ liability; see Smith v. Baker, 1891, A.C. 325. Other maxims deal with rights of property—Qui prior est tempore, potior est jure (Co. Litt. 14 a), which consecrates the position of the beati possidentes alike in municipal and in international law; Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas (9 Co. Rep. 59), which has played its part in the determination of the rights of adjacent owners; and Domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium (5 Co. Rep. 92)—“a man’s house is his castle,” a doctrine which has imposed limitations on the rights of execution creditors (see Execution). In the laws of family relations there are the maxims Consensus non concubitus facit matrimonium (Co. Litt. 33 a)—the canon law of Europe prior to the council of Trent, and still law in Scotland, though modified by legislation in England; and Pater is est quem nuptiae demonstrant (see Co. Litt. 7 b), on which, in most civilized countries, the presumption of legitimacy depends. In the interpretation of written instruments, the maxim Noscitur a sociis (3 Term Reports, 87), which proclaims the importance of the context, still applies. So do the rules Expressio unius est exclusio alterius (Co. Litt. 210 a), and Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege (2 Co. Inst. 11), which lets in evidence of contemporaneous user as an aid to the interpretation of statutes or documents; see Van Diemen’s Land Co. v. Table Cape Marine Board, 1906, A.C. 92, 98. We may conclude this sketch with a miscellaneous summary: Caveat emptor (Hob. 99)—“let the purchaser beware”; Qui facit per alium facile per se, which affirms the principal’s liability for the acts of his agent; Ignorantia juris neminem excusat, on which rests the ordinary citizen’s obligation to know the law; and Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt (2 Co. Inst. 690), one of the maxims in accordance with which courts of equity administer relief. Among other “maxims of equity” come the rules that “he that seeks equity must do equity,” i.e. must act fairly, and that “equity looks upon that as done which ought to be done”—a principle from which the “conversion” into money of land directed to be sold, and of money directed to be invested in the purchase of land, is derived.

The principal collections of legal maxims are: English Law: Bacon, Collection of Some Principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Law (1630); Noy, Treatise of the principal Grounds and Maxims of the Law of England (1641, 8th ed., 1824); Wingate, Maxims of Reason (1728); Francis, Grounds and Rudiments of Law and Equity (2nd ed. 1751); Lofft (annexed to his Reports, 1776); Broom, Legal Maxims (7th ed. London, 1900). Scots Law: Lord Trayner, Latin Maxims and Phrases (2nd ed., 1876); Stair, Institutions of the Law of Scotland, with Index by More (Edinburgh, 1832). American Treatises: A. I. Morgan, English Version of Legal Maxims (Cincinnati, 1878); S. S. Peloubet, Legal Maxims in Law and Equity (New York, 1880).

(A. W. R.)

MAXIMUS, the name of four Roman emperors.

I. M. Clodius Pupienus Maximus, joint emperor with D. Caelius Calvinus Balbinus during a few months of the year A.D. 238. Pupienus was a distinguished soldier, who had been proconsul of Bithynia, Achaea, and Gallia Narbonensis. At the advanced age of seventy-four, he was chosen by the senate with Balbinus to resist the barbarian Maximinus. Their complete equality is shown by the fact that each assumed the titles of pontifex maximus and princeps senatus. It was arranged that Pupienus should take the field against Maximinus, while Balbinus remained at Rome to maintain order, a task in which he signally failed. A revolt of the praetorians was not repressed till much blood had been shed and a considerable part of the city reduced to ashes. On his march, Pupienus, having received the news that Maximinus had been assassinated by his own troops, returned in triumph to Rome. Shortly afterwards, when both emperors were on the point of leaving the city on an expedition—Pupienus against the Persians and Balbinus against the Goths—the praetorians, who had always resented the appointment of the senatorial emperors and cherished the memory of the soldier-emperor Maximinus, seized the opportunity of revenge. When most of the people were at the Capitoline games, they forced their way into the palace, dragged Balbinus and Pupienus through the streets, and put them to death.

See Capitolinus, Life of Maximus and Balbinus; Herodian vii. 10, viii. 6; Zonaras xii. 16; Orosius vii. 19; Eutropius ix. 2; Zosimus i. 14; Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 26, epit. 26; H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, i. 2; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 7 and (for the chronology) appendix 12 (Bury’s edition).

II. Magnus Maximus, a native of Spain, who had accompanied Theodosius on several expeditions and from 368 held high military rank in Britain. The disaffected troops having proclaimed Maximus emperor, he crossed over to Gaul, attacked Gratian (q.v.), and drove him from Paris to Lyons, where he was murdered by a partisan of Maximus. Theodosius being unable to avenge the death of his colleague, an agreement was made (384 or 385) by which Maximus was recognized as Augustus and sole emperor in Gaul, Spain and Britain, while Valentinian II. was to remain unmolested in Italy and Illyricum, Theodosius retaining his sovereignty in the East. In 387 Maximus crossed the Alps, Valentinian was speedily put to flight, while the invader established himself in Milan and for the time became master of Italy. Theodosius now took vigorous measures. Advancing with a powerful army, he twice defeated the troops of Maximus—at Siscia on the Save, and at Poetovio on the Danube. He then hurried on to Aquileia, where Maximus had shut himself up, and had him beheaded. Under the name of Maxen Wledig, Maximus appears in the list of Welsh royal heroes (see R. Williams, Biog. Dict. of Eminent Welshmen, 1852; “The Dream of Maxen Wledig,” in the Mabinogion).

Full account with classical references in H. Richter, Das weströmische Reich, besonders unter den Kaisern Gratian, Valentinian II. und Maximus (1865); see also H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, ii. (1887); Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 27; Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, v.

III. Maximus Tyrannus, made emperor in Spain by the Roman general, Gerontius, who had rebelled against the usurper Constantine in 408. After the defeat of Gerontius at Arelate (Arles) and his death in 411 Maximus renounced the imperial title and was permitted by Constantine to retire into private life. About 418 he rebelled again, but, failing in his attempt, was seized, carried into Italy, and put to death at Ravenna in 422.

See Orosius vii. 42; Zosimus vi. 5; Sozomen ix. 3; E. A. Freeman, “The Tyrants of Britain, Gaul and Spain, A.D. 406-411,” in English Historical Review, i. (1886).

IV. Petronius Maximus, a member of the higher Roman nobility, had held several court and public offices, including those of praefectus Romae (420) and Italiae (439-441 and 445), and consul (433, 443). He was one of the intimate associates of Valentinian III., whom he assisted in the palace intrigues which led to the death of Aëtius in 454; but an outrage committed on the wife of Maximus by the emperor turned his friendship into hatred. Maximus was proclaimed emperor immediately after Valentinian’s murder (March 16, 455), but after reigning less than three months, he was murdered by some Burgundian mercenaries as he was fleeing before the troops of Genseric, who, invited by Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber (May or June 455).

See Procopius, Vand. i. 4; Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyr. Aviti, ep. ii. 13; the various Chronicles; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chs. 35, 36; Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, vi.

MAXIMUS, ST (c. 580-662), abbot of Chrysopolis, known as “the Confessor” from his orthodox zeal in the Monothelite (q.v.) controversy, or as “the monk,” was born of noble parentage at Constantinople about the year 580. Educated with great care, he early became distinguished by his talents and acquirements, and some time after the accession of the emperor Heraclius in 610 was made his private secretary. In 630 he abandoned the secular life and entered the monastery of Chrysopolis (Scutari), actuated, it was believed, less by any longing for the life of a recluse than by the dissatisfaction he felt with the Monothelite leanings of his master. The date of his promotion to the abbacy is uncertain. In 633 he was one of the party of Sophronius of Jerusalem (the chief original opponent of the Monothelites) at the council of Alexandria; and in 645 he was again in Africa, when he held in presence of the governor and a number of bishops the disputation with Pyrrhus, the deposed and banished patriarch of Constantinople, which resulted in the (temporary) conversion of his interlocutor to the Dyothelite view. In the following year several African synods, held under the influence of Maximus, declared for orthodoxy. In 649, after the accession of Martin I., he went to Rome, and did much to fan the zeal of the new pope, who in October of that year held the (first) Lateran synod, by which not only the Monothelite doctrine but also the moderating ecthesis of Heraclius and typus of Constans II. were anathematized. About 653 Maximus, for the part he had taken against the latter document especially, was apprehended (together with the pope) by order of Constans and carried a prisoner to Constantinople. In 655, after repeated examinations, in which he maintained his theological opinions with memorable constancy, he was banished to Byzia in Thrace, and afterwards to Perberis. In 662 he was again brought to Constantinople and was condemned by a synod to be scourged, to have his tongue cut out by the root, and to have his right hand chopped off. After this sentence had been carried out he was again banished to Lazica, where he died on the 13th of August 662. He is venerated as a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches. Maximus was not only a leader in the Monothelite struggle but a mystic who zealously followed and advocated the system of Pseudo-Dionysius, while adding to it an ethical element in the conception of the freedom of the will. His works had considerable influence in shaping the system of John Scotus Erigena.

The most important of the works of Maximus will be found in Migne, Patrologia graeca, xc. xci., together with an anonymous life; an exhaustive list in Wagenmann’s article in vol. xii. (1903) of Hauck-Herzog’s Realencyklopädie where the following classification is adopted: (a) exegetical, (b) scholia on the Fathers, (c) dogmatic and controversial, (d) ethical and ascetic, (e) miscellaneous. The details of the disputation with Pyrrhus and of the martyrdom are given very fully and clearly in Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte, iii. For further literature see H. Gelzer in C. Krumbacher’s Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).

MAXIMUS OF SMYRNA, a Greek philosopher of the Neo-platonist school, who lived towards the end of the 4th century A.D. He was perhaps the most important of the followers of Iamblichus. He is said to have been of a rich and noble family, and exercised great influence over the emperor Julian, who was commended to him by Aedesius. He pandered to the emperor’s love of magic and theurgy, and by judicious administration of the omens won a high position at court. His overbearing manner made him numerous enemies, and, after being imprisoned on the death of Julian, he was put to death by Valens. He is a representative of the least attractive side of Neoplatonism. Attaching no value to logical proof and argument, he enlarged on the wonders and mysteries of nature, and maintained his position by the working of miracles. In logic he is reported to have agreed with Eusebius, Iamblichus and Porphyry in asserting the validity of the second and third figures of the syllogism.

MAXIMUS OF TYRE (Cassius Maximus Tyrius), a Greek rhetorician and philosopher who flourished in the time of the Antonines and Commodus (2nd century A.D.). After the manner of the sophists of his age, he travelled extensively, delivering lectures on the way. His writings contain many allusions to the history of Greece, while there is little reference to Rome; hence it is inferred that he lived longer in Greece, perhaps as a professor at Athens. Although nominally a Platonist, he is really an Eclectic and one of the precursors of Neoplatonism. There are still extant by him forty-one essays or discourses (διαλέξεις) on theological, ethical, and other philosophical commonplaces. With him God is the supreme being, one and indivisible though called by many names, accessible to reason alone; but as animals form the intermediate stage between plants and human beings, so there exist intermediaries between God and man, viz. daemons, who dwell on the confines of heaven and earth. The soul in many ways bears a great resemblance to the divinity; it is partly mortal, partly immortal, and, when freed from the fetters of the body, becomes a daemon. Life is the sleep of the soul, from which it awakes at death. The style of Maximus is superior to that of the ordinary sophistical rhetorician, but scholars differ widely as to the merits of the essays themselves.

Maximus of Tyre must be distinguished from the Stoic Maximus, tutor of Marcus Aurelius.

Editions by J. Davies, revised with valuable notes by J. Markland (1740); J. J. Reiske (1774); F. Dübner (1840, with Theophrastus, &c., in the Didot series). Monographs by R. Rohdich (Beuthen, 1879); H. Hobein, De Maximo Tyrio quaestiones philol. (Jena, 1895). There is an English translation (1804) by Thomas Taylor, the Platonist.

MAX MÜLLER, FRIEDRICH (1823-1900), Anglo-German orientalist and comparative philologist, was born at Dessau on the 6th of December 1823, being the son of Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), the German poet, celebrated for his phil-Hellenic lyrics, who was ducal librarian at Dessau. The elder Müller had endeared himself to the most intellectual circles in Germany by his amiable character and his genuine poetic gift; his songs had been utilized by musical composers, notably Schubert; and it was his son’s good fortune to meet in his youth with a succession of eminent friends, who, already interested in him for his father’s sake, and charmed by the qualities which they discovered in the young man himself, powerfully aided him by advice and patronage. Mendelssohn, who was his godfather, dissuaded him from indulging his natural bent to the study of music; Professor Brockhaus of the University of Leipzig, where Max Müller matriculated in 1841, induced him to take up Sanskrit; Bopp, at the University of Berlin (1844), made the Sanskrit student a scientific comparative philologist; Schelling at the same university, inspired him with a love for metaphysical speculation, though failing to attract him to his own philosophy; Burnouf, at Paris in the following year, by teaching him Zend, started him on the track of inquiry into the science of comparative religion, and impelled him to edit the Rig Veda; and when, in 1846, Max Müller came to England upon this errand, Bunsen, in conjunction with Professor H. H. Wilson, prevailed upon the East India Company to undertake the expense of publication. Up to this time Max Müller had lived the life of a poor student, supporting himself partly by copying manuscripts, but Bunsen’s introductions to Queen Victoria and the prince consort, and to Oxford University, laid the foundation for him of fame and fortune. In 1848 the printing of his Rig Veda at the University Press obliged him to settle in Oxford, a step which decided his future career. He arrived at a favourable conjuncture: the Tractarian strife, which had so long thrust learning into the background, was just over, and Oxford was becoming accessible to modern ideas. The young German excited curiosity and interest, and it was soon discovered that, although a genuine scholar, he was no mere bookworm. Part of his social success was due to his readiness to exert his musical talents at private parties. Max Müller was speedily subjugated by the genius loci. He was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern languages in 1850, and the German government failed to tempt him back to Strassburg. In the following year he was made M.A. and honorary fellow of Christ Church, and in 1858 he was elected a fellow of All Souls. In 1854 the Crimean War gave him the opportunity of utilizing his oriental learning in vocabularies and schemes of transliteration. In 1857 he successfully essayed another kind of literature in his beautiful story Deutsche Liebe, written both in German and English. He had by this time become an extensive contributor to English periodical literature, and had written several of the essays subsequently collected as Chips from a German Workshop. The most important of them was the fascinating essay on “Comparative Mythology” in the Oxford Essays for 1856. His valuable History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the primitive religion of the Brahmans (and hence the Vedic period only), was published in 1850.

Though Max Müller’s reputation was that of a comparative philologist and orientalist, his professional duties at Oxford were long confined to lecturing on modern languages, or at least their medieval forms. In 1860 the death of Horace Hayman Wilson, professor of Sanskrit, seemed to open a more congenial sphere to him. His claims to the succession seemed incontestable, for his opponent, Monier Williams, though well qualified as a Sanskritist, lacked Max Müller’s brilliant versatility, and although educated at Oxford, had held no University office. But Max Müller was a Liberal, and the friend of Liberals in university matters, in politics, and in theology, and this consideration united with his foreign birth to bring the country clergy in such hosts to the poll that the voice of resident Oxford was overborne, and Monier Williams was elected by a large majority. It was the one great disappointment of Max Müller’s life, and made a lasting impression upon him. It was, nevertheless, serviceable to his influence and reputation by permitting him to enter upon a wider field of subjects than would have been possible otherwise. Directly, Sanskrit philology received little more from him, except in connexion with his later undertaking of The Sacred Books of the East; but indirectly he exalted it more than any predecessor by proclaiming its commanding position in the history of the human intellect by his Science of Language, two courses of lectures delivered at the Royal Institution in 1861 and 1863. Max Müller ought not to be described as “the introducer of comparative philology into England.” Prichard had proved the Aryan affinities of the Celtic languages by the methods of comparative philology so long before as 1831; Winning’s Manual of Comparative Philology had been published in 1838; the discoveries of Bopp and Pott and Pictet had been recognized in brilliant articles in the Quarterly Review, and had guided the researches of Rawlinson. But Max Müller undoubtedly did far more to popularize the subject than had been done, or could have been done, by any predecessor. He was on less sure ground in another department of the study of language—the problem of its origin. He wrote upon it as a disciple of Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason he translated. His essays on mythology are among the most delightful of his writings, but their value is somewhat impaired by a too uncompromising adherence to the seductive generalization of the solar myth.

Max Müller’s studies in mythology led him to another field of activity in which his influence was more durable and extensive, that of the comparative science of religions. Here, so far as Great Britain is concerned, he does deserve the fame of an originator, and his Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873: the same year in which he lectured on the subject, at Dean Stanley’s invitation, in Westminster Abbey, this being the only occasion on which a layman had given an address there) marks an epoch. It was followed by other works of importance, especially the four volumes of Gifford lectures, delivered between 1888 and 1892; but the most tangible result of the impulse he had given was the publication under his editorship, from 1875 onwards, of The Sacred Books of the East, in fifty-one volumes, including indexes, all but three of which appeared under his superintendence during his lifetime. These comprise translations by the most competent scholars of all the really important non-Christian scriptures of Oriental nations, which can now be appreciated without a knowledge of the original languages. Max Müller also wrote on Indian philosophy in his latter years, and his exertions to stimulate search for Oriental manuscripts and inscriptions were rewarded with important discoveries of early Buddhist scriptures, in their Indian form, made in Japan. He was on particularly friendly terms with native Japanese scholars, and after his death his library was purchased by the university of Tôkyô.

In 1868 Max Müller had been indemnified for his disappointment over the Sanskrit professorship by the establishment of a chair of Comparative Philology to be filled by him. He retired, however, from the actual duties of the post in 1875, when entering upon the editorship of The Sacred Books of the East. The most remarkable external events of his latter years were his delivery of lectures at the restored university of Strassburg in 1872, when he devoted his honorarium to the endowment of a Sanskrit lectureship, and his presidency over the International Congress of Orientalists in 1892. But his days, if uneventful, were busy. He participated in every movement at Oxford of which he could approve, and was intimate with nearly all its men of light and leading; he was a curator of the Bodleian Library, and a delegate of the University Press. He was acquainted with most of the crowned heads

of Europe, and was an especial favourite with the English royal family. His hospitality was ample, especially to visitors from India, where he was far better known than any other European Orientalist. His distinctions, conferred by foreign governments and learned societies, were innumerable, and, having been naturalized shortly after his arrival in England, he received the high honour of being made a privy councillor. In 1898 and 1899 he published autobiographical reminiscences under the title of Auld Lang Syne. He was writing a more detailed autobiography when overtaken by death on the 28th of October 1900. Max Müller married in 1859 Georgiana Adelaide Grenfell, sister of the wives of Charles Kingsley and J. A. Froude. One of his daughters, Mrs Conybeare, distinguished herself by a translation of Scherer’s History of German Literature.

Though undoubtedly a great scholar, Max Müller did not so much represent scholarship pure and simple as her hybrid types—the scholar-author and the scholar-courtier. In the former capacity, though manifesting little of the originality of genius, he rendered vast service by popularizing high truths among high minds. In his public and social character he represented Oriental studies with a brilliancy, and conferred upon them a distinction, which they had not previously enjoyed in Great Britain. There were drawbacks in both respects: the author was too prone to build upon insecure foundations, and the man of the world incurred censure for failings which may perhaps be best indicated by the remark that he seemed too much of a diplomatist. But the sum of foibles seems insignificant in comparison with the life of intense labour dedicated to the service of culture and humanity.

Max Müller’s Collected Works were published in 1903.

(R. G.)

MAXWELL, the name of a Scottish family, members of which have held the titles of earl of Morton, earl of Nithsdale, Lord Maxwell, and Lord Herries. The name is taken probably from Maccuswell, or Maxwell, near Kelso, whither the family migrated from England about 1100. Sir Herbert Maxwell won great fame by defending his castle of Carlaverock against Edward I. in 1300; another Sir Herbert was made a lord of the Scottish parliament before 1445; and his great-grandson John, 3rd Lord Maxwell, was killed at Flodden in 1513. John’s son Robert, the 4th lord (d. 1546), was a member of the royal council under James V.; he was also an extraordinary lord of session, high admiral, and warden of the west marches, and was taken prisoner by the English at the rout of Solway Moss in 1542. Robert’s grandson John, 7th Lord Maxwell (1553-1593), was the second son of Robert, the 5th lord (d. 1552), and his wife Beatrix, daughter of James Douglas, 3rd earl of Morton. After the execution of the regent Morton, the 4th earl, in 1581 this earldom was bestowed upon Maxwell, but in 1586 the attainder of the late earl was reversed and he was deprived of his new title. He had helped in 1585 to drive the royal favourite James Stewart, earl of Arran, from power, and he made active preparations to assist the invading Spaniards in 1588. His son John, the 8th lord (c. 1586-1613), was at feud with the Johnstones, who had killed his father in a skirmish, and with the Douglases over the earldom of Morton, which he regarded as his inheritance. After a life of exceptional and continuous lawlessness he escaped from Scotland and in his absence was sentenced to death; having returned to his native country he was seized and was beheaded in Edinburgh. In 1618 John’s brother and heir Robert (d. 1646) was restored to the lordship of Maxwell, and in 1620 was created earl of Nithsdale, surrendering at this time his claim to the earldom of Morton. He and his son Robert, afterwards the 2nd earl, fought under Montrose for Charles I. during the Civil War. Robert died without sons in October 1667, when a cousin John Maxwell, 7th Lord Herries (d. 1677), became third earl.

William, 5th earl of Nithsdale (1676-1744), a grandson of the third earl, was like his ancestor a Roman Catholic and was attached to the cause of the exiled house of Stuart. In 1715 he joined the Jacobite insurgents, being taken prisoner at the battle of Preston and sentenced to death. He escaped, however, from the Tower of London through the courage and devotion of his wife Winifred (d. 1749), daughter of William Herbert, 1st marquess of Powis. He was attainted in 1716 and his titles became extinct, but his estates passed to his son William (d. 1776), whose descendant, William Constable-Maxwell, regained the title of Lord Herries in 1858. The countess of Nithsdale wrote an account of her husband’s escape, which is published in vol. i. of the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

A few words may be added about other prominent members of the Maxwell family. John Maxwell (c. 1590-1647), archbishop of Tuam, was a Scottish ecclesiastic who took a leading part in helping Archbishop Laud in his futile attempt to restore the liturgy in Scotland. He was bishop of Ross from 1633 until 1638, when he was deposed by the General Assembly; then crossing over to Ireland he was bishop of Killala and Achonry from 1640 to 1645, and archbishop of Tuam from 1645 until his death. James Maxwell of Kirkconnell (c. 1708-1762), the Jacobite, wrote the Narrative of Charles Prince of Wales’s Expedition to Scotland in 1745, which was printed for the Maitland Club in 1841. Robert Maxwell (1695-1765) was the author of Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers and was a great benefactor to Scottish agriculture. Sir Murray Maxwell (1775-1831), a naval officer, gained much fame by his conduct when his ship the “Alceste” was wrecked in Gaspar Strait in 1817. William Hamilton Maxwell (1792-1850), the Irish novelist, wrote, in addition to several novels, a Life of the Duke of Wellington (1839-1841 and again 1883), and a History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 (1845 and 1891). Sir Herbert Maxwell, 7th bart. (b. 1845), member of parliament for Wigtownshire from 1880 to 1906, and president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, became well known as a writer, his works including Life and Times of the Right Hon. W. H. Smith (1893); Life of the Duke of Wellington (1899); The House of Douglas (1902); Robert the Bruce (1897) and A Duke of Britain (1895).

MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK (1831-1879), British physicist, was the last representative of a younger branch of the well-known Scottish family of Clerk of Penicuik, and was born at Edinburgh on the 13th of November 1831. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy (1840-1847) and the university of Edinburgh (1847-1850). Entering at Cambridge in 1850, he spent a term or two at Peterhouse, but afterwards migrated to Trinity. In 1854 he took his degree as second wrangler, and was declared equal with the senior wrangler of his year (E. J. Routh, q.v.) in the higher ordeal of the Smith’s prize examination. He held the chair of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1856 till the fusion of the two colleges there in 1860. For eight years subsequently he held the chair of Physics and Astronomy in King’s College, London, but resigned in 1868 and retired to his estate of Glenlair in Kirkcudbrightshire. He was summoned from his seclusion in 1871 to become the first holder of the newly founded professorship of Experimental Physics in Cambridge; and it was under his direction that the plans of the Cavendish Laboratory were prepared. He superintended every step of the progress of the building and of the purchase of the very valuable collection of apparatus with which it was equipped at the expense of its munificent founder the seventh duke of Devonshire (chancellor of the university, and one of its most distinguished alumni). He died at Cambridge on the 5th of November 1879.

For more than half of his brief life he held a prominent position in the very foremost rank of natural philosophers. His contributions to scientific societies began in his fifteenth year, when Professor J. D. Forbes communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a short paper of his on a mechanical method of tracing Cartesian ovals. In his eighteenth year, while still a student in Edinburgh, he contributed two valuable papers to the Transactions of the same society—one of which, “On the Equilibrium of Elastic Solids,” is remarkable, not only on account of its intrinsic power and the youth of its author, but also because in it he laid the foundation of one of the most singular discoveries of his later life, the temporary double refraction produced in viscous liquids by shearing stress. Immediately after taking his degree, he read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society a very novel memoir, “On the Transformation of Surfaces by Bending.” This is one of the few purely mathematical papers he published, and it exhibited at once to experts the full genius of its author. About the same time appeared his elaborate memoir, “On Faraday’s Lines of Force,” in which he gave the first indication of some of those extraordinary electrical investigations which culminated in the greatest work of his life. He obtained in 1859 the Adams prize in Cambridge for a very original and powerful essay, “On the Stability of Saturn’s Rings.” From 1855 to 1872 he published at intervals a series of valuable investigations connected with the “Perception of Colour” and “Colour-Blindness,” for the earlier of which he received the Rumford medal from the Royal Society in 1860. The instruments which he devised for these investigations were simple and convenient, but could not have been thought of for the purpose except by a man whose knowledge was co-extensive with his ingenuity. One of his greatest investigations bore on the “Kinetic Theory of Gases.” Originating with D. Bernoulli, this theory was advanced by the successive labours of John Herapath, J. P. Joule, and particularly R. Clausius, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy beyond a doubt; but it received enormous developments from Maxwell, who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous friction) as well as a mathematician. He wrote an admirable textbook of the Theory of Heat (1871), and a very excellent elementary treatise on Matter and Motion (1876).

But the great work of his life was devoted to electricity. He began by reading, with the most profound admiration and attention, the whole of Faraday’s extraordinary self-revelations, and proceeded to translate the ideas of that master into the succinct and expressive notation of the mathematicians. A considerable part of this translation was accomplished during his career as an undergraduate in Cambridge. The writer had the opportunity of perusing the MS. of “On Faraday’s Lines of Force,” in a form little different from the final one, a year before Maxwell took his degree. His great object, as it was also the great object of Faraday, was to overturn the idea of action at a distance. The splendid researches of S. D. Poisson and K. F. Gauss had shown how to reduce all the phenomena of statical electricity to mere attractions and repulsions exerted at a distance by particles of an imponderable on one another. Lord Kelvin (Sir W. Thomson) had, in 1846, shown that a totally different assumption, based upon other analogies, led (by its own special mathematical methods) to precisely the same results. He treated the resultant electric force at any point as analogous to the flux of heat from sources distributed in the same manner as the supposed electric particles. This paper of Thomson’s, whose ideas Maxwell afterwards developed in an extraordinary manner, seems to have given the first hint that there are at least two perfectly distinct methods of arriving at the known formulae of statical electricity. The step to magnetic phenomena was comparatively simple; but it was otherwise as regards electro-magnetic phenomena, where current electricity is essentially involved. An exceedingly ingenious, but highly artificial, theory had been devised by W. E. Weber, which was found capable of explaining all the phenomena investigated by Ampère as well as the induction currents of Faraday. But this was based upon the assumption of a distance-action between electric particles, the intensity of which depended on their relative motion as well as on their position. This was, of course, even more repugnant to Maxwell’s mind than the statical distance-action developed by Poisson. The first paper of Maxwell’s in which an attempt at an admissible physical theory of electromagnetism was made was communicated to the Royal Society in 1867. But the theory, in a fully developed form, first appeared in 1873 in his great treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. This work was one of the most splendid monuments ever raised by the genius of a single individual. Availing himself of the admirable generalized co-ordinate system of Lagrange, Maxwell showed how to reduce all electric and magnetic phenomena to stresses and motions of a material medium, and, as one preliminary, but excessively severe, test of the truth of his theory, he pointed out that (if the electro-magnetic medium be that which is required for the explanation of the phenomena of light) the velocity of light in vacuo should be numerically the same as the ratio of the electro-magnetic and electrostatic units. In fact, the means of the best determinations of each of these quantities separately agree with one another more closely than do the various values of either.

One of Maxwell’s last great contributions to science was the editing (with copious original notes) of the Electrical Researches of the Hon. Henry Cavendish, from which it appeared that Cavendish, already famous by many other researches (such as the mean density of the earth, the composition of water, &c.), must be looked on as, in his day, a man of Maxwell’s own stamp as a theorist and an experimenter of the very first rank.

In private life Clerk Maxwell was one of the most lovable of men, a sincere and unostentatious Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace of envy or ill-will, he yet showed on fit occasion his contempt for that pseudo-science which seeks for the applause of the ignorant by professing to reduce the whole system of the universe to a fortuitous sequence of uncaused events.

His collected works, including the series of articles on the properties of matter, such as “Atom,” “Attraction,” “Capillary Action,” “Diffusion,” “Ether,” &c., which he contributed to the 9th edition of this encyclopaedia, were issued in two volumes by the Cambridge University Press in 1890; and an extended biography, by his former schoolfellow and lifelong friend Professor Lewis Campbell, was published in 1882.

(P. G. T.)

MAXWELLTOWN, a burgh of barony and police burgh of Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5796. It lies on the Nith, opposite to Dumfries, with which it is connected by three bridges, being united with it for parliamentary purposes. It has a station on the Glasgow & South-Western line from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright. Its public buildings include a court-house, the prison for the south-west of Scotland, and an observatory and museum, housed in a disused windmill. The chief manufactures are woollens and hosiery, besides dyeworks and sawmills. It was a hamlet known as Bridgend up till 1810, in which year it was erected into a burgh of barony under its present name. To the north-west lies the parish of Terregles, said to be a corruption of Tir-eglwys (terra ecclesia, that is, “Kirk land”). The parish contains the beautiful ruin of Lincluden Abbey (see Dumfries), and Terregles House, once the seat of William Maxwell, last earl of Nithsdale. In the parish of Lochrutton, a few miles south-west of Maxwelltown, there is a good example of a stone circle, the “Seven Grey Sisters,” and an old peel-tower in the Mains of Hills.

MAY, PHIL (1864-1903), English caricaturist, was born at Wortley, near Leeds, on the 22nd of April 1864, the son of an engineer. His father died when the child was nine years old, and at twelve he had begun to earn his living. Before he was fifteen he had acted as time-keeper at a foundry, had tried to become a jockey, and had been on the stage at Scarborough and Leeds. When he was about seventeen he went to London with a sovereign in his pocket. He suffered extreme want, sleeping out in the parks and streets, until he obtained employment as designer to a theatrical costumier. He also drew posters and cartoons, and for about two years worked for the St Stephen’s Review, until he was advised to go to Australia for his health. During the three years he spent there he was attached to the Sydney Bulletin, for which many of his best drawings were made. On his return to Europe he went to Paris by way of Rome, where he worked hard for some time before he appeared in 1892 in London to resume his interrupted connexion with the St Stephen’s Review. His studies of the London “guttersnipe” and the coster-girl rapidly made him famous. His overflowing sense of fun, his genuine sympathy with his subjects, and his kindly wit were on a par with his artistic ability. It was often said that the extraordinary economy of line which was a characteristic feature of his drawings had been forced upon him by the deficiencies of the printing machines of the Sydney Bulletin. It was in fact the result of a laborious process which involved a number of preliminary sketches, and of a carefully considered system of elimination. His later work included some excellent political portraits. He became a regular member of the staff of Punch in 1896, and in his later years his services were retained exclusively for Punch and the Graphic. He died on the 5th of August 1903.

There was an exhibition of his drawings at the Fine Arts Society in 1895, and another at the Leicester Galleries in 1903. A selection of his drawings contributed to the periodical press and from Phil May’s Annual and Phil May’s Sketch Books, with a portrait and biography of the artist, entitled The Phil May Folio, appeared in 1903.

MAY, THOMAS (1595-1650), English poet and historian, son of Sir Thomas May of Mayfield, Sussex, was born in 1595. He entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1609, and took his B.A. degree three years later. His father having lost his fortune and sold the family estate, Thomas May, who was hampered by an impediment in his speech, made literature his profession. In 1620 he produced The Heir, an ingeniously constructed comedy, and, probably about the same time, The Old Couple, which was not printed until 1658. His other dramatic works are classical tragedies on the subjects of Antigone, Cleopatra, and Agrippina. F. G. Fleay has suggested that the more famous anonymous tragedy of Nero (printed 1624, reprints in A. H. Bullen’s Old English Plays and the Mermaid Series) should also be assigned to May. But his most important work in the department of pure literature was his translation (1627) into heroic couplets of the Pharsalia of Lucan. Its success led May to write a continuation of Lucan’s narrative down to the death of Caesar. Charles I. became his patron, and commanded him to write metrical histories of Henry II. and Edward III., which were completed in 1635. When the earl of Pembroke, then lord chamberlain, broke his staff across May’s shoulders at a masque, the king took him under his protection as “my poet,” and Pembroke made him an apology accompanied with a gift of £50. These marks of the royal favour seem to have led May to expect the posts of poet-laureate and city chronologer when they fell vacant on the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, but he was disappointed, and he forsook the court and attached himself to the party of the Parliament. In 1646 he is styled one of the “secretaries” of the Parliament, and in 1647 he published his best known work, The History of the Long Parliament. In this official apology for the moderate or Presbyterian party, he professes to give an impartial statement of facts, unaccompanied by any expression of party or personal opinion. If he refrained from actual invective, he accomplished his purpose, according to Guizot, by “omission, palliation and dissimulation.” Accusations of this kind were foreseen by May, who says in his preface that if he gives more information about the Parliament men than their opponents it is that he was more conversant with them and their affairs. In 1650 he followed this with another work written with a more definite bias, a Breviary of the History of the Parliament of England, in Latin and English, in which he defended the position of the Independents. He stopped short of the catastrophe of the king’s execution, and it seems likely that his subservience to Cromwell was not quite voluntary. In February 1650 he was brought to London from Weymouth under a strong guard for having spread false reports of the Parliament and of Cromwell. He died on the 13th of November in the same year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration his remains were exhumed and buried in a pit in the yard of St Margaret’s, Westminster. May’s change of side made him many bitter enemies, and he is the object of scathing condemnation from many of his contemporaries.

There is a long notice of May in the Biographia Britannica. See also W. J. Courthope, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. 3; and Guizot, Études biographiques sur la révolution d’Angleterre (pp. 403-426, ed. 1851).

MAY, or Mey(e), WILLIAM (d. 1560), English divine, was the brother of John May, bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queen’s College. May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in 1536, and helped in the production of The Institution of a Christian Man. He had close connexion with the diocese of Ely, being successively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 1545 he was made a prebendary of St Paul’s, and in the following year dean. His favourable report on the Cambridge colleges saved them from dissolution. He was dispossessed during the reign of Mary, but restored to the deanery on Elizabeth’s accession. He died on the day of his election to the archbishopric of York.

MAY, the fifth month of our modern year, the third of the old Roman calendar. The origin of the name is disputed; the derivation from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom the Romans were accustomed to sacrifice on the first day of this month, is usually accepted. The ancient Romans used on May Day to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria. From the 28th of April to the 2nd of May was kept the festival in honour of Flora, goddess of flowers. By the Romans the month was regarded as unlucky for marriages, owing to the celebration on the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Lemuria, the festival of the unhappy dead. This superstition has survived to the present day.

In medieval and Tudor England, May Day was a great public holiday. All classes of the people, young and old alike, were up with the dawn, and went “a-Maying” in the woods. Branches of trees and flowers were borne back in triumph to the towns and villages, the centre of the procession being occupied by those who shouldered the maypole, glorious with ribbons and wreaths. The maypole was usually of birch, and set up for the day only; but in London and the larger towns the poles were of durable wood and permanently erected. They were special eyesores to the Puritans. John Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses (1583) speaks of them as those “stinckyng idols,” about which the people “leape and daunce, as the heathen did.” Maypoles were forbidden by the parliament in 1644, but came once more into favour at the Restoration, the last to be erected in London being that set up in 1661. This pole, which was of cedar, 134 ft. high, was set up by twelve British sailors under the personal supervision of James II., then duke of York and lord high admiral, in the Strand on or about the site of the present church of St Mary’s-in-the-Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was conveyed to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was fixed by Sir Isaac Newton as part of the support of a large telescope, presented to the Royal Society by a French astronomer.

For an account of the May Day survivals in rural England see P. H. Ditchfield, Old English Customs extant at Present Times (1897).

MAY, ISLE OF, an island belonging to Fifeshire, Scotland, at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, 5 m. S.E. of Crail and Anstruther. It has a N.W. to S.E. trend, is more than 1 m. long, and measures at its widest about 1⁄3 m. St Adrian, who had settled here, was martyred by the Danes about the middle of the 9th century. The ruins of the small chapel dedicated to him, which was a favourite place of pilgrimage, still exist. The place where the pilgrims—of whom James IV. was often one—landed is yet known as Pilgrims’ Haven, and traces may yet be seen of the various wells of St Andrew, St John, Our Lady, and the Pilgrims, though their waters have become brackish. In 1499 Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, with the “Yellow Carvel” and “Mayflower,” captured the English seaman Stephen Bull, and three ships, after a fierce fight which took place between the island and the Bass Rock. In 1636 a coal beacon was lighted on the May and maintained by Alexander Cunningham of Barns. The oil light substituted for it in 1816 was replaced in 1888 by an electric light.

MAYA, an important tribe and stock of American Indians, the dominant race of Yucatan and other states of Mexico and part of Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest. They were then divided into many nations, chief among them being the Maya proper, the Huastecs, the Tzental, the Pokom, the Mame and the Cakchiquel and Quiché. They were spread over Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, and Chiapas in Mexico, and over the greater part of Guatemala and Salvador. In civilization the Mayan peoples rivalled the Aztecs. Their traditions give as their place of origin the extreme north; thence a migration took place, perhaps at the beginning of the Christian era. They appear to have reached Yucatan as early as the 5th century. From the evidence of the Quiché chronicles, which are said to date back to about A.D. 700, Guatemala was shortly afterwards overrun. Physically the Mayans are a dark-skinned, round-headed, short and sturdy type. Although they were already decadent when the Spaniards arrived they made a fierce resistance. They still form the bulk of the inhabitants of Yucatan. For their culture, ruined cities, &c. see Central America and Mexico.

MAYAGUEZ, the third largest city of Porto Rico, a seaport, and the seat of government of the department of Mayaguez, on the west coast, at the mouth of Rio Yaguez, about 72 m. W. by S. of San Juan. Pop. of the city (1899), 15,187, including 1381 negroes and 4711 of mixed races; (1910), 16,591; of the municipal district, 35,700 (1899), of whom 2687 were negroes and 9933 were of mixed races. Mayaguez is connected by the American railroad of Porto Rico with San Juan and Ponce, and it is served regularly by steamboats from San Juan, Ponce and New York, although its harbour is not accessible to vessels drawing more than 16 ft. of water. It is situated at the foot of Las Mesas mountains and commands picturesque views. The climate is healthy and good water is obtained from the mountain region. From the shipping district along the water-front a thoroughfare leads to the main portion of the city, about 1 m. distant. There are four public squares, in one of which is a statue of Columbus. Prominent among the public buildings are the City Hall (containing a public library), San Antonio Hospital, Roman Catholic churches, a Presbyterian church, the court-house and a theatre. The United States has an agricultural experiment station here, and the Insular Reform School is 1 m. south of the city. Coffee, sugar-cane and tropical fruits are grown in the surrounding country; and the business of the city consists chiefly in their export and the import of flour. Among the manufactures are sugar, tobacco and chocolate. Mayaguez was founded about the middle of the 18th century on the site of a hamlet which was first settled about 1680. It was incorporated as a town in 1836, and became a city in 1873. In 1841 it was nearly all destroyed by fire.

MAYAVARAM, a town of British India, in the Tanjore district of Madras, on the Cauvery river; junction on the South Indian railway, 174 m. S.W. of Madras. Pop. (1901), 24,276. It possesses a speciality of fine cotton and silk cloth, known as Kornad from the suburb in which the weavers live. During October and November the town is the scene of a great pilgrimage to the holy waters of the Cauvery.

MAYBOLE, a burgh of barony and police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5892. It is situated 9 m. S. of Ayr and 501⁄4 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. It is an ancient place, having received a charter from Duncan II. in 1193. In 1516 it was made a burgh of regality, but for generations it remained under the subjection of the Kennedys, afterwards earls of Cassillis and marquesses of Ailsa, the most powerful family in Ayrshire. Of old Maybole was the capital of the district of Carrick, and for long its characteristic feature was the family mansions of the barons of Carrick. The castle of the earls of Cassillis still remains. The public buildings include the town-hall, the Ashgrove and the Lumsden fresh-air fortnightly homes, and the Maybole combination poorhouse. The leading manufactures are of boots and shoes and agricultural implements. Two miles to the south-west are the ruins of Crossraguel (Cross of St Regulus) Abbey, founded about 1240. Kirkoswald, where Burns spent his seventeenth year, learning land-surveying, lies a little farther west. In the parish churchyard lie “Tam o’ Shanter” (Douglas Graham) and “Souter Johnnie” (John Davidson). Four miles to the west of Maybole on the coast is Culzean Castle, the chief seat of the marquess of Ailsa, dating from 1777; it stands on a basaltic cliff, beneath which are the Coves of Culzean, once the retreat of outlaws and a resort of the fairies. Farther south are the ruins of Turnberry Castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have been born. A few miles to the north of Culzean are the ruins of Dunure Castle, an ancient stronghold of the Kennedys.

MAYEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the northern declivity of the Eifel range, 16 m. W. from Coblenz, on the railway Andernach-Gerolstein. Pop. (1905), 13,435. It is still partly surrounded by medieval walls, and the ruins of a castle rise above the town. There are some small industries, embracing textile manufactures, oil mills and tanneries, and a trade in wine, while near the town are extensive quarries of basalt. Having been a Roman settlement, Mayen became a town in 1291. In 1689 it was destroyed by the French.

MAYENNE, CHARLES OF LORRAINE, Duke of (1554-1611), second son of Francis of Lorraine, second duke of Guise, was born on the 26th of March 1554. He was absent from France at the time of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, but took part in the siege of La Rochelle in the following year, when he was created duke and peer of France. He went with Henry of Valois, duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry III.), on his election as king of Poland, but soon returned to France to become the energetic supporter and lieutenant of his brother, the 3rd duke of Guise. In 1577 he gained conspicuous successes over the Huguenot forces in Poitou. As governor of Burgundy he raised his province in the cause of the League in 1585. The assassination of his brothers at Blois on the 23rd and 24th of December 1588 left him at the head of the Catholic party. The Venetian ambassador, Mocenigo, states that Mayenne had warned Henry III. that there was a plot afoot to seize his person and to send him by force to Paris. At the time of the murder he was at Lyons, where he received a letter from the king saying that he had acted on his warning, and ordering him to retire to his government. Mayenne professed obedience, but immediately made preparations for marching on Paris. After a vain attempt to recover the persons of those of his relatives who had been arrested at Blois he proceeded to recruit troops in his government of Burgundy and in Champagne. Paris was devoted to the house of Guise and had been roused to fury by the news of the murder. When Mayenne entered the city in February 1589 he found it dominated by representatives of the sixteen quarters of Paris, all fanatics of the League. He formed a council general to direct the affairs of the city and to maintain relations with the other towns faithful to the League. To this council each quarter sent four representatives, and Mayenne added representatives of the various trades and professions of Paris in order to counterbalance this revolutionary element. He constituted himself “lieutenant-general of the state and crown of France,” taking his oath before the parlement of Paris. In April he advanced on Tours. Henry III. in his extremity sought an alliance with Henry of Navarre, and the allied forces drove the leaguers back, and had laid siege to Paris, when the murder of Henry III. by a Dominican fanatic changed the face of affairs and gave new strength to the Catholic party.

Mayenne was urged to claim the crown for himself, but he was faithful to the official programme of the League and proclaimed Charles, cardinal of Bourbon, at that time a prisoner in the hands of Henry IV., as Charles X. Henry IV. retired to Dieppe, followed by Mayenne, who joined his forces with those of his cousin Charles, duke of Aumale, and Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac, and engaged the royal forces in a succession of fights in the neighbourhood of Arques (September 1589). He was defeated and out-marched by Henry IV., who moved on Paris, but retreated before Mayenne’s forces. In 1590 Mayenne received additions to his army from the Spanish Netherlands, and took the field again, only to suffer complete defeat at Ivry (March 14, 1590). He then escaped to Mantes, and in September collected a fresh army at Meaux, and with the assistance of Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, sent by Philip II., raised the siege of Paris, which was about to surrender to Henry IV. Mayenne feared with reason the designs of Philip II., and his difficulties were increased by the death of Charles X., the “king of the league.” The extreme section of the party, represented by the Sixteen, urged him to proceed to the election of a Catholic king and to accept the help and the claims of their Spanish allies. But Mayenne, who had not the popular gifts of his brother, the duke of Guise, had no sympathy with the demagogues, and himself inclined to the moderate side of his party, which began to urge reconciliation with Henry IV. He maintained the ancient forms of the constitution against the revolutionary policy of the Sixteen, who during his absence from Paris took the law into their own hands and in November 1591 executed one of the leaders of the more moderate party, Barnabé Brisson, president of the parlement. He returned to Paris and executed four of the chief malcontents. The power of the Sixteen diminished from that time, but with it the strength of the League.1

Mayenne entered into negotiations with Henry IV. while he was still appearing to consider with Philip II. the succession to the French crown of the Infanta Elizabeth, granddaughter, through her mother Elizabeth of Valois, of Henry II. He demanded that Henry IV. should accomplish his conversion to Catholicism before he was recognized by the leaguers. He also desired the continuation to himself of the high offices which had accumulated in his family and the reservation of their provinces to his relatives among the leaguers. In 1593 he summoned the States General to Paris and placed before them the claims of the Infanta, but they protested against foreign intervention. Mayenne signed a truce at La Villette on the 31st of July 1593. The internal dissensions of the league continued to increase, and the principal chiefs submitted. Mayenne finally made his peace only in October 1595. Henry IV. allowed him the possession of Chalon-sur-Saône, of Seurre and Soissons for three years, made him governor of the Isle of France and paid a large indemnity. Mayenne died at Soissons on the 3rd of October 1611.

A Histoire de la vie et de la mort du duc de Mayenne appeared at Lyons in 1618. See also J. B. H. Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, de la ligue et du règne de Henri IV. (8 vols., 1834-1835) and the literature dealing with the house of Guise (q.v.).

1 The estates of the League in 1593 were the occasion of the famous Satire Ménippée, circulated in MS. in that year, but only printed at Tours in 1594. It was the work of a circle of men of letters who belonged to the politiques or party of the centre and ridiculed the League. The authors were Pierre Le Roy, Jean Passerat, Florent Chrestien, Nicolas Rapin and Pierre Pithou. It opened with “La vertu du catholicon,” in which a Spanish quack (the cardinal of Plaisance) vaunts the virtues of his drug “catholicon composé,” manufactured in the Escurial, while a Lorrainer rival (the cardinal of Pellevé) tries to sell a rival cure. A mock account of the estates, with harangues delivered by Mayenne and the other chiefs of the League, followed. Mayenne’s discourse is said to have been written by the jurist Pithou.

MAYENNE, a department of north-western France, three-fourths of which formerly belonged to Lower Maine and the remainder to Anjou, bounded on the N. by Manche and Orne, E. by Sarthe, S. by Maine-et-Loire and W. by Ille-et-Vilaine. Area, 2012 sq. m. Pop. (1906), 305,457. Its ancient geological formations connect it with Brittany. The surface is agreeably undulating; forests are numerous, and the beauty of the cultivated portions is enhanced by the hedgerows and lines of trees by which the farms are divided. The highest point of the department, and indeed of the whole north-west of France, is the Mont des Avaloirs (1368 ft.). Hydrographically Mayenne belongs to the basins of the Loire, the Vilaine and the Sélune, the first mentioned draining by far the larger part of the entire area. The principal stream is the Mayenne, which passes successively from north to south through Mayenne, Laval and Château-Gontier; by means of weirs and sluices it is navigable below Mayenne, but traffic is inconsiderable. The chief affluents are the Jouanne on the left, and on the right the Colmont, the Ernée and the Oudon. A small area in the east of the department drains by the Erve into the Sarthe; the Vilaine rises in the west, and in the north-west two small rivers flow into the Sélune. The climate of Mayenne is generally healthy except in the neighbourhood of the numerous marshes. The temperature is lower and the moisture of the atmosphere greater than in the neighbouring departments; the rainfall (about 32 in. annually) is above the average for France.

Agriculture and stock-raising are prosperous. A large number of horned cattle are reared, and in no other French department are so many horses found within the same area; the breed, that of Craon, is famed for its strength. Craon has also given its name to the most prized breed of pigs in western France. Mayenne produces excellent butter and poultry and a large quantity of honey. The cultivation of the vine is very limited, and the most common beverage is cider. Wheat, oats, barley and buckwheat, in the order named, are the most important crops, and a large quantity of flax and hemp is produced. Game is abundant. The timber grown is chiefly beech, oak, birch, elm and chestnut. The department produces antimony, auriferous quartz and coal. Marble, slate and other stone are quarried. There are several chalybeate springs. The industries include flour-milling, brick and tile making, brewing, cotton and wool spinning, and the production of various textile fabrics (especially ticking) for which Laval and Château-Gontier are the centres, agricultural implement making, wood and marble sawing, tanning and dyeing. The exports include agricultural produce, live-stock, stone and textiles; the chief imports are coal, brandy, wine, furniture and clothing. The department is served by the Western railway. It forms part of the circumscriptions of the IV. army corps, the académie (educational division) of Rennes, and the court of appeal of Angers. It comprises three arrondissements (Laval, Château-Gontier and Mayenne), with 27 cantons and 276 communes. Laval, the capital, is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Tours. The other principal towns are Château-Gontier and Mayenne, which are treated under separate headings. The following places are also of interest: Evron, which has a church of the 12th and 13th centuries; Jublains, with a Roman fort and other Roman remains; Lassay, with a fine château of the 14th and 16th centuries; and Ste Suzanne, which has remains of medieval ramparts and a fortress with a keep of the Romanesque period.