was declared by the Committee of Privileges also Marabouts, religious devotees or ascetics found chiefly in north Africa, who have at times exercised considerable political influence, as in encouraging opposition to the French conquests in Algeria and Tunis in the 19th century, and in former centuries as the origin and mainstay of the Almoravid dynasty, which held Morocco and Spain for a long period. These devotees are held in great veneration by the Berbers; they frequently officiate at mosques and chapels, and are believed to possess the power to prophesy and work miracles. The dignity is generally hereditary. The name is also applied to the tombs of the devotees. Maracaibo, a city of Venezuela, is situated on the west shore of the strait which connects the lake and gulf of Maracaibo. It is a handsome town, with many gardens and squares, a college, hospitals, a theatre, a German club-house, the usual government buildings, a custom-house, wharves, and a number of manufactories. The climate is hot, the soil sandy, and the place unhealthy, owing mainly to the unsanitary domestic arrangements. The trade is chiefly in the hands of Germans, Danes, and North Americans. The staple export is coffee. Others are petrol, sugar, quina bark, woods. 35,000. Zulia state, of which it is capital, produces petroleum. Pop. about 120,000. to Marantaceæ, an order of tropical (chiefly American) monocotyledons nearly allied Zingiberace and Cannacea. The unsymmetrical flowers, which grow in pairs (each a mirror-image of the other), have three sepals, three petals, one fertile stamen, a number of petaloid staminodes. The rhizome of Maranta arundinacea yields West Indian arrowroot. Maraschi'no. See LIQUEUR. Marash, a town of Turkey, 80 miles NE. of Alexandretta, is a market for Kurd carpets and embroideries. Hittite antiquities have been found. Pop. 50,000. Marat, JEAN PAUL, French Revolutionary, was born at Boudry in Neuchâtel, 24th May 1743, eldest child of Jean Paul Mara, a native of Cagliari, who had married Louise Cabrol, a Genevan Protestant. He studied medicine at Bordeaux, next went to Paris, to Holland, and to London, where for some time he practised his profession with success, and published a materialistic Philosophical Essay on Man (1773), sharply attacking Helvétius, and anonymously a political essay, The Chains of Slavery (1774). In 1775 he paid a visit to EdinPop.burgh, and was made on 30th June, on the recommendation of certain Edinburgh physicians, M.D. of St Andrews University. In June 1777 he was made brevet-physician to his guards by the Comte d'Artois, afterwards King Charles X.-an office which he held till 1786. Meantime he continued his scientific work in optics and electricity, attracting the attention of Franklin and Goethe, but the Académie des Sciences refused him admission on account of his attack on Newton. Further writings were his anonymous Plan de Législation Criminelle (1780), a translation of Newton's Optics (1787), and Mémoires Académiques, ou Nouvelles Découvertes sur la Lumière (1788). The Gulf of Maracaibo is a wide inlet of the Caribbean Sea, extending from the peninsulas of Paraguana and Guajira to the strait by which it is connected with the lake. The latter forms the floor of a great valley, shut in by lofty mountains. Its waters are sweet, and deep enough for the largest vessels; but bars at the mouth, where a swift current runs, make entrance difficult. The gulf and lake were discovered in 1499 by Ojeda, who found houses built on piles, and so gave the district the name Venezuela (Little Venice'), afterwards extended to the entire country. Maragall, JUAN (1860-1912), Catalan lyric poet. But all Paris was now infected with the fever of revolution, and Marat flung himself with characteristic ardour into the war of pamphlets, and at Maragha, a town of western Persia, 55 miles length in September 1788 established his famous S. of Tabriz and 20 miles E. of Lake Urmia. It is paper, L'Ami du Peuple. Throughout he fought celebrated as the capital of Hulagu Khan, grand-ever for his own hand, with blear-eyed honesty son of Genghis Khan, and as the site of the observatory which Hulagu built for the astronomer Nasr ed-Din. Pop. 15,000. Marajó, an island situated between the estuaries of the Amazon and Para, with an area of nearly 18,000 sq. m. It is for the most part low and covered with grass and bush, but in the east and south with dense forest. The soil is fertile, and large herds of cattle are reared in the north-east. Maramuresh, a territory of 6258 sq. m. in the NW. of Rumania, acquired in 1919, being the southern part of the old Hungarian county of Máramaros (Marmaros); pop. (1920) 766,666. Chief town Sighetul Marmaţiei (Máramaros Sziget). The northern part went to Carpathian Ruthenia. Maranham', or MARANHÃO, a maritime state of Brazil, bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, with an area of 177,566 sq. m. and a population of 874,000. The surface is uneven, but there is no range of mountains. There are numerous rivers, large forests, extensive plains where cattle are reared; the climate is fine, the soil fertile. Agriculture, however, has not prospered. Cotton and indomitable persistence, constantly croaking He MARATHI declaration of the republic he started his paper anew under the title Journal de la République Française. After the king's death his last energies were spent in a mortal struggle with the Girondins, who subscribed their own downfall when their formal accusation of Marat failed before the tribunal. But it was the tribune's last triumph. He was dying fast of the disease he had contracted in the sewers, and could only write sitting in his bath. There his destiny reached him through the knife of Charlotte Corday (q.v.), in the evening of the 13th July 1793. His body was committed to the Panthéon with the greatest public honours, to be east out but fifteen months later amid popular execration. See the various histories of the French Revolution; Bougeart, Marat l'Ami du Peuple (2 vols. 1864); Bax, Marat, the People's Friend (1900); Phipson, Marat: his Career in England and France before the Revolution (1924); but especially the works by F. Chèvremont: Marat, Index du Bibliophile (1876), Placards de Marat (1877), and Marat, esprit politique, accompagné de sa rie scientifique, politique, et privée (2 vols. 1881). Marathi. See MAHRATTAS, INDIA. Marathon, a village on the east coast of ancient Attica, 22 miles NE. of Athens, long supposed to be the modern Marathona. It stood in a plain 6 miles long and from 3 to 1 miles broad, with a background of mountains in the west, and a marsh both on the north and south; eastward it reached the sea-The mountains look on Marathon, and Marathon looks on the sea.' Recent investigations by Prussian officers identify the historic village with that of Brana, nearly 2 miles to the south, and locate the battle in the plain between the mountain Stavrokoraki and the sea, nearly 3 miles north-east of Brana. The name of Marathon is gloriously memorable as the scene of the great defeat of the Persian hordes of Darius by the Greeks under Miltiades (490 B.C.)-one of the decisive battles of the world. ford, and Yeovil; and the dark Purbeck and Petworth marbles, beautifully figured' with shells, from the Wealden strata, which were so much used by the architects of the middle ages. Saccharine or statuary marble is a white finegrained rock, resembling loaf-sugar in colour and texture, working freely in every direction, not liable to splinter, and taking a fine polish. Of the marbles used by the ancients, the most famous was Parian marble, a finely granular and very durable stone, with a waxy appearance when polished. Some of the finest Greek sculptures were formed of this marble, among others, the famous Venus de' Medici. The marble of Pentelicus was at one time preferred by the Greeks to Parian, because it was whiter and finer grained. The Parthenon was entirely built of it, and many famous statues still remain which were executed in this marble, but they are always more or less weathered, never retaining the beautiful finish of the Parian statues. The quarries at Carrara (q.v.) were known to the ancients, but they have been more extensively wrought for modern sculptors, who use this marble chiefly. It is a fine-grained, pure white marble, but is so often traversed by gray veins that it is difficult to get large blocks free from these. Of coloured marbles, the best known are the Rosso Antico, a deep blood-red, sprinkled with minute white dots; Verde Antico, a clouded green produced by a mixture of white marble and green serpentine; Giallo Antico, a deep yellow, with black or yellow rings; and Nero Antico, a deep black marble. A true marble is a crystalline granular aggregate of calcite, the granules being of remarkably uniform size. Not infrequently scales of mica or tale occur scattered through the rock. Such a rock is of metamorphic origin: it is simply a limestone which has been rendered entirely crystalline from the effects of heat under pressure, as in the vicinity of large intrusions of igneous rock. Marble may Marattiaceæ, a primitive family of large therefore be of any geological age. Many crystaltropical ferns of the Eusporangiate division, includ-line limestones, which are sometimes entitled to ing Marattia, Angiopteris, and other genera. FERNS. See Marave'di, an old Spanish copper coin in use from 1474 to 1848, was worth about th of a penny. There were also, at an earlier period, maravedis of gold and of silver. Marbeck, or MERBECKE, JOHN, organist of St George's Chapel, Windsor, was condemned to the stake in 1544 for favouring the Reformation, but pardoned by favour of Bishop Gardiner. In 1550 he published his famous Boke of Common Praier Noted, an adaptation of the plain-chant of the earlier rituals to the first liturgy of Edward VI. He wrote several theological and controversial works; and a hymn for three voices and parts of a mass by him are extant. He died about 1585. Marble, in its strict and proper sense, is a rock crystallised in a saccharoidal manner, having the fracture of loaf-sugar, and composed of carbonate of lime, either almost pure when the colour is white, or combined with oxide of iron or other impurities which give various colours to it. But many other kinds of stone are popularly included under this title. Indeed any limestone rock suffi ciently compact to admit of a polish is called marble. It is only in this vague sense that the indurated amorphous rocks used in Britain can receive this name. Such are the black, red, gray, and variegated limestones of the Devonian system, which are very beautiful from the numbers of exquisitely preserved corals which abound in them; the marbles of the Carboniferous series from Flintshire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, so full of encrinites; the shell marbles from the Oolitic rocks at Rance, Stam the name of marble, occur associated with gneiss and mica-schist, and are often rich in such minerals as garnet, actinolite, zoisite, mica, &c. Marburg, (1) a quaint old town in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the Lahn, 59 miles by rail N. of Frankfurt and 64 SW. of Cassel. It is built on a terraced hill, whose summit is crowned by a stately castle, dating from 1065. In its Rittersaal (1277-1312) was held in 1529 the conference between the Wittenberg and the Swiss reformers regarding the Lord's Supper. The fine Gothic church of Elizabeth, with two towers 243 feet high, was built in 1235-83 by the Teutonic Knights over the splendid shrine of St Elizabeth (q.v.), and was thoroughly restored in 1850-67. The university occupies Gothic buildings of 1879. It was founded in 1527 in the Reformed interest by Philip the Magnanimous, Landgrave of Hesse; and among its earliest students were Patrick Hamilton and William Tyndale. Pop. 23,000.(2) A town of Styria (Slovenian name Maribor) on the Drave, 30 miles NE. of Graz, assigned in 1919, notwithstanding its German population, to Yugoslavia; pop. 30,000. Marcantonio, or, in full, MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI, engraver, born at Bologna late in the 15th century. A goldsmith by trade, he early turned to engraving, and received his first great stimulus from woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer, which he saw at Venice about 1505. He copied on copper two sets of plates from the German master's designs for the Life of the Virgin' and the 'Passion of Christ' (see DÜRER). At Rome, where he worked from 1510, he was chiefly engaged in engraving Raphael's works, as 'Lucretia,' the Massacre of the Innocents, the Three Doctors of the Church,' 'Adam and Eve,' 'Dido,' Poetry,' the Judg. ment of Paris,' &c., and subsequently those of Raphael's pupil, Giulio Romano. On account of the power of his drawing and the purity of his expression he is accounted the best amongst the engravers of the great painter. The capture of Rome by the Constable Bourbon in 1527 drove Marcantonio back to Bologna, where he probably remained until he died, some time before 1534 came to an end. See the essay by Fisher prefixed to the catalogue of his engraved works exhibited in London in 1868, and Delaborde's monograph (Paris, 1887). Marcasite, an iron ore, a variety of Pyrites (q.v.). Marceau, FRANÇOIS SEVERIN DESGRAVIERS, French general, was born at Chartres on 1st March 1769. On the outbreak of the Revolution he was appointed inspector of the national guard in his native town, and in 1792 helped to defend Verdun with a body of volunteers till its surrender. His brilliant military career was ended in four years from this time; but they were four years of stirring activity. Sent in the following year to join the republican army in La Vendée, he was, for his services in the engagements before Saumur and Le Mans, promoted to the rank of general of division. Then, proceeding to the north-east frontier, he commanded the right wing at Fleurus, and after the allies retreated occupied Coblenz. During the campaign of 1796 he was given command of the first division of Jourdan's army, and sat down to invest Mainz, Mannheim, and Coblenz. But whilst covering the retreat of the French at Altenkirchen he was shot, on 19th September, and died of his wound. His body was buried in the entrenched camp at Coblenz but was transferred to the Panthéon in Paris in 1889. He ranks next after Hoche amongst the French generals of the early years of the Revolution, not only for military genius, but also on account of the nobility and uprightness of his personal character. See Lives by Doublet de Boisthibault (1851), Maze (1888), and Captain T. G. Johnson (1896). Marcello, BENEDETTO, musical composer, born in Venice on 1st August 1686, was a judge of the republic, and a member of the Council of Forty, and afterwards held important administrative offices at Pola and Brescia, where he died on 24th July 1739. He had a passion for music, and is remembered as the composer of music for Giustiniani's version of the Psalms (8 vols. 172427), of numerous concertos, canzoni, cantatas, a pastoral, an oratorio, and other pieces, distinguished for their simple yet elevated style, and as the author of a satirical work, Il Teatro alla Moda (1720). Marcellus, the name of two popes, of whom the second deserves special notice, as having, when Cardinal Marcello Cervini, taken a very prominent part in the discussions of the Council of Trent, over which he was appointed to preside as legate of Julius III. He was elected pope 10th April 1555, and survived his elevation but twenty-two days. He did not follow the usual custom of laying aside his baptismal name and assuming a new one. Marcellus, M. CLAUDIUS, a famous Roman general, of one of the most eminent plebeian families. In his first consulship (222 B.C.) he defeated the Insubrian Gauls, and slew with his own hand their king, Britomartus or Viridomarus, whose spoils he dedicated as spolia opima to Jupiter -the third and last occasion in Roman history. In the second Punic war Marcellus took command MARCHES after the disaster of Canne, and put a check upon the victorious Hannibal at Nola, in Campania (216 B.C.). Again consul in 214 B.C., he gave a fresh impulse to the war in Sicily, but all his efforts to take Syracuse were rendered unavailing by the skill of Archimedes, and he was compelled regularly to blockade the city. Famine, pestilence, and ultimately treachery on the part of the Spanish auxiliaries of the Syracusans, opened its gates (212 B.C.), after which the remainder of Sicily was soon brought under the dominion of the Romans. In his fifth consulship, 208 B.C., he fell in a skir mish against Hannibal. Marcet, JANE, known as MRS MARCET (17691858), was author of a very popular elementary introduction to chemistry entitled Conversations on Chemistry, through which Faraday made his first acquaintance with the subject, and of similar books on other branches of science, besides numerous charming Stories for very Little Children, in the estimation of many her best work. She was the daughter of a rich London merchant, a Swiss by birth, and was herself born at Geneva. She married Alexander Marcet, a Genevan. See Harriet Martineau's Biographical Sketches (1869). March (Czech Morava), the principal river of Moravia, rises on the boundary between that region and Prussian Silesia, and flows 214 miles south to the Danube, which it joins 6 miles above Presburg. It receives on the right the Thaya! In its lower course it forms the boundary between Austria and Czechoslovakia. It is navigable for small boats from Göding, 50 miles from its mouth. March, an urban district of Cambridgeshire, on the Nen, 14 miles E. of Peterborough and 16 NW. of Ely. Its church has a fine Perpendicular clerestory, with splendid roof. Pop. 9000. March, the first month of the Roman year, and the third according to our present calendar. In England until 1752 the legal year was reckoned from the 25th March. Scotland had already made the change. Its last three days (old style) were once popularly supposed to have been borrowed by March from April, and are proverbially stormy. March, a musical composition, chiefly for military bands, with wind-instruments and drums, intended to accompany the marching of troops. Marches are also introduced into operas, oratorios, symphonies, sonatas, &c.. A march is usually but not always in common time, and like a minuet or a scherzo may have a so-called trio. Marchantia. See LIVERWORTS. Marchena, a town of Spain, 47 miles by rail E. by S. of Seville, with a ducal (Arcos) palace and sulphur-baths; pop. 15,000. Marches, the border districts that run contiguous on each side of the boundary line between England and Scotland, and between England and Wales. The Lords of the Marches were the nobles to whom estates on the borders were given, on condition that they defended the country against the aggressions of the people on the other side. Under the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England there was almost chronic war between the English Lords of the Marches and the Welsh. The Mortimers, Earls of March, took their title For the Scottish-English Marches, see BORDERS.— from the Marches of Wales. In Scotland Dunbars and Lennoxes have been Earls of March, as have also Douglases.-The corresponding German word Mark was in like manner applied to the border countries or districts of the German empire, conquered from neighbouring nations-the marks of Austria, of Brandenburg, Altmark, Steiermark, &c. The governor entrusted with the charge of a mark was called Markgraf (see MARQUIS). MARCHETTI The ancient German tribe of Marcomanni were 'Marchmen.' In Italy The Marches include the March of Ancona (q.v.) and three other provinces (see ITALY).-Riding the Marches is a procession on horseback along the boundary of a municipality (see BOUND). Marchetti, FILIPPO, an operatic composer, born at Bolognola in 1831, became in 1881 president of a musical college in Rome. His best-known operas are Romeo e Giulietta (1865) and Ruy Blas (1869). He died at Rome in 1902. Marcianise, an agricultural town of Italy, situated in a marshy district, 18 miles by rail N. of Naples; pop. 15,000. Marcion, the founder of the Marcionites, a rigorously ascetic sect which attained a great importance between the years 150 and 250 A.D. He was born at Sinope in Pontus about 100, became wealthy as a shipowner, and about 140 repaired to Rome. There he laboured to correct the prevailing views of Christianity, which he considered to be a corruption of Jewish errors with the gospel of Christ as expounded by Paul, its best interpreter. The opposition which he encountered drove him to found a new community about 144, and he laboured earnestly propagating his theology until his death about 165. Marcion was hardly a Gnostic, although he had been intimate with Cerdo, and Gnostic speculations certainly influenced the development of the Marcionite theology. Failing to recognise the New Testament God of love in the Old Testament, and profoundly influenced by the radical Pauline antithesis of law and gospel, he constructed an ethico-dualistic philosophy of religion, and proceeded to cosmological speculations which are not free from contradictions. He set aside as spurious all the gospels save Luke, and it, as well as the Pauline epistles, he purged of Judaising interpolations. He was thus the earliest to make a canonical collection of New Testament writings. From the 4th century the Marcionites began to be absorbed in the Manichæans. See GNOSTICISM and works there quoted. Marconi, GUGLIELMO, electrical engineer, was born at Bologna in 1874 (son of an Irish woman), and educated at Leghorn. After much study of wireless telegraphy and many experiments he successfully communicated across the English Channel in 1899. His system, in use by Lloyd's and the principal shipping companies in England and abroad, was definitely adopted by the British Admiralty in 1900. In 1901 he succeeded in communicating across the Atlantic. In 1907 Marconi began a trans-Atlantic public service. In 1919 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for physics. WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. Marco Polo. See POLO. Marcus Aurelius. See AURELIUS. Mardi Gras. See SHROVETIDE. See agriculture, consequent upon unsettled political history, fostered the encroachments of inalaria. Leopold II. of Tuscany directed especial attention (1822-44) to the drainage and amelioration of the Maremma, and his efforts and subsequent measures have been attended with considerable success. Crops are now grown in the summer on the fertile soil of the infected area by the inhabitants of the adjoining hill-country, who go down only to sow and to reap their crops. During winter the Maremma is healthier and yields good pasture. Marengo, a village of Northern Italy, in a marshy district near the Bormida, 3 miles SE. of Alessandria. Here on 14th June 1800 Napoleon, with 33,000 French, defeated 30,500 Austrians under Melas. It was the cavalry charge of the younger Kellermann that turned what looked like certain defeat into a decisive victory, though the French lost 7000 in killed and wounded, the Austrians only 6400 (besides 3000 prisoners). Mareotis, or MAREIA, LAKE, the modern El Mariút, a salt lake or marsh in the north of Egypt, extends southward from Alexandria, and is separated from the Mediterranean, on its northwest side, by a narrow isthmus of sand. In the 15th and 16th centuries it was a navigable lake; in 1798 it was found by the French to be a dry sandy plain; but in 1801 the English army cut the dikes of the canal that separated the Lake of Aboukir from Mareotis, to cut off the water-supply of the French, and Mareotis became once more a marsh. The like happened in 1803, 1807, and 1882; but Mariût' has been partly drained again. Mare's Tail (Hippuris vulgaris), a tall erect marsh-plant, with whorls of narrow leaves. See HALORAGACEÆ. Margaret, ST, Scottish queen, was born about 1045, probably in Hungary, daughter of the exiled Atheling Edward (son of Edmund Ironside), and of Agatha, said to be a kinswoman of Gisela, queen of St Stephen of Hungary, and sister of the Emperor Henry II. It is not certain when she came to England, or how long she had been there when in 1068, with her mother and sister (Christina) and her brother, Edgar the Atheling (q.v.), she fled from Norman England and was driven ashore at the place now called St Margaret's Hope. Young, lovely, learned, and pious, she won the heart of the rude Scottish king, Malcolm Canmore (q.v.), who Perhaps,' says wedded her at Dunfermline. Skene, there is no more beautiful character recorded in history than that of Margaret. For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her, and for entire self-abnegation she is unsurpassed.' Other historians are less ecstatic. She did much to civilise the northern realm, and still more to assimilate the old Celtic church to the · Mardin, a town of Kurdistan, 60 miles SE. of rest of Christendom on such points as the due comDiarbekir; pop. 30,000. Mare, WALTER DE LA. See DE LA MARE. Maree', LOCH, a beautiful lake of Ross-shire, 40 miles W. of Dingwall. Lying 31 feet above sea-level, it is 13 miles long, over 2 miles broad, 367 feet deep, and 11 sq. m. in area. It is overhung by mountains 3000 feet high; sends off the Ewe, 2 miles long, to the sea; and contains many islets. Maremma (Lat. Maritima), a marshy region of Italy, extending along the sea-coast of Tuscany, and embracing an area of about 1000 sq. m. In Roman times and earlier the Maremma was a fruitful and populous plain; but the decay of mencement of Lent, the Easter communion, the observance of Sunday, and marriage within the prohibited degrees. She built, too, a stately church at Dunfermline, and re-founded Iona. She bore her husband six sons and two daughters, and died three days after him, in Edinburgh Castle, on 16th November 1093. Innocent IV. canonised her in 1250. Her head, which had found its way from Dunfermline to Douai, was lost in the French Revolution; but her remaining relics are said to have been enshrined by Philip II. in the Escorial. See the Latin Life attributed to her confessor Turgot, Bishop of St Andrews, but perhaps by a less-known monk Theodoric ( Eng. trans. by Fr. Forbes-Leith, 1884); English Lives by Cowan (1911), and Lucy Menzies (1925); 30 MARGARET MARGATE Skene's Celtic Scotland (vol. ii. 1877); Bellesheim's bore Jeanne d'Albret, mother of the great French History of the Catholic Church of Scotland (trans. 1887). monarch, Henry IV. She encouraged agriculture, Margaret, queen of Denmark, Norway, and the arts, and learning, and sheltered with a cour Sweden, was the second daughter of Waldemar ageous generosity such advocates of freer thought IV. of Denmark, and wife of Haakon VIII. ofin religion as Marot and Bonaventure des Périers. Norway, and was born in 1353. On the death of Accusations entirely unfounded have been brought her father without male heirs in 1375, the Danish by interested bigotry against her morals. She died nobles offered her the crown in trust for her in- 21st December 1549. Her writings include a series fant son Olaf. By the death of Haakon in 1380 of remarkably interesting Letters (ed. by Génin, Margaret became ruler of Norway as well as of 2 vols. 1842-43), a miscellaneous collection of Denmark. When Olaf died in 1387 Margaret poems gracefully entitled Les Marguerites de la nominated her grand-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, Marguerite (ed. by Frank, 4 vols. 1873), and as her successor. The Swedish king, Albert of especially the famous Heptaméron des Nouvelles Mecklenburg, having so thoroughly alienated the (1558; ed. by Leroux de Lincy, 3 vols. 1855), affections of his subjects that the nobles, declaring modelled on the Decameron of Boccaccio, but worked the throne vacant, offered in 1388 to acknowledge out in an original manner. A company of ladies Margaret as their ruler, she sent an army into and gentlemen returning from Cauterets are Sweden, which defeated the king's German troops detained by bad weather, and beguile the time by near Falköping, and took Albert and his son telling stories, seventy-two in number, which are prisoners. Albert remained in prison seven years, separated by interludes introducing the persons. during which time Margaret, in spite of the efforts The subjects of the stories are similar to those of the Hanseatic League and its allies, wholly of the Decameron, but the manners delineated are subjugated Sweden. In the following year (1396) more refined; and they reflect closely the strange Eric of Pomerania was crowned king of the three combination of religious fervour with religious freeScandinavian kingdoms, and though he was pro- thinking and refined voluptuousness so characterclaimed king de facto next year, the power stillistic of the time. Most critics believe the work to remained in the hands of Margaret. In May 1397 be partly by Des Périers (q.v.). Her Dernières was signed the celebrated Union of Kalmar, by Poesies, discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale which it was stipulated that the three kingdoms in 1895, were published in 1896. See Lives by should remain for ever at peace under one king, Durand (1848), Miss Freer (1854), and Lotheisen though each should retain its own laws and customs. (Berlin, 1885); and Saintsbury's introduction to Before her death at Flensburg on 28th October the new translation of the Heptameron (1894). 1412, Margaret had enlarged the territories she held for her grand-nephew by the acquisition of Lapland and part of Finland. She was a woman of masculine energy and strong will, and ruled her subjects with a firm hand. See a Life by M. Hill (1898). Margaret of Anjou, the queen of Henry VI. of England, was daughter of René of Anjou, the titular king of Sicily, and of Isabella of Lorraine, and was born at Pont-à-Mousson, in Lorraine, 24th March 1429. She was married to Henry VI. of England in 1445; and her husband being a person whose naturally weak intellect was sometimes darkened by complete imbecility, she exercised an almost unlimited authority over him, and was the virtual sovereign of the realm. A secret contract at her marriage, by which Maine and Anjou were relinquished to the French, excited great dissatisfaction in England, and the war with the French which broke out anew in 1449, in the course of which all Normandy was lost, was laid by the English to the charge of the already unpopular queen. In 1450 occurred the insurrection of Jack Cade, and soon after the country was plunged in the horrors of that bloody civil war known as the Wars of the Roses. Margaret took an active part in the contest, braving disaster and defeat with the most heroic courage. At length, after a struggle of nearly twenty years, Margaret was finally defeated at Tewkesbury, and flung into the Tower, where she remained four years, till Louis XI. redeemed her for fifty thousand crowns. She then retired to France, and died at the château of Dampierre, near Saumur, in Anjou, 25th August 1482. Mrs Hookham's Life (1872) is not altogether satisfactory as history. Margaret of Navarre, in her youth known as Marguerite d'Angoulême, sister of Francis I. of France, and daughter of Charles of Orleans, Comte d'Angoulême, was born at Angoulême, 11th April 1492. She was carefully educated, and early showed remarkable sweetness and charm added to unusual strength of mind. In 1509 she was married to Charles, Duke of Alençon, who died in 1525; and in 1527 she was married to Henri d'Albret, titular king of Navarre, to whom she Margaret of Scotland (1425?-45), an unfortunate and accomplished princess, daughter of James I. (q.v.) of Scotland, married in 1436 to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. of France, who proved a heartless and callous husband. She sought solace for her husband's neglect in books and in poetry, spending sleepless nights in writing rondeaux. An impossible legend makes her the too kind patron of the famous poet, Alain Chartier (v.), who was of the commission that went to Scotland to solicit her hand, but was probably dead English Essays from a French Pen (1895); Rait's before her wedded troubles began. See Jusserand's Five Stuart Princesses (1902); and a book by Barbé (1917). Margarine. See BUTTER, ADULTERATION. MARGARIC ACID is a mixture of palmitic and stearic acids; see FATS. Dis Margarita, an island in the Caribbean Sea, belonging to Venezuela; area, 380 sq. m. covered by Columbus in 1498, Margarita has revived its pearl-fisheries, but now its chief export is salted fish. Margary, AUGUSTUS RAYMOND (1846-75), the son of an English officer in India, was for six years in the diplomatic service in China. In August 1874 he was sent to meet a British mission seeking to open the overland route between Burma and China, and, as interpreter, was returning with the mission when in February 1875 he was murdered by the Chinese at Manwyne. edited by Sir R. Alcock (1876). See his Journal, England, in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, 3 miles W. Margate, a seaport and municipal borough of of the North Foreland and 74 E. by S. of London, has for many years been the favourite seaside resort of cockney holiday-makers, who, during the season, by rail and by steamer, pour into the town in their thousands. Possessed of many natural advantages in its bracing air, good bathing, and excellent firm sands, Margate offers besides all the customary attractions of a watering-place, with its pier (900 feet long), jetty (upwards of a quarter of a mile in length), theatre, assembly-rooms, baths, zoological gardens, &c. It contains also two interesting |