The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 227

GUIGNES, JOSEPH DE, an eminent French Orientalist, and Sinologist especially; was author of "Histoire Generale des Huns, des Turcs, des Moguls, &c.," a work of vast research (1721-1800).

GUILDFORD (14), capital of Surrey, on the Wey, 30 m. SW. of London, a quaint old town with several interesting buildings, and the ruins of a Norman castle; is noted for its "Surrey wheats" and live-stock markets; and has corn, paper, and powder-mills, also iron-works.

GUILDHALL, a building in London and a hall for banquets of the City Corporation; destroyed by the fire of 1666 and rebuilt in 1789.

GUILDHALL SCHOOL OF MUSIC, an inst.i.tution established by the Corporation of London to provide advanced and thorough instruction in music at a moderate rate, a fine building in connection with which was erected in 1887; started with 62, and has now 3600 pupils. The Corporation have expended 50,000 on it, besides an annual contribution of 2300.

GUILDS, a.s.sociations of craftsmen or tradesmen in the Middle Ages to watch over and protect the interests of their craft or trade, and to see that it is honourably as well as economically conducted, each with a body of officials to superintend its affairs; they were a.s.sociations for mutual help, and of great benefit to the general community, religiously and morally, as well as munic.i.p.ally.

GUILLOTINE, a beheading-machine invented by a Dr. Guillotin, and recommended by him to the National Convention, which adopted it; "with my machine, Messieurs, I whisk off your head in a twinkling, and you have no pain;" it was antic.i.p.ated by the _Maiden_ in Scotland.

GUINEA, a name somewhat loosely applied to an extensive tract of territory on the W. coast of Africa, generally recognised as extending from the mouth of the Senegal in the N. to Cape Negro in the S., and is further designated as Lower and Upper Guinea, the boundary line being practically the Equator; the territory is occupied by various colonies of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and the Negro Republic of Liberia.

GUINEGATE, a village in Hainault, SW. of Belgium, where Henry VIII.

defeated the French in 1513 in the Battle of the SPURS (q. v.).

GUINEVERE, the wife of King Arthur; the most beautiful of women, conceived a guilty pa.s.sion for Lancelot, one of Arthur's knights, and married Modred, her husband's nephew, in the latter's absence on an expedition against the Romans, on hearing of which he returned, met Modred on the field of battle, whom he slew, fell mortally wounded himself, while she escaped to a nunnery. Tennyson gives a different version in his "Idylls."

GUISCARD, ROBERT, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, born at Coutances, in Normandy; along with his brothers, sons of Tancred de Hauteville, he, the sixth of twelve, following others of the family, invaded S. Italy; won renown by his great prowess, and in the end the dukedom of Apulia; he engaged in war with the Emperor of the East, but returned to suppress a revolt in his own territory; when Pope Gregory VII. was besieged in San Angelo by Henry IV. of Germany he came to the rescue and the emperor made off (1015-1085).

GUISE, a celebrated French ducal family deriving its t.i.tle from the town of Guise in Aisne.

GUISE, CHARLES, CARDINAL OF LORRAINE, DUKE OF, son of the succeeding, and considered the ablest of the Guise family; was archbishop of Rheims in 1538, and cardinal of Lorraine in 1547; was prominent at the Council of Trent, and in conjunction with his brother fiercely opposed Protestantism (1527-1574).

GUISE, CLAUDE OF LORRAINE, first Duke of, fifth son of Rene II., Duke of Lorraine; distinguished himself in the service of Francis I., who conferred on him the dukedom of Guise; was the grandfather of Mary, Queen of Scots, through his daughter Marie, wife of James V. of Scotland (1496-1550).

GUISE, FRANCIS, second Duke of, and son of preceding; rose, to the highest eminence as a soldier, winning, besides many others, the great victory of Metz (1552) over the Germans, and capturing Calais from the English in 1558; along with his brother CHARLES (q. v.) he was virtual ruler of France during the feeble rule of Francis II., and these two set themselves to crush the rise of Protestantism; he was murdered by a Huguenot at the siege of Orleans (1519-1563).

GUISE, HENRY I., third Duke of, son of Francis; the murder of his father added fresh zeal to his inborn hatred of the Protestants, and throughout his life he persecuted them with merciless rigour; he was a party to the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew (1572); his ambitious designs on the crown of France brought about his a.s.sa.s.sination (1550-1588).

GUISE, HENRY II., fifth Duke of, grandson of preceding; at 15 he became archbishop of Rheims, but the death of his brother placed him in the dukedom (1640); he opposed Richelieu, was condemned to death, but fled to Flanders; with Masaniello he made a fruitless attempt to seize the kingdom of Naples, and eventually settled in Paris, becoming grand-chamberlain to Louis XIV. (1614-1664).

GUIZOT, FRANcOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME, a celebrated French historian and statesman, born at Nimes; his boyhood was spent at Geneva, and in 1805 he came to Paris to study law, but he soon took to writing, and in his twenty-fourth year had published several works and translated Gibbon's great history; in 1812 he was appointed to the chair of History in the Sorbonne; on the second restoration (1814) became Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior; the return of Napoleon drove him from office, but on the downfall of the Corsican he received the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Justice; in 1830 he threw in his lot with Louis Philippe, became Minister of Public Instruction, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister; his political career practically closed with the downfall of Louis Philippe; his voluminous historical works, executed between his terms of office and in his closing years, display wide learning and a great faculty of generalisation; the best known are "The History of the English Revolution" and "The History of Civilisation"; as a statesman he was honest, patriotic, but short-sighted (1787-1874).

GUJARAT (3,098), a N. maritime province of the Presidency of Bombay, lying between the Gulfs of Cutch and Cambay; it is a rich alluvial country, and chiefly comprises the native States of Kathiawar, Cutch, and Baroda.

GULF STREAM, the most important of the great ocean currents; it issues by the Strait of Florida from the Gulf of Mexico (whence its name), a vast body of water 50 m. wide, with a temperature of 84 and a speed of 5 m. an hour; flows along the coast of the U.S. as far as Newfoundland, whence it spreads itself in a NE. direction across the Atlantic, throwing out a branch which skirts the coasts of Spain and Africa, while the main body sweeps N. between the British Isles and Iceland, its influence being perceptible as far as Spitzbergen; the climate of Britain has been called "the gift of the Gulf Stream," and it is the genial influence of this great current which gives to Great Britain and Norway their warm and humid atmosphere, and preserves them from experiencing a climate like Labrador and Greenland, a climate which their lat.i.tude would otherwise subject them to.

GULL, SIR WILLIAM WITHEY, physician, born at Thorpe-le-Soken; received his medical training at London, and in 1843 became professor of Physiology at the Royal Inst.i.tution; four years later he was appointed clinical lecturer at Guy's Hospital; in 1871 his attendance on the Prince of Wales brought him a baronetcy; published various lectures and papers on cholera, paralysis, &c. (1816-1890).

GULLIVER, the hero of Swift's satirical romance ent.i.tled "Gulliver's Travels," which records his adventures among the pigmies of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, the quacks of Laputa, and the HOUYHNHNMS (q. v.).

GULLY, RIGHT HON. WILLIAM COURT, Speaker of the House of Commons since 1895; has represented Carlisle since 1886, is son of Dr. Gully of water-cure celebrity; _b_. 1835.

GUN-COTTON, a powerful explosive formed by the action of nitric or sulphuric acid on cotton or some similar vegetable fibre.

GUN-METAL, a tough, close-grained alloy of copper and tin.

GUNNINGS, two beautiful Irish girls, MARIA (1733-1760) and ELIZABETH (1734-1790), the elder of whom became Countess of Cromarty, and the younger married first the Duke of Hamilton (1752) and afterwards the first Duke of Argyll (1759).

GUNPOWDER PLOT, an attempt on the part of a conspiracy to blow up the Parliament of England on Nov. 5, 1605, on the day of the opening, when it was expected the King, Lords, and Commons would be all a.s.sembled; the conspirators were a small section of Roman Catholics dissatisfied with King James's government, and were headed by Robert Catesby, the contriver of the plot; the plot was discovered, and Guy Fawkes was arrested as he was proceeding to carry it into execution, while the rest, who fled, were pursued, taken prisoners, and the chief of them put to death.

GUNTER, EDMUND, mathematician, born in Hertfords.h.i.+re; was educated at Oxford for the Church, but his natural bent was towards mathematical science, and in 1619 he became professor of Astronomy in Gresham College, London, a position he held till his death; his "Canon Triangulorum"

(1620) was the first table of logarithmic sines and tangents drawn up on Briggs's system; amongst other of his inventions was the surveying chain, a quadrant, Gunter's scale, and he was the first to observe the variations of the compa.s.s (1581-1626).

GUNTHER, king of Burgundy and brother of Chriemhild; his ambition was to wed BRUNHILDA (q. v.), who could only be won by one who surpa.s.sed her in three trials of skill and strength; by the help of Siegfried, who veiled himself in a cloak of darkness, he succeeded not only in winning her hand, but in reducing her to wifely subjection after she was wed.

GUPPY, the name of a pert, conceited lawyer's clerk who figures in d.i.c.kens's "Bleak House."

GURNEY, JOSEPH JOHN, a Quaker philanthropist and writer, born at Earlham Hall, near Norwich; in 1818 he became a Quaker minister; he energetically co-operated with his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, in bringing about a reform of the prison system, and otherwise spent his life in philanthropic work; his works include "Prison Discipline," 1819, "Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends," 1824 (1788-1847).

GUSTAVUS (I.) VASA or GUSTAVUS ERICSSEN, king of Sweden from 1523 to 1560, born at Lindholm, in Upland; having conceived the idea of freeing his country from the yoke of Denmark, under which it had fallen in 1519, and his early efforts to infuse a spirit of patriotic rebellion into the Swedes proving ineffectual, he was captured by the Danes; escaping from captivity, he became a wanderer in his own land, working in mines and enduring great privations, but at last, in 1520, the Swedes were goaded to rebellion, and under him eventually drove the Danes from their land in 1523; during his long reign Gustavus gradually brought his at first disorganised empire into a peaceful and united realm (1496-1560).

GUSTAVUS (II.) ADOLPHUS, king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, born at Stockholm, grandson of preceding and son of Charles IX.; successful territorial wars with Denmark and Russia occupied him during the early years of his reign, and in 1629 he concluded an advantageous truce for six years with Poland; next he espoused the Protestant cause in Germany against the Catholic League; victory crowned his efforts at every step, but in the great battle of Lutzen (near Leipzig), whilst facing WALLENSTEIN (q. v.), his most powerful opponent, he fell in the act of rallying his forces, and in the hour of success, not without suspicion of having been a.s.sa.s.sinated; he ranks amongst the greatest of champions (1594-1632).

GUSTAVUS III., king of Sweden from 1771 to 1792; succeeded his father Adolphus Frederick; he found himself early at conflict with his n.o.bles, and in 1772, supported by popular feeling, imposed a new const.i.tution on the country greatly diminis.h.i.+ng their power; Gustavus was an enlightened ruler, but somewhat alienated his people from him by his extravagance and fondness for French modes of life; in 1788 he became embroiled in a purposeless war with Russia; he was a.s.sa.s.sinated when about to take up arms in behalf of the Bourbon cause against the French Republicans (1746-1792).