Willet's Point

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

an American military reservation on Long Island Sound; 20 miles N. E. of the Battery, New York City, and opposite Fort Schuyler. It contains 136 acres which were purchased by the Government in 1857 and 1863. WILLIAM I., the CONQUERER, King of England, the natural son of Robert, Duke of Normandy; born in Falaise, in 1027. He was brought up at the court of the King of France, and succeeded to the duchy at the age of eight. But during his minority there were frequent revolts of the nobles, and his authority was not fully established for many years. On the death of Edward the Confessor, King of England, William made a formal claim to the crown, alleging a bequest in his favor by Edward, and a promise which he had extorted from Harold. His claim being denied, he at once prepared for an invasion of England; effected a landing at Pevencey, Sept. 28, 1066, while Harold was engaged in opposing the Norwegians in the N., and fortified a camp near Hastings. The decisive battle of Hastings was fought on Saturday, Oct. 14, 1066; Harold was defeated and slain, and the Norman Conquest was commenced. His rival, Edgar Atheling, was supported by some of the leading men for a short time; but they all made submission to William at Berkhamstead, and on the following Christmas day he was crowned at Westminster by Aldred, Archbishop of York. He reigned with great tyranny; in consequence of which several insurrections took place, and were not quelled till the conqueror had depopulated different districts by fire and sword. He then divided the lands of most of the nobility and gentry among his followers. He also introduced the language of the north of France (called in England the Norman language), and ordered that all law pleadings and statutes should be in that tongue. To prevent nightly meetings and conspiracies, he instituted the curfew, or "cover-fire bell," at the sound of which every night, at eight o'clock, all fires and candles were to be put out. A survey was made of all the lands in the kingdom, the account or register of which WILLIAM I. THE CONQUEROR was called the "Domesday Book." In 1078 he finished the Tower of London; in 1087 he attacked and destroyed the city of Mantes. He was about to march toward Paris, but died in Rouen, Sept. 9, 1087. WILLIAM II., usually called RUFUS; born in Normandy in 1056, the son of the Conqueror, and crowned on the news of his father's death reaching England, in 1087. He made a conquest of a part of Wales, and obtained the duchy of Normandy from his brother Robert, in 1095. He was a great persecutor of the clergy, and banished Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, from the kingdom. William was, according to the monkish chronicles, accidentally slain by an arrow, shot by Sir Walter Tyrrel, as he was hunting in the New Forest, Hampshire, Aug. 2, 1100. WILLIAM III., of NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE and King of England; born in The Hague, Holland, Nov. 4, 1650; was the son of William, Prince of Orange, and Mary, daughter of Charles I. He married the Princess Mary, daughter of James II., then Duke of from active ve York, and became stadtholder of Holland in 1672. He was also nominated general of the troops of Holland against Louis XIV., and made a vigorous resistance to WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND the French armies under Luxembourg, whom he defeated in 1674; but was repulsed in his turn by the Prince de Condé. In 1688 the arbitrary ry measures, both against the established religion and the constitution, of James II., induced many nobles and others to invite the Prince of Orange to take possession of He embraced the the English crown. occasion, and landed without opposition at Torbay, the same year. James, finding himself unsupported, withdrew to France, and William took possession of his throne, in conjunction with his wife, the daughter of that unfortunate monarch. His coronation as King of England took place in 1689. The year following William went to Ireland, where he defeated James at the battle of the Boyne. In 1691 he headed the confederate army in the Netherlands, took Namur in 1692, and in 1697 was acknowledged King of England by the treaty of Ryswick. On the death of Mary in 1694, the Parliament confirmed to him the royal title. His death was owing to a fall from his horse, by which he broke his collar bone, March 8, 1702. WILLIAM IV., King of England; born in London, Aug. 21, 1765; the third son of George III. In his 15th year he entered the royal navy, and in 1780 was with Admiral Rodney when the latter defeated a Spanish squadron off Cadiz, and afterward proceeded to the relief of Gibraltar. Prince William subsequently held the command of a vessel of war in various parts of the world, but retired service in 1790. On the death of his brother, George IV., in 1830, he became King of England, and ruled till 1837. At his death, the Princess Victoria, daughter of his brother, the Duke of Kent, became Queen of England. He died in Windsor, June 20, 1837. WILLIAM I., Emperor of Germany, and King of Prussia, son of Frederick William III., by Princess Louise of and brother of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, tz, Frederick William IV.; born in Berlin, March 22, 1797, received a military , and took part in the cameducation, on paigns of 1813 and 1815 against France. În 1840 he was appointed governor of Pomerania, which post he held till the revolution of 1848, when he sought refuge in England. He was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly in May of the same year, when he returned to Berlin. In 1849, as Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian army, he acted against the revolutionary Badeners; and in 1858, on the lunacy of his brother, the king, becoming manifested, Prince William was appointed regent. This position he occupied till Frederick William's death, in 1861, when he succeeded to the throne, crowning himself with his own hands, at Königsberg, on which occasion he emphatically asserted the doctrine of the "divine right WILLIAM I. OF GERMANY of kings." Actuated by this spirit, and selecting as his ministers men of wellknown reactionary principles, of whom the chief was Count Bismarck, William speedily embroiled himself and government with the liberal parliamentary body of that day; and this to so critical a degree, after the accession of Bismarck to the premiership in 1862, that the rupture threatened to end in revolution or civil war. A diversion from this state of things was, however, happily effected by the war which Prussia, conjointly with Austria, declared against Denmark. In 1866, 1866, war was next declared by Prussia against her old ally, Austria; and after a short campaign, in which the king and the royal princes took part, Austria was compelled to make a humiliating peace. The terrible effect of the needle gun created quite a panic in the Austrian army, and her generals found it would be useless to prolong the struggle. By this war Prussia obtained supremacy in Germany. In July, 1870, the Emperor Napoleon III., taking umbrage at Prussian interference with with the succession to the vacant Spanish throne, or prompted by by other motives, rashly declared war against Prussia, a power long prepared for such a contingency. On this, William, forming an alliance with the south German states, and constituting himself Commander-in- Chief of the united German armies, crossed the Rhine, and in a short but brilliant campaign, defeated the French in a series of battles, took Napoleon and his principal commanders prisoners, and received the capitulation of Paris, in February, 1871. Peace was finally declared by a treaty entered into at Versailles, by which Prussia acquired the province of Alsace, part of that of Lorraine, including the city of Metz, along with a war indemnity of of $1,000,000,000. His success in the war with France led to an offer from the German states of the imperial crown of Germany, which he accepted. He was crowned Emperor of Germany at Versailles, Jan. 18, 1871. His 90th birthday was celebrated throughout Germany, March 22, 1887, and he died March 9, 1888. He was succeeded by his son Frederick, who was succeeded in the same year by his son William, as William II. WILLIAM II., Emperor of Germany erick III. and Victoria, princess royal of England; born Jan. 27, 1859; educated at Cassel and Bonn, married Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Augus tenburg in 1881, and succeeded his father, June 15, 1888. After his accession he took an active interest in social questions, and the strong initiative which he adopted in political affairs brought about the retirement of Prince Bismarck in 1890. He sent a congratulatory telegram to President Kruger when Dr. Jameson's force was defeated in December, 1895. In 1898 he paid a visit with the empress to Constantinople, where they remained some time as the Sultan's guests, afterward going to Palestine and Jerusalem. In 1902 he sent his brother Henry, Prince of Prussia, on a social visit to the United States, as his representative on the launching of his new yacht. The outstanding characteristics of William II. were aggressiveness, impulsiveness, and a more or less contradictory leaning toward the past, combined with a limited appreciation of many aspects of modern life. In his internal policy, he devoted himself specially to the maintenance and building up of Germany's army and navy, the development of education, and industry. While at first continuing the state socialism inaugurated by Bismarck, he began bitterly to oppose the Socialist party and its aims, and then as a result of Germany's change from an agricultural to an industrial country, both the membership and the WILLIAM II. EMPEROR OF GERMANY influence of the Socialists rapidly in and King of Prussia; eldest son of Fred-creased. In his foreign policy he maintained the Triple Alliance. Toward the latter part of his reign he frequently showed a kéen jealousy of England and of her powerful influence over world politics. Although in many of his public utterances, and indeed, in many of his public acts, he appeared as a believer in world peace, there can be no doubt that in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the World War, he gradually changed his attitude to a more aggressive The exact extent to which he was one. personally responsible for the outbreak of the World War, and how far it lay in his power in the summer of 1914 to prevent war, cannot be determined until all the facts are known. After the outbreak of the World War, the Emperor devoted himself more or less exclusively to military affairs, spending most of his time near the various fronts, although, of course, not actively participating in any of the fighting. When it , that the became clear, in the fall of 191 1918 German armies on the western front were facing inevitable defeat, and when, at the same time, a series of revolutions in various parts of Germany made it Government nent evident that the Imperial erial was about to collapse, the Emperor finally, on Nov. 8, 1918, abdicated. The abdication was announced the following day, although the actual official act was not written and signed until the end of November 1918. It was dated Amerongen, Holland, Nov. 28, 1918. It was at this place that the Emperor had sought refuge at the castle of Count Bentinck, a Dutch nobleman. Eventually the Dutch Government permitted him to remain after certain guarantees had been received from the Emperor. In 1920 the Emperor purchased an estate of his own a short distance of Amerongen, at Doorn, where he continued to live in exile. His wife, ex-Empress Augusta Victoria, died on April 10, 1921. WILLIAM I., FREDERICK, King of Holland, Grank-Duke of Luxembourg, Prince of Orange and Duke of Nassau; born in The Hague, Aug. 24, 1772. He distinguished himself in the wars with the French republic, and became an exile with his father, the hereditary stadtholder of the Dutch republic, in 1795; after his father's death, he succeeded first to the duchy of Nassau, and joined the Prussian army against Napoleon. He became King of Holland by the settlement of affairs which followed the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the countries united under his rule by the Congress of Vienna being the old united provinces of Holland, the bishopric of Liège, and Belgium; the latter, however, was separated by the revolution of 1830. He abdicated in 1840, and died in Berlin, Dec. 12, 1843. WILLIAM II., FREDERICK GEORGE LEWIS, son and successor of the preceding; born in The Hague, Dec. 2, 1792, distinguished himself in the peninsular Lord Wellington; he also comwar under Lon manded the army of the Netherlands at the battle of Waterloo. His reign commenced immediately upon his father's abdication in 1840. He died March 17, 1849. WILLIAM III., ALEXANDER PAUL FREDERICK, son and successor of the preceding; born in The Hague, Feb. 19, 1817. His reign was chiefly distinguished by undertakings of internal improvement; and, under his rule, the kingdom enjoyed uninterrupted peace, and material pro While prosperity increased. Prince of Orange, William married, 1839, the Princess Sophia Frederica Matilda, I., of daughter of the late King William am Württemberg. They had two sons; William Nicholas Alexander Frederick Charles Henry, Prince of Orange; born Charles in 1840, and William Alexander der Henry Frederick; born in 1851, and died in 1884, the last male heir of the house of Orange. William III. died at the Castle of Loo, Nov. 23, 1890. WILLIAM I., surnamed THE LION, King of Scotland; born in 1143, a grandson of David I., and brother of Malcolm IV., whom he succeeded in 1165. Whence he derived his designation is one of the mysteries of history. contested with had long contes His predecessors lecessors the Kings of England the sovereignty of Northumberland and other districts of what is now the N. of England. Under Malcolm these claims were virtually abandoned and the king of Scots received, as a sort of equivalent for them the earldom of Huntingdon and other William had still, valuable estates. however, a hankering after the Northumbrian districts. He attended Henry of England in his continental wars, and is supposed, when doing so, to have pressed for a portion at least of the old disputed districts. In his disappointment he invaded them after the example of his ancestors. On July 13, 1174, he fell, near Alnwick Castle, into the hands of an English party. For security he was conveyed to Normandy, and there he consented, as the price of his liberation, to perform that ho homage for his kingdom which the English kings so long in vain attempted to exact from the government of Scotland. The treaty of Falaise, as the transaction was termed, from the place where it was adjusted, was revoked in the year 1189 by Richard I. of England in consideration of a payment of 10,000 marks, which he wanted for his celebrated expedition to Palestine. William had several disputes with the Church, but he was one of the early benefactors of the regular ecclesiastics and founded in 1178 the great abbey of Arbroath, which he dedicated to Thomas Becket, slain eight years earlier. William died in Stirling in 1214. WILLIAM I., OF NASSAU, Prince of Orange, surnamed THE SILENT; the first leader in the Dutch war of independence; born in Dillenburg, Nassau, April 14, 1553, of Lutheran parents, but descended from the ancient counts of that principality. Being trained to political employments at the court of Charles V., he conformed outwardly to Catholicism, and had become governor of the provinces of Holland, Zealand and Utrecht while the reformed doctrines were spreading, and events were ripening for the revolt of the Netherlands. Philip II., King of Spain, having appointed Margaret of Parma, a natural daughter of his father, Charles V., stadtholdress, with the Cardinal of Granville for her adviser, the latter began his career by persecuting the Protestants, and was preparing to introduce the inquisition, when, in 1566, the nobles went in procession, and petitioned Margaret against this measure; and as WILLIAM I. OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE they were treated with contempt, their remonstrances were followed by popular commotions. On this, Alva was sent, at whose approach 100,000 of the most industrious Flemings took refuge in foreign countries. This was the crisis at which William came forward, and raised the standard of independence. Though the cruel Alva was recalled at the end of six years, 1574, and replaced by a milder ruler, the Dutch continued the war, and Holland was liberated by the relief of Leyden, which William effected by laying the whole country under water in 1575. He was now elected stadtholder, and Calvinism became the established religion, to the exclusion of Lutheranism as well as the Roman Catholic faith. By the "Pacification of Ghent" in 1576, William united all the provinces in one confederation, but he found it impossible to heal these internal causes of disunion, and the Spaniards, taking advantage of them, were able to repossess themselves of the S. provinces, under the Duke of Parma, whence arose the present distinction between Holland and Belgium. Philip had now set a price on William's head and, in 1582, an attempt was made to assassinate him, but he recovered from the wound. A second attempt, in 1584, was but too successful. One Balthaser Gerard, being introduced to the stadtholder on the plea of business, suddenly drew a pistol loaded with three balls, and shot him in the body at Delft, July 10, 1584.