MARENGO 



MARGARET 



have been attended with considerable success 

 Crops are now grown in the summer on the fertil 

 soil of the infected area by the inhabitants of th 

 adjoining Mil-country, who go down only to so\ 

 and to_ reap their crops. During winter the Mar 

 emma is healthier and yields good pasture. 



Marengq. a village of Northern Italy, in i 

 marshy district near the Bormida, 8 miles SE. o 

 Alessandria. Here on 14th June 1800 Napoleon 

 with 33,000 French, defeated 30,500 Austrian 

 under Melas. It was the cavalry charge of th 

 younger Kellermann that turned what looked lik 

 certain defeat into a decisive victory, though the 

 French lost 7000 in killed and wounded, th 

 Austrians only 6400 (besides 3000 prisoners). 



Mareotis, or MAREIA, LAKE, the modern E 

 Mariiit, a salt lake or marsh in the north o 

 Egypt, extends southward from Alexandria, am 

 is separated from the Mediterranean, on its north 

 west side, by a narrow isthmus of sand. In tin 

 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 ISOJ the English army cut the 

 dikes of the canal that separated the Lake o 

 AlKiukir from Mareotis, to cut off the water-supply 

 of the French, and Mareotis became once more a 

 marsh. The like happened again in 1803, in 1807, 

 and in 1882, when the sea was let in by a cutting 

 15 feet wide ami half a mile long ; but ' Mai iftt" 

 has been partly drained again. 

 Mare's Milk. See KOUMISS. 

 Mare's Tail (////*/>//.> rii/f/firis), a tall erect 

 marsh-plant, with whorls of narrow leaves am] 

 inconspicuous (lowers. 



Margaret, ST, Scottish queen, was bom aliout 

 047 111 Hungary, and from 1057 was brought up at 

 tli'' court of her great-uncle, Edward the Confessor, 

 with Lanfranc for her spiritual instructor. In 1068, 

 with her mother and sister and her lioy brother, 

 EdgM the Atlieling (q.v.), she fled from Northum- 

 berland to Scotland. Young, lovely, learned, and 

 pious, she won the heart of the rude Scottish king, 

 Malcolm Canmore (q.v.), who next year weddwl 

 her at Dnnfermline. ' Perhaps,' gays S'kene, ' 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 Ixjfore her, and for entire 

 It-abnegation she is unsurpassed.' She did much 

 to civilise the northern realm, and still more to 

 assimilate the old Celtic church to the rest of 

 ' lmM;ndom on such points as the due commence- 

 ment of Lent, the Easter communion, the observ- 

 ance of Sunday, and marriage within the prohibited 

 I'-^rees. She built, too, a stately church at Dun- 

 f'Tinline, and re-founded lona. She bore her bus- 

 MM six sons and two daughters, and died three 

 ifter him, in Edinburgh Castle, on 16th 

 November 109:j. Innocent IV. canonised her in 

 Her head, which had found its way from 

 IJunfermline to Douay, was lost in the French 

 revolution ; but her remaining relics are said to 

 nave been enshrined by Philip II. in the Escorial. 

 See the Latin Life by her confesnor Turgot, liishop of 

 : Andrews ( Eng. trann. by Kr. ForbeB-Leith, 18M); 

 I'-lfr Scotland (*diH. 1877); and Belleshein/a 

 / tke Catholic Church of Scotland ( Eng. trans. 

 IttHi ). 



Margaret, the 'Semiramis of the North,' 

 queen o f Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, was 

 the second daughter of Waldemar IV. of Den- 

 mark, and wife of Hacon VIII. of Norway, and was 

 b.irn in 1353. On the death of her father without 

 male hens in 1375, the Danish nobles offered her 

 the crown in trust for her infant son Olaf. By the 



death of Hacon in 1380 Margaret became ruler of 

 Norway as well as of Denmark. When Olaf died 

 in 1387 Margaret nominated her grand-nephew, 

 Era of PomeranU, as her successor. The Swedish 

 king, Albert of Mecklenburg, having so thoroughly 

 alienated the affections of his subjects that the 

 nobles, declaring the throne vacant, offered in 1388 

 to acknowledge Margaret as their ruler, she sent 

 an army into Sweden, which defeated the king's 

 German troops, near Falkoping, and took Albert 

 and his son prisoners. Albert remained in prison 

 seven years, during which time Margaret, in spite 

 of the efforts of the Hanseatic League and its allies, 

 wholly subjugated Sweden. In the following year ' 



396) Eric of Pomerania was crowned king of the 

 three Scandinavian kingdoms, and though he was 

 proclaimed king tie facto next year, the power still 

 remained in the bands of Margaret. In May 1397 

 was signed the celebrated Union of Calmar, by 

 which it was stipulated that the three kingdom's 

 should remain for ever at peace under one king, 

 though each should retain its own laws and cus- 

 toms. Before her death at Flensborg, on 28th 

 Octol>er 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. 



Margaret Of AlljOU, the queen of Henry VI. 

 of England, was daughter of Ren6 of Anjou, the 

 titular king of Sicily, and of Isabella of Lorraine, 

 and was l>orn at Pont-a-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 dissatis- 

 faction 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 

 Jade, and soon after the country was plunged in 

 ;he horrors of that bloody civil war known as the 

 Wars of the Roses. Margaret took an active part 

 n the contest, braving disaster and defeat with 

 ;he most heroic courage. At length, after a struggle 

 >f nearly twenty years, Margaret was finally de- 

 eated at Tewkesbury, and flung into the Tower, 

 vhere she remained four years, till Louis XL 

 redeemed her for fifty thousand crowns. She 

 hen retired to France, and died at the chateau 

 )f Dampierre, near Saumur, in Anjou, 25th August 

 482. Mrs Hookham's Life ( 1872) is not altogether 

 satisfactory as history. 



Margaret of Navarre, in her youth known 

 < Marguerite d'Angoult-me, sister of Francis I. 

 )f France, and daughter of Charles of Orleans, 

 3omte d'Angouldme, was l>orn at Angouleme, llth 

 April 1492. She was carefully educated, and early 

 howed remarkable sweetness and charm added 

 M unusual strength of mind. In 1509 she wag 

 named to Charles, Duke of Alenson, who died in 

 525; and in 1527' she was married to Henri 

 'Albret, titular king of Navarre, to whom she 

 >ore Jeanne d 'Albret, mother of the great French 

 lonarch, Hemy IV. She encouraged agriculture, 

 lie arts, and learning, and sheltered with a cour- 

 geous generosity such advocates of freer thought 

 n religion as Marot and Bonaventure des Periers. 

 ccusations entirely unfounded have been brought 

 y interested bigotry against her morals. She died 

 1st Decemlier 1549. Her writings include a series 

 f remarkably interesting Letters (ed. by Genin, 



