Ethel. Anglo-Saxon word mean- 

 ing noble and formerly spelt aethel. 

 It is found as a prefix to many 

 Anglo-Saxon names for both sexes, 

 e.g. Ethelfrith and Ethelflaeda. 

 To-day its chief use is as a femi- 

 nine Christian name. 



Ethelbert (d. c. 616). King of 

 Kent, son of Eormenric, and a 

 descendant of Hengist. He be- 

 came king about 560 and was de- 

 feated by the W. Saxons, 568. In 

 597 his over-lordship is said to have 

 extended over all the English kings 

 as far N. as the Humber. His wife 

 was a Christian Bertha, daughter 

 of the Frank king of Paris, Chari- 

 bert and in 597 Ethelbert was bap- 

 tized by S. Augustine. He issued in 

 600 a code of laws known as dooms 

 (q.v. ), one of the earliest documents 

 in English. See illus. p. 753. 



Etheldreda, SAINT (c. 630-679). 

 Abbess of Ely, often called S. 

 Audrey. The third daughter of 

 King Anna of E. Anglia, she was 

 born at Exning in Suffolk. Married 

 first to Tonbert, an E. Anglian 

 prince, secondly to King Egfrid of 

 Northumbria, she shunned the mar- 

 ried state and became a nun at Col- 

 dingham. About 672 she founded a 

 monastery on her own estate at Ely 

 and died June 23, 679. Ely Cathe- 

 dral marks the site of her grave. 



Ethelfleda (d. 918). Eldest 

 daughter of Alfred the Great,known 

 as the Lady of the Mercians. 

 Brought up at 

 Alfred's court, 

 she married 

 Ethelred, earl 

 of M e r c i a. 

 After her hus- 

 band's death, 

 911, she be- 

 came sole ruler 

 of Mercia, 

 which she se- 

 cured against 

 attack by 

 building numerous fortresses. In 

 916 she ended the incursions of the 

 Welsh by taking Brecknock and 

 capturing the king's wife. She died 

 at Tarn worth, June 12, 918, and 

 was buried at Gloucester. 



Ethelfrith (d. 617). King of 

 Northumbria. He was the son of 

 Ethelric, king of Bernicia, whom 

 he succeeded about 593. He mar- 

 ried the daughter of Ella, king of 

 Deira, and drove out his son Ed- 

 win. In 603 he defeated the Scots 

 at Daegsastan, and about 613 the 

 Welsh at Chester. He was defeated 

 on the banks of the Idle by Edwin's 

 protector Raedwald, king of E. 

 Anglia, and was slain in the battle. 

 Ethelred I (d. 871). King of 

 Wessex and Kent. Son of Ethel- 

 wulf, king of Wessex, and elder 

 brother of Alfred the Great, he 

 succeeded his brother Ethelbert in 



Ethelfleda, daughter 

 of Allied the Great 



From an old engraving 



2988 



866. In his reign the northern 

 kingdoms were in the hands of the 

 Danes, against whom in 871 Ethel- 

 red and Alfred fought six battles, 

 the most notable being the English 

 victory at Aescesdun, or Ashdown. 

 The white horse at Uffington,Berks, 

 is traditionally supposed to com- 

 memorate this success. Ethelred 

 made a pilgrimage to Rome, pos- 

 sibly in the hope of averting the 

 Danish peril, and died of wounds 

 received in battle, April 23, 871. 

 He was buried at Wimborne. 



Ethelred II (c. 968-1016). King 

 of the English. Son of Edgar by 

 his second wife Aelfthryth, he was 

 known as the Unready or the Rede- 

 less from his inability to discern 

 good rede or counsel. He succeeded 

 his stepbrother Edward the Martyr, 

 979. In constant conflict with the 

 Danes, he instituted the danegeld, 

 for raising tribute to buy them off. 

 In 1002 a general massacre of the 

 Danes in England was carried out 

 on S.Brice's day by Ethelred's com- 



mand, which merely led to further 

 invasions, higher danegeld, and 

 eventually to the recognition of 

 Sweyn, king of Denmark, as king of 

 England. Ethelred fled to Nor- 

 mandy, 1014, but reigned again 

 after Sweyn's death. His wife was 

 Emma, daughterof Richard, duke of 

 Normandy. He died April 23, 1016. 

 Ethelwulf (d. 858). King of 

 Wessex. Son of Egbert and father 

 of Alfred the Great, he succeeded 

 his father in 839, Athelstan being 

 made king of Kent. The Danes 

 wintered in England for the first 

 time in his reign. In 851 he routed 

 them at Aclea, perhaps Ockley. He 

 went on pilgrimage to Rome in 855 

 with his son Alfred and brought 

 back a second wife, Judith, 

 daughter of Charles the Bald. On 

 his return he is said to have made 

 over Wessex to his son Ethelbald, 

 who in his absence had seized 

 Kent, which Ethelwulf retained 

 for his own rule. He was buried at 

 Winchester. 



ETHER: ITS FUNCTION IN THE UNIVERSE 



Sir Oliver J. Lodge, F.R.S., Author of Man and the Universe 



This article deals with one of the most interesting and difficult of all 

 problems. See also A torn ; Matter ; Relativity 



Ether or Aether (Gr. aither) is 

 the name given to a super-sensible 

 elusive medium supposed to fill all 

 spare, not only the space between 

 the worlds, but the space between 

 the atoms of matter even in the 

 most solid object. Most authorities 

 consider it to be an all-permeating 

 perfectly continuous substance, 

 linking the otherwise detached 

 particles of matter together and 

 welding the whole into a coherent 

 cosmos. 



- This view regards the ether as 

 responsible for gravitation and 

 cohesion as well as for electric and 

 magnetic attraction ; but all this 

 must be regarded as still to some 

 extent hypothetical, since the 

 theory of these forces has not yet 

 been finally worked out. Indeed, a 

 recent school of mathematical 

 physicists seeks to dispense with 

 the ether, or at any rate to proceed 

 on the explicit assumption that we 

 shall never know anything about it, 

 so that for all practical purposes we 

 may concentrate our attention on 

 matter alone. This doctrine, the 

 principle of relativity, leads to 

 remarkable consequences, some of 

 which have apparently been 

 verified. 



We shall assume, however, that 

 the ether exists, and that it is 

 proved to exist by facts ascer- 

 tained concerning light. Light is 

 known to be a tremor or exces- 

 sively rapid vibration, too rapid to 

 be associated with the properties 

 of any ordinary matter. The ether 



therefore is assumed not to be 

 ordinary matter, though it may be 

 the fundamental substance out of 

 which matter is made. 



We do .not know many of its 

 properties. The most definite 

 thing we know is that it transmits 

 every vibration that can be im- 

 parted to it with the enormous 

 speed of 300,000 kilometres, or 

 roughly 187,000 m. per sec., a rate 

 which would enable a flash of 

 light to travel from London to 

 New York and back in the twink- 

 ling of an eye. 



Whether these vibrations or so- 

 called waves are long or short, 

 whether they are ultra-microscopic 

 ones such as appeal to the eye, or 

 are the immensely large ones 

 employed in wireless telegraphy, 

 makes no difference to the rate at 

 which they travel. Hence the ether 

 must be of simple constitution. 

 When light enters matter, it is 

 retarded ; and if the matter is not 

 quite transparent, some light is 

 absorbed and converted into heat ; 

 but no such accident happens to it 

 in the ether, which is perfectly 

 transparent. The valocity of light 

 is a definite physical constant in 

 free or empty space, and as it 

 proceeds on its way it is enfeebled 

 only by gradual spreading out, 

 not by conversion into some other 

 form of energy. The term " empty 

 space " means space empty of 

 matter but full of ether ; no space 

 empty of ether can be imagined. 

 The ether is a positive name for 



