210 



FLEECES FLETCHER. 



uing of the statutes of the order (1431), Philip says, 

 lie took the name from the golden fleece of the 

 Argonaut Jason, and that the protection of the church 

 was the object of the order. He declared himself 

 grand-master, and ordered that this dignity should be 

 Hereditary in his successors in the government. The 

 decoration of the order is a chain, composed of flints 

 and steels, alternately; in the middle of which the 

 golden fleece is fastened. Annual chapters were to 

 be held, when the majority was to decide on the 

 admission of new members. But several of the first 

 statutes were changed. Philip himself increased the 

 number of knights from twenty-four to thirty-one ; 

 Charles V., his grandson, to fifty-one. The last 

 chapter was held in 1559, at Ghent. Since that time, 

 the monarch has made knights of the golden fleece 

 according to his pleasure. When, after the death of 

 Charles V.. the Burgundian possessions and the 

 Netherlands fell to the Burgundian-Spanish line of 

 the house of Austria, the kings of Spain exercised the 

 office of grand- master of the order; but when Charles 

 III. (Charles VI. in the line of German emperors) 

 received, after the war of the Spanish succession, the 

 Spanish, afterwards the Austrian, Netherlands, he 

 insisted upon being the grand-master of the order. 

 The dispute was not settled, and the order, at present, 

 is conferred both at Vienna and Madrid. The chain 

 is now only the decoration of the great-master ; the 

 other knights wear a golden fleece on a red ribbon. 

 The Spanish golden fleece differs from the Austrian 

 by the inscription Pretium laborum, non vitee, upon 

 the steel. At both courts, the order of the golden 

 fleece is the highest ; and, as its nominal object is the 

 protection of religion, it is conferred only on Catholics, 

 Protestant sovereigns only making an exception. 



FLEECES, THE ORDER OF THE THREE GOLDEN. 

 August 15, 1809, in the camp at Schonbrunn, 

 Napoleon added a third order to those of the 

 legion of honour and of the iron crown. It 

 was intended to consist of 100 grand officers, 400 

 commanders, and 1000 other members, chiefly mili- 

 tary men. No civilians, except the grand dignitaries 

 of the empire, ministers who had held their offices 

 ten years, ministers of state after twenty years' 

 service, and presidents of state after three years' 

 service, were to be admitted. Of the military, only 

 those who had received three wounds, in three 

 different battles, were to be admitted. Those regi- 

 ments which had been present in the great battles of 

 the grand army, were to receive this order, instead 

 of their eagles ; their most meritorious subaltern 

 officers were named commanders ; and the most 

 meritorious non-commissioned officer or private, of 

 each battalion, was to be made a member; the 

 former with an income of 4000 francs, the latter with 

 one of 1000, from the funds of the order. To become 

 a grand officer, it was necessary to have commanded 

 a division of the grand army, in the field or at a siege. 

 The emperor was to be grand-master ; the king oi 

 Rome was the only hereditary member ; the princes 

 of the blood could not be admitted into the order 

 unless they had served in one campaign, or been, at 

 least, two years in the army. It is not known what 

 induced the emperor to drop this scheme. The only 

 appointments .that were made were those of count 

 Andreossi, chancellor of the order, and count Schim- 

 melpenninck, treasurer. 



FLEETWOOD, CHARLES, a parliamentary general 

 in the civil wars, was the son of Sir William Fleet- 

 wood. He early entered the army, and, on the 

 breaking out of the civil wars, declared against the 

 king, commanded a regiment of cavalry in 1644, anc 

 afterwards held Bristol for the parliament. At the 

 battle of Worcester, he bore the rank of 1'eutenant- 

 general; and, becoming allied to the family of the 



protector, by marrying his daughter, after the deceaso 

 of her first husband, Ireton, WHS sent as lord deputy 

 to Ireland. On the death of Cromwell, he joined in 

 mincing his son Richard to abdicate. His death 

 took place shortly after, at Stoke Newington. 



FLEMMING, or FLEMM1G, PAUL, one of the 

 best German poets of the seventeenth century, was 

 born, October 17, 1609, at Hartenstein, in the county 

 of Schonburg. After a good foundation for his educa- 

 tion had been laid, by private instruction at home, lie 

 went to the royal school at Meissen, and from there 

 to Leipsic, where he studied medicine. The confu 

 sions of the thirty years' war obliged him, in 1633, to 

 go to Holstein, where the duke Frederic was on the 

 point of sending an embassy to his brother-in-law, 

 the czar Michael Fedorowitsch. Flemming, full of 

 ardour and enthusiasm, sought a place in the ambassa- 

 dor's suite, obtained it, performed the journey with 

 him, and, in 1634, returned safe to Holstein. Immedi- 

 ately after, the duke resolved to send a still more 

 splendid embassy to Persia, to obtain for his states 

 some commercial privileges. Flemming resolved to 

 undertake this journey also, which promised him a 

 large stock of information. The embassy set out 

 October 27, 1635, and entered Ispahan, August 3, 

 1637, remained there more than three months, and, 

 returning by another route, reached Moscow in 

 January, 1639, which it left again in March. (See 

 Olearius). In Revel, Flemming fell in love with the 

 daughter of a respectable merchant, and, as it was 

 his previous intention, after returning to his coun- 

 try, to settle as a practising physician in Hamburg, 

 he went, in 1640, to Leyden, where he took his 

 degree. He had but just returned to Hamburg, when 

 he was snatched away by death, April 2, 1640, in 

 the flower of life. In his songs and sonnets, sacred 

 and other poems (Jena, 1642 et seq.), an amiable 

 enthusiasm is joined to deep and warm sensibility. 

 His longer poems describe the adventures of hi? 

 journey with great spirit and power, and other 

 accidental events with originality and liveliness, 

 and all his works bear the impress of genius. A 

 selection from his poems is contained in the Library 

 of German Poets of the seventeenth century, by 

 W. Muller, 3 vols. (Leipsic, 1822). An earlier and 

 more extensive selection was made by Gustavus 

 Schwab (Stuttgart, 1820). 



FLESH ; the muscles of animals. These consist 

 chiefly of fibrin, with albumen, gelatin, extractive, 

 phosphate of soda, phosphate of ammonia, phosphate 

 and carbonate of lime, and sulphate of potash. 



FLETCHER, ANDREW, a Scottish political writer 

 and patriot, was the son of Sir Robert Fletcher, of 

 Saltoun. He was born in 1653, spent some years in 

 foreign travel, and first appeared as a public char- 

 acter in the Scottish parliament, as commissioner for 

 East Lothian, where, having distinguished himself 

 in opposition to the court, he deemed it prudent to 

 retire to Holland ; and, on his non-appearance to a 

 summons from the lords in council, he was outlawed. 

 In 1683, he came over to England to take measures 

 with the friends of liberty against the designs of 

 James II.; and, in 1685, he joined the enterprise of 

 the duke of Monmouth. While on this expedition, 

 having killed in a x quarrel another partisan in the 

 same cause, who had insulted him, the duke dismissed 

 him. He then repaired to Spain, and afterwards to 

 Hungary, where he distinguished himself in a war 

 against the Turks. He subsequently joined the 

 Scottish refugees in Holland, and, when the revolu- 

 tion took place, resumed possession of his estate, and 

 became a member of the convention for settling the 

 new government in Scotland. In 1698, he printed 

 A Discourse on Government, in Relation to Militias; 

 and, also, Two Discourses concerning the Affairs of 



