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UDALL, John (c.1560-02) English Puritan. A curate at Kingston-upon-Thames in 1584 he aroused suspicion with his sermons and pamphlets denouncing the bishops. He supplied information in the the first of the Martin Marprelate tracts, and was deprived of his living in 1588. He became a preacher at Newcastle but in 1590 after an unfair trial was condemned to death for complicity in these tracts. He was pardoned after 2 years but died soon after his release.
UDALL, Nicholas (1506-56). English schoolmaster and playwright. In succession he was headmaster of Eton, vicar of Braintree, prebendary of Windsor, rector of Calbourne, Isle of Wight, playwriter to Queen Mary, and headmaster of Westminter school. His first work was Terence in 1534, followed by a series of short plays written for the court or his scholars. He did various translations especially Erasmus' paraphrase of the New Testament. He is best known as the author of Ralph Roister Dioster, the earliest known English comedy.
UHLAND, Johann Ludwig (1787-1862). German poet. He issued his first volume of poetry in 1815 which gave him a high reputation. He was professor of literature at Tubingen, 1829-33 and from 1848 was a prominent Liberal member of the German National Assembly.
ULFILAS (c.311-383). Gothic evangelist. He was sent as a youth to Constantinople where he learnt Latin and Greek. In 348 he became bishop of the West Goths. He worked successfully as a missionary as a missiuonary preaching the Arian doctrines. In 348 persecution compelled him to migrate and he settled near Nikopolis, where he worked as a missionary for 33 years. His translation of the Bible is almost the only written document of the Gothic language and the oldest known work in a Teutonic language.
ULLATHORNE, William Bernard (1806-89). English ecclesiastic. He was ordained as a priest in 1831. As vicar-general to Bishop Morris in Austalia 1831-36, he was the chief person in securing the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy there, and on its re-establishment in England. In 1858 he became the first Roman Catholic bishop of Birmingham. and established many churches and mission schools.
ULLMANN, Karl (1796-1865). German theologian. He became a professor at Heidelberg in 1836. He was a leading exponent of the mediating theology, teaching that faith and dogmas should be kept separate. He attacked David Strauss's Life of Jesus with Historisch oder Mythisch in 1838. His most famous work is Wesen des Christenthums, 1845.
ULMAR, Geraldine (1862-1932). American actress and singer. She sang in opera from 1879-85. she came to England in 1887. She acted at the Savoy in Gilbert and Sullivan operas as the chief soprano parts until 1890. She toured in The Geisha from 1896-1904 when she retired to become a teacher of singing.
ULPIAN (d. A.D. 228). Roman jurist. A legal official under Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus, who banished him. He became praetorian prefect under Alexander Severus, in 222. His commenttaries provided the basis for the Digest of Justinian.
ULUGH BEG, Mirza Mahommed Ben Shah Rok (1394-1149). Persian astronomer. He became prince of Samarkand in 1447, but was murdered by his son two years later. He had the observatory at Samarkand erected, and he made corrections to the Arabian astronomers findings, by determining the position of nearly 1,000 fixed stars.
UNGER, Franz (1800-70) Austrian botanist. He was appointed professor of botany at Graz, 1833, and of plant physiology at Vienna, 1849-66. He was an authority on geological botany. Among his many works were Anatomis und Physiologie dev Pflanzen, 1855; Versuch einer Geschichle der Pflanzenwelt, 1852; and Geologie der Europoischen Waldbaumen, 1870.
UNWIN, Mary (1724-96) Friend of Cowper. she married Morley Unwin (1703-67) in 1744, and became friends with the poet Cowper in 1765 when he became an inmate of her husband's house. She moved with him to Olney in 1767 after the death of her husband and became his faithful attendant and inspired some of his verse, until her death. The famous poem, To Mary was about her.
UNWIN, William Cawthorne (1838-1933). English engineer. He was instructor at the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, 1868, and professor of mechanical and hydraulic engineering at the Royal Engineering College, 1872, and professor of engineering at the Central Technical college of the Guilds of London 1884-1904, and became president of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1911. He is chiefly remembered for his activities in connexion with the harnessing for electricity of the power of the Niagara Falls in 1891. elected F.R.S. in 1894 he was the first recipient of the Kelvin gold medal in 1921.
URBAN I. Pope from 222-230, and was long honoured as a saint and martyr.
URBAN II (d.1099) Studied under Bruno, founder of the Carthusians and later became prior of the abbey of Cluny. One of Pope Hildebrand's most trusted helpers, he was elected pope in 1088 at a council held at Terracina, since Rome was then in the hands of the anti-pope Clement III. Most of his pontificate was passed in exile. He opposed the emperor Henry IV and excommunicated Philip I of France. In 1095 he crossed the Alps, reentered his native country and projected the first crusade which he preached at the council of Clermont in 1095. The Crusaders established him in Rome in 1097.
URBAN III (d.1187). Pope from 1185-87. Born of a noble Milanese family, was made a cardinal and archbishop of Milan by Pope Lucius III. As pope, he maintained the dispute between the papacy and the emperor Frederick Barbaross, refusing to crown Henry, Frederick's son, or to accept the emperor's nominee as bishop of Treves.
URBAN IV (d.1264). He was the son of a French cobbler and became bishop of Verfun, 1253, and patriarch of Jerusalem 1255. Elected pope in 1261, he secured French intervention in Italy and laid the foundation of the French domination over the papacy which led ultimately to the Great Schism. He established the feast of Corpus Christi..
URBAN V (1309-70) was elected to succeed Innocent VI and was crowned at Avignon in 1362. He preached a crusade in 1365, and in 1367 was persuaded by the emperor to move to Rome. He returned to Avignon, in 1370 after the entreaties of the French cardinals, but died 7 weeks later.
URBAN V(1309-70) succeeded Innocent VI and was crowned at Avignon in 1362. He preached a crusade in 1365, and in 1367 was persuaded by the emperor to move to Rome. In September, 1370, at the entreaties of the French cardinals he returned to Avignon, dying seven weeks later.
URBAN VI (1318-89) was a Neapolitan. He became archbishop of Bari in 1377 and was elected pope in 1378, succeeding Gregory XI. A tactless disciplinarian he alienated the college of cardinals, who in July, 1378, declared his election null, and elected a French cardinal Clement VII in his place. This was the origin of the Great Schism. Urban died as the result of an accident.
URBAN VII. [1521-90] died within a week of his election.
URBAN VIII [1568-1644] whose name was Maffeo Barberini was a Florentine, and was made cardinal in 1606, and elected pope in 1623. During the Thirty Years War he sided with France. He was pope during the persecution of Galileo. In Rome he built the magnificent Barberini Palace of stones taken from the Colosseum and tore bronze from the Pantheon to make the baldachinum at St. Peters. He founded the propaganda college for missionaries 1627.
URE, Andrew (1778-1857) Scottish chemist. He became professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at Anderson college, Glasgow, in 1804, and helped to found the Glasgow observatory in 1809. Analytical chemist to the Board of Customs in London after 1834, he is famous as the author of a Dictionary of Chemistry, 1821, and a Dictionary of Arts, Manufacturies and Mines, 1837. His other works include System of Geology, 1829, and philosophy of Manufactures, 1835. Elected F.R.S. in 1822.
UR-ENGUR (c.2409-2391 B.C.). Sumerian king. the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur and of the last great Sumerian revival, he extended his supremacy over Sumer and Akhad and created a considerable empire. He surrounded Ur with a great wall, constructed a canal to it from the Persian gulf, and built the mighty ziggurat, or temple. He ranks with Sargon and Ur-Nina as an empire maker of earliest Mesopotamia.
URFE, honore D' (1568-1625) French author. He fought on the Protestant side in the religious wars, writing his Epitres Morales while a prisoner in 1595. Later he was an official at the court of the count of Savoy. He was killed while fighting against Spain at vVllafranca. His fame rests upon his Astree, 1610-27, a long pastoral romance.
URIAH. Name of several Biblical characters. Uriah the Hittite, husband of Bathsheba was one of the chief of King David's warriors. David, wishing to take Bathsheba for himself caused Uriah to be placed "in the forefront of the hottest battle," where he was slain at the siege of Rabbah (2 Sam.11). Uriah, son of Shemaiah was a prophet who provoked the anger of Jehoiakim by prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. He fled to Egypt, but was brought back to Jerusalem and beheaded (Jer. 26). Another Uriah was high priest during the reign of Ahaz, and a companion of Isaiah (Isa.8; 2 Kings 16).
UR-NINA. King of Lagash. The first real personality to emerge in Babylonian history, he lived about 3,000 B.C. Although at first merely a Sumerian priest-prince, he made himself an independent king, and founded a dynasty of soldier-kings.
URQUHART, David (1805-77). British politician. He fought for the rebels in the Greek war of independence, 1827-28, and owing to the knowledge he acquired of Greece and Turkey was given diplomatic employment there. He became secretary of embassy at Constantinople, 1835. A friend of Turkey and violently anti-Russian he was recalled, 1837, and entered Parliament in 1847. There he opposed Palmerston and France in the Crimean War. He founded a journal, The Free Press, in 1855, and published The Pillars of Hercules, 1850, in which he first advocated the introduction of Turkish baths into Britain; and The Lebanon, 1860. He died at Naples.
URQUHART, Sir Thomas (c. 1611-c.1660). Scottish translator. He became an opponent of the Covenant, took part in the abortive movement in the north in 1639, and then took refuge at the English court, where he was knighted in 1641. In 1649 he joined the Royalists, and he was confined in the Tower of London, but he was released through the clemency of Cromwell in 1652. In that year appeared The Jewel, a panegyric of the Scottish nation, and his other works include Logopandecteision, 1653, an outline of a universal language marked by great ingenuity. He translated the books of The Adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rebelais in 1653.
URSINS, Marie Anne De La Tremoille, Princesse Des (1642-1722). Spanish courtier. the daughter of the duc de Noirmoutier, and so French by birth, she married first the Prince de Chalais, and after his death in a duel, Flavio Orsini, duke of Bracciano, in 1675. After the death of the latter she lived in Rome, styling herself Princesse des Ursins. Active diplomatically in the French interest, she helped to arrange the marriage of Philip of Anjou with the young daughter of the duke of Savoy, and when Louis XIV's young grandson became king of Spain as Philip V, she became chief of the household to the queen. Throughout the War of the Spanish Succession she was all-powerful at the Spanish court, and pursued a strongly national policy, in spite of the desire of the French court that she should consult only French interests. Her ascendancy over the king was complete, but the death of the queen was followed by the king's marriage advocated by the newly arrived Alberoni, to Elizabeth Farnese, who at once expelled her from Spain, 1714. She retired to Rome where she died.
URSULA. Saint and martyr. The patron saint of virgins, she is said to have been the daughter of a Cornish prince in the fifth century, and to have fled with her friends to Gaul to escape the Saxon invaders of Britain. According to legend, she was the leader of a large band of virgins, who suffered deathrather than dishonor by the Huns about 453, near the Rhine.
USSHER, James (1581-1658). Irish prelate. He was ordained in 1601, and became regius Professor of Divinity at Trinity College, Dublin. He was consecrated bishop of Meath, in 1621, and was translated to Armagh four years later. During his closing years he was preacher at Lincoln's Inn, London, and he died at Reigate. A man of great charity and tolerance, although a strong Calvinist, and one of the greatest scholars of the age, he calculated the chronology, which is to be found in old editions of the Bible, and was the author of Antiquities of the British Churches, Annals of the Old and New Testaments, and the Annals of the World, all writen in Latin. His reputation on the continent was very high.
UTAMARO, Kitagawa (1754-1805) Japanese artist. He became famous for his color prints, notable for their extreme delicacy and skillful composition. He published his first cover album, about 1780, and before the end of the century, his fame had spread to Europe. He specialized in erotic portrayals of women, but was also known for his landscapes and as a woodcut artist.
UZZIAH. King of Judah. Also called Azariah, he was the son of Amaziah, whom he succeeded at the age of 16, and is said to have reigned 52 years. He restored the town of Elath, but became a leper, his son Jotham acting as his representative. (2 Kings 14 and 15; 2 Chron. 26).