dislike of company. His manners were very winning and courtly, and in the circle of his immediate relatives he is said to have always been lovable and beloved.
“In his person,” says Lord Campbell, “Lord Eldon was about the middle size, his figure light and athletic, his features regular and handsome, his eye bright and full, his smile remarkably benevolent, and his whole appearance prepossessing. The advance of years rather increased than detracted from these personal advantages. As he sat on the judgment-seat, ‘the deep thought betrayed in his furrowed brow—the large eyebrows, overhanging eyes that seemed to regard more what was taking place within than around him—his calmness, that would have assumed a character of sternness but for its perfect placidity—his dignity, repose and venerable age, tended at once to win confidence and to inspire respect’ (Townsend). He had a voice both sweet and deep-toned, and its effect was not injured by his Northumbrian burr, which, though strong, was entirely free from harshness and vulgarity.”
Authorities.—Horace Twiss, Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon (1844); W. E. Surtees, Sketch of the Lives of Lords Stowell and Eldon (1846); Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors; W. C. Townsend, Lives of Twelve Eminent Judges (1846); Greville Memoirs.
EL DORADO (Span. “the gilded one”), a name applied, first,
to the king or chief priest of a South American tribe who was said
to cover himself with gold dust at a yearly religious festival held
near Santa Fé de Bogotá; next, to a legendary city called Manoa
or Omoa; and lastly, to a mythical country in which gold and
precious stones were found in fabulous abundance. The legend,
which has never been traced to its ultimate source, had many
variants, especially as regards the situation attributed to Manoa.
It induced many Spanish explorers to lead expeditions in search
of treasure, but all failed. Among the most famous were the
expedition undertaken by Diego de Ordaz, whose lieutenant
Martinez claimed to have been rescued from shipwreck, conveyed
inland, and entertained at Omoa by “El Dorado” himself (1531);
and the journeys of Orellana (1540–1541), who passed down the
Rio Napo to the valley of the Amazon; that of Philip von Hutten
(1541–1545), who led an exploring party from Coro on the coast of
Caracas; and of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada (1569), who started
from Santa Fé de Bogotá. Sir Walter Raleigh, who resumed the
search in 1595, described Manoa as a city on Lake Parimá in
Guiana. This lake was marked on English and other maps until
its existence was disproved by A. von Humboldt (1769–1859).
Meanwhile the name of El Dorado came to be used metaphorically
of any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired. It was
given to a county in California, and to towns and cities in various
states. In literature frequent allusion is made to the legend,
perhaps the best-known references being those in Milton’s
Paradise Lost (vi. 411) and Voltaire’s Candide (chs. 18, 19).
See A. F. A. Bandelier, The Gilded Man, El Dorado (New York, 1893).
ELDUAYEN, JOSÉ DE, 1st Marquis del Pazo de la Merced
(1823–1898), Spanish politician, was born in Madrid on the
22nd of June 1823. He was educated in the capital, took the
degree of civil engineer, and as such directed important works
in Asturias and Galicia, entered the Cortes in 1856 as deputy
for Vigo, and sat in all the parliaments until 1867 as member of
the Union Liberal with Marshal O’Donnell. He attacked the
Miraflores cabinet in 1864, and became under-secretary of the
home office when Canovas was minister in 1865. He was made a
councillor of state in 1866, and in 1868 assisted the other members
of the Union Liberal in preparing the revolution. In the Cortes
of 1872 he took much part in financial debates. He accepted
office as member of the last Sagasta cabinet under King Amadeus.
On the proclamation of the republic Elduayen very earnestly
co-operated in the Alphonsist conspiracy, and endeavoured to
induce the military and politicians to work together. He went
abroad to meet and accompany the prince after the pronunciamiento
of Marshal Campos, landed with him at Valencia, was made
governor of Madrid, a marquis, grand cross of Charles III., and
minister for the colonies in 1878. He accepted the portfolio of
foreign affairs in the Canovas cabinet from 1883 to 1885, and was
made a life senator. He always prided himself on having been
one of the five members of the Cortes of 1870 who voted for
Alphonso XII. when that parliament elected Amadeus of Savoy.
He died at Madrid on the 24th of June 1898.
ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE (c. 1122–1204), wife of the English
king Henry II., was the daughter and heiress of Duke William X.
of Aquitaine, whom she succeeded in April 1137. In accordance
with arrangements made by her father, she at once married
Prince Louis, the heir to the French crown, and a month later her
husband became king of France under the title of Louis VII.
Eleanor bore Louis two daughters but no sons. This was probably
the reason why their marriage was annulled by mutual consent
in 1151, but contemporary scandal-mongers attributed the
separation to the king’s jealousy. It was alleged that, while
accompanying her husband on the Second Crusade (1146–1149),
Eleanor had been unduly familiar with her uncle, Raymond of
Antioch. Chronology is against this hypothesis, since Louis and
she lived on good terms together for two years after the Crusade.
There is still less ground for the supposition that Henry of Anjou,
whom she married immediately after the divorce, had been her
lover before it. This second marriage, with a youth some years
her junior, was purely political. The duchy of Aquitaine required
a strong ruler, and the union with Anjou was eminently desirable.
Louis, who had hoped that Aquitaine would descend to his
daughters, was mortified and alarmed by the Angevin marriage;
all the more so when Henry of Anjou succeeded to the English
crown in 1154. From this event dates the beginning of the
secular strife between England and France which runs like a red
thread through medieval history.
Eleanor bore to her second husband five sons and three daughters; John, the youngest of their children, was born in 1167. But her relations with Henry passed gradually through indifference to hatred. Henry was an unfaithful husband, and Eleanor supported her sons in their great rebellion of 1173. Throughout the latter years of the reign she was kept in a sort of honourable confinement. It was during her captivity that Henry formed his connexion with Rosamond Clifford, the Fair Rosamond of romance. Eleanor, therefore, can hardly have been responsible for the death of this rival, and the romance of the poisoned bowl appears to be an invention of the next century.
Under the rule of Richard and John the queen became a political personage of the highest importance. To both her sons the popularity which she enjoyed in Aquitaine was most valuable. But in other directions also she did good service. She helped to frustrate the conspiracy with France which John concocted during Richard’s captivity. She afterwards reconciled the king and the prince, thus saving for John the succession which he had forfeited by his misconduct. In 1199 she crushed an Angevin rising in favour of John’s nephew, Arthur of Brittany. In 1201 she negotiated a marriage between her grand-daughter, Blanche of Castile, and Louis of France, the grandson of her first husband. It was through her staunch defence of Mirabeau in Poitou that John got possession of his nephew’s person. She died on the 1st of April 1204, and was buried at Fontevrault. Although a woman of strong passions and great abilities she is, historically, less important as an individual than as the heiress of Aquitaine, a part of which was, through her second marriage, united to England for some four hundred years.
See the chronicles cited for the reigns of Henry II., Richard I. and John. Also Sir J. H. Ramsay, Angevin Empire (London, 1903); K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings (London, 1887); and A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. i. (1841). (H. W. C. D.)
ELEATIC SCHOOL, a Greek school of philosophy which came
into existence towards the end of the 6th century B.C., and
ended with Melissus of Samos (fl. c. 450 B.C.). It took its
name from Elea, a Greek city of lower Italy, the home of its
chief exponents, Parmenides and Zeno. Its foundation is often
attributed to Xenophanes of Colophon, but, although there is
much in his speculations which formed part of the later Eleatic
doctrine, it is probably more correct to regard Parmenides as
the founder of the school. At all events, it was Parmenides who
gave it its fullest development. The main doctrines of the
Eleatics were evolved in opposition, on the one hand, to the
