carnivorous or parasitic, and prey upon both vertebrates and invertebrates. In relation to their parasitic habit one or two suckers are always developed, the one at the anterior and the other at the posterior end of the body. In one subdivision of the leeches, the Gnathobdellidae, the mouth has three chitinous jaws which produce a triangular bite, though the action has been described as like that of a circular saw. Leeches without biting jaws possess a protrusible proboscis, and generally engulf their prey, as does the horse leech when it attacks earthworms. But some of them are also ectoparasites. The leech has been used in medicine from remote antiquity as a moderate blood-letter; and it is still so used, though more rarely than formerly. As unlicensed blood-letters, certain land-leeches are among the most unpleasant of parasites that can be encountered in a tropical jungle. A species of Haemadipsa of Ceylon attaches itself to the passer-by and draws blood with so little irritation that the sufferer is said to be aware of its presence only by the trickling from the wounds produced. Small leeches taken into the mouth with drinking-water may give rise to serious symptoms by attaching themselves to the fauces and neighbouring parts and thence sucking blood. The effects of these parasites have been mistaken for those of disease. All leeches are very extensile and can contract the body to a plump, pear-shaped form, or extend it to a long and worm-like shape. They frequently progress after the fashion of a “looper” caterpillar, attaching themselves alternately by the anterior and the posterior sucker. Others swim with eel-like curves through the water, while one land-leech, at any rate, moves in a gliding way like a land Planarian, and leaves, also like the Planarian, a slimy trail behind it. Leeches are usually olive green to brown in colour, darker patches and spots being scattered over a paler ground. The marine parasitic leech Pontobdella is of a bright green, as is also the land-leech Trocheta.
The term “leech,” as an old English synonym for physician, is from a Teutonic root meaning “heal,” and is etymologically distinct from the name (O. Eng. lyce) of the Hirudo, though the use of the one by the other has helped to assimilate the two words. (F. E. B.)
LEEDS, THOMAS OSBORNE, 1st Duke of (1631–1712),
English statesman, commonly known also by his earlier title of
Earl of Danby, son of Sir Edward Osborne, Bart., of Kiveton,
Yorkshire, was born in 1631. He was great-grandson of Sir
Edward Osborne (d. 1591), lord mayor of London, who, according
to the accepted account, while apprentice to Sir William Hewett,
cloth worker and lord mayor in 1559, made the fortunes of the
family by leaping from London Bridge into the river and rescuing
Anne (d. 1585), the daughter of his employer, whom he afterwards
married.[1] Thomas Osborne, the future lord treasurer, succeeded
to the baronetcy and estates in Yorkshire on his father’s death
in 1647, and after unsuccessfully courting his cousin Dorothy
Osborne, married Lady Bridget Bertie, daughter of the earl of
Lindsey. He was introduced to public life and to court by his
neighbour in Yorkshire, George, 2nd duke of Buckingham,
was elected M.P. for York in 1665, and gained the “first step
in his future rise” by joining Buckingham in his attack on
Clarendon in 1667. In 1668 he was appointed joint treasurer
of the navy with Sir Thomas Lyttelton, and subsequently
sole treasurer. He succeeded Sir William Coventry as commissioner
for the state treasury in 1669, and in 1673 was appointed
a commissioner for the admiralty. He was created Viscount
Osborne in the Scottish peerage on the 2nd of February 1673,
and a privy councillor on the 3rd of May. On the 19th of June,
on the resignation of Lord Clifford, he was appointed lord treasurer
and made Baron Osborne of Kiveton and Viscount Latimer in
the peerage of England, while on the 27th of June 1674 he was
created earl of Danby, when he surrendered his Scottish peerage
of Osborne to his second son Peregrine Osborne. He was
appointed the same year lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and in 1677 received the Garter.
Danby was a statesman of very different calibre from the leaders of the Cabal ministry, Buckingham and Arlington. His principal aim was no doubt the maintenance and increase of his own influence and party, but his ambition corresponded with definite political views. A member of the old cavalier party, a confidential friend and correspondent of the despotic Lauderdale, he desired to strengthen the executive and the royal authority. At the same time he was a keen partisan of the established church, an enemy of both Roman Catholics and dissenters, and an opponent of all toleration. In 1673 he opposed the Indulgence, supported the Test Act, and spoke against the proposal for giving relief to the dissenters. In June 1675 he signed the paper of advice drawn up by the bishops for the king, urging the rigid enforcement of the laws against the Roman Catholics, their complete banishment from the court, and the suppression of conventicles,[2] and a bill introduced by him imposing special taxes on recusants and subjecting Roman Catholic priests to imprisonment for life was only thrown out as too lenient because it secured offenders from the charge of treason. The same year he introduced a Test Oath by which all holding office or seats in either House of Parliament were to declare resistance to the royal power a crime, and promise to abstain from all attempts to alter the government of either church or state; but this extreme measure of retrograde toryism was successfully opposed by wiser statesmen. The king himself as a Roman Catholic secretly opposed and also doubted the wisdom and practicability of this “thorough” policy of repression. Danby therefore ordered a return from every diocese of the numbers of dissenters, both Romanist and Protestant, in order by a proof of their insignificance to remove the royal scruples.[3] In December 1676 he issued a proclamation for the suppression of coffee-houses because of the “defamation of His Majesty’s Government” which took place in them, but this was soon withdrawn. In 1677, to secure Protestantism in case of a Roman Catholic succession, he introduced a bill by which ecclesiastical patronage and the care of the royal children were entrusted to the bishops; but this measure, like the other, was thrown out.
In foreign affairs Danby showed a stronger grasp of essentials. He desired to increase English trade, credit and power abroad. He was a determined enemy both to Roman influence and to French ascendancy. He terminated the war with Holland in 1674, and from that time maintained a friendly correspondence with William; while in 1677, after two years of tedious negotiations, he overcame all obstacles, and in spite of James’s opposition, and without the knowledge of Louis XIV., effected the marriage between William and Mary that was the germ of the Revolution and the Act of Settlement. This national policy, however, could only be pursued, and the minister could only maintain himself in power, by acquiescence in the king’s personal relations with the king of France settled by the disgraceful Treaty of Dover in 1670, which included Charles’s acceptance of a pension, and bound him to a policy exactly opposite to Danby’s, one furthering French and Roman ascendancy. Though not a number of the Cabal ministry, and in spite of his own denial, Danby must, it would seem, have known of these relations after becoming lord treasurer. In any case, in 1676, together with Lauderdale alone, he consented to a treaty between Charles and Louis according to which the foreign policy of both kings was to be conducted in union, and Charles received an annual subsidy of £100,000. In 1678 Charles, taking advantage of the growing hostility to France in the nation and parliament, raised his price, and Danby by his directions demanded through Ralph Montagu (afterwards duke of Montagu) six million livres a year (£300,000) for three years. Simultaneously Danby guided through parliament a bill for raising money for a war against France; a league was concluded with Holland, and troops were actually sent there. That Danby, in spite of these compromising transactions, remained in intention faithful to the national interests, appears clearly from the hostility with which he was still regarded by France. In 1676 he is described
