views being contained in his chief work, Antiquitates Americanae (Copenhagen, 1837). See Lief Ericsson.
RAFTER, a beam in a sloping roof to which is attached the framework for the slating, tiling or other external covering (see Roofs). The O.Eng. raefter is cognate with Icel. raftr, Dan. and Swed. rafte or raft, a beam, which, in the special sense of a floating collection of timbers, gives the English “raft.” The ultimate base of these words is the root raf-, to cover, seen in Gr. ὄροφος, roof.
RAGATZ, a famous watering-place in the Swiss canton of St Gall, situated on the left bank of the Rhine, and by rail 13½ m. N. of Coire or 61½ m. S.E. of Zürich. It stands at a height of 1696 ft., at the entrance to the magnificent gorge of the Tamina, about 3 m. up which by carriage road are the extraordinarily placed Baths of Pfäfers (2247 ft.). Since 1840 the hot mineral waters of Pfäfers are conducted in pipes to Ragatz, which is in a more pleasant position. Consequently Ragatz has much increased in importance since that date. In 1900 its native population was 1866, mainly German-speaking, while there were 1472 Romanists to 392 Protestants. The annual number of visitors is reckoned at 30,000. In the churchyard is the grave of the philosopher Schelling (d. here in 1854). About 2 m. by road above Ragatz are the 17th-century buildings (now the cantonal lunatic asylum) of the great Benedictine abbey of Pfäfers (720–1838), to which all this region belonged till 1798; while midway between them and Ragatz are the ruins of the 14th-century castle of Wartenstein, now accessible from Ragatz by means of a funicular railway. (W. A. B. C.)
RAGLAN, FITZROY JAMES HENRY SOMERSET, 1st Baron (1788–1855), British field marshal, was the eighth and youngest son of Henry, 5th duke of Beaufort, by Elizabeth, daughter of Admiral the Hon. Edward Boscawen, and was born on the 30th of September 1788. His elder brother, General Lord (Robert) Edward (Henry) Somerset (1776–1842), distinguished himself as the leader of the Household Cavalry brigade at Waterloo. Lord Fitzroy Somerset was educated at Westminster school, and entered the army in 1804. In 1807 he was attached to the Hon. Sir Arthur Paget’s embassy to Turkey, and the same year he was selected to serve on the staff of Sir Arthur Wellesley in the expedition to Copenhagen. In the following year he accompanied the same general in a like capacity to Portugal, and during the whole of the Peninsular War was at his right hand, first as aide-de-camp and then as military secretary. He was wounded at Busaco, became brevet-major after Fuentes de Oñoro, accompanied the stormers of the 52nd light infantry as a volunteer at Ciudad Rodrigo and specially distinguished himself at the storming of Badajoz, being the first to mount the breach, and afterwards showing great resolution and promptitude in securing one of the gates before the French could organize a fresh defence. During the short period of the Bourbon rule in 1814 and 1815 he was secretary to the English embassy at Paris. On the renewal of the war he again became aide-de-camp and military secretary to the duke of Wellington. About this time he married Emily Harriet, daughter of the 3rd earl of Mornington, and Wellington’s niece. At Waterloo he was wounded in the right arm and had to undergo amputation, but he quickly learned to write with his left hand, and on the conclusion of the war resumed his duties as secretary to the embassy at Paris. From 1818 to 1820, and again in 1826–29, he sat in the House of Commons as member for Truro. In 1819 he was appointed secretary to the duke of Wellington as master-general of the ordnance, and from 1827 till the death of the duke in 1852 was military secretary to him as commander-in-chief. He was then appointed master-general of the ordnance, and was created Baron Raglan. In 1854 he was promoted general and appointed to the command of the English troops sent to the Crimea (see Crimean War) in co-operation with a strong French army under Marshal St Arnaud and afterwards, up to May 1855, under Marshal Canrobert. Here the advantage of his training under the duke of Wellington was seen in the soundness of his generalship, and his diplomatic experience stood him in good stead in dealing with the generals and admirals, British, French and Turkish, who were associated with him. But the trying winter campaign in the Crimea also brought into prominence defects perhaps traceable to his long connexion with the formalities and uniform regulations of military offices in peace time. For the hardships and sufferings of the English soldiers in the terrible Crimean winter before Sevastopol, owing to failure in the commissariat, both as regards food and clothing, Lord Raglan and his staff were at the time severely censured by the press and the government; but, while Lord Raglan was possibly to blame in representing matters in a too sanguine light, it afterwards appeared that the chief neglect rested with the home authorities. But this hopefulness was a shining military quality in the midst of the despondency that settled upon the allied generals after their first failures, and at Balaklava and Inkermann he displayed the promptness and resolution of his youth. He was made a field marshal after Inkermann. During the trying winter of 1854–55, the suffering he was compelled to witness, the censures, in great part unjust, which he had to endure and all the manifold anxieties of the siege seriously undermined his health, and although he found a friend and ardent supporter in his new French colleague, General Pélissier (q.v.), disappointment at the failure of the assault of, the 18th of June 1855 finally broke his spirit, and very shortly afterwards, on the 28th of June 1855, he died of dysentery. His body was brought home and interred at Badminton.
His elder son having been killed at the battle of Ferozeshah (1845), the title descended to his younger son Richard Henry Fitzroy Somerset, 2nd Baron, Raglan (1817–1884), and subsequently to the latter’s son, George Fitzroy Henry Somerset, 3rd baron (b. 1857), under-secretary for war 1900–2, lieutenant governor of the Isle of Man (1902) and a prominent militia officer.
RAGMAN ROLLS, the name given to the collection of instruments by which the nobility and gentry of Scotland were compelled to subscribe allegiance to Edward I. of England between the conference of Norham in May 1291 and the final award in favour of Baliol in November 1292, and again in 1296. Of the former of these records two copies were preserved in the chapter-house at Westminster (now in the Record Office, London), and it has been printed by Rymer (Foedera, ii. 542). Another copy, preserved originally in the Tower of London, is now also in the Record Office. The latter record, containing the various acts of homage and fealty extorted by Edward from Baliol and others in the course of his progress through Scotland in the summer of 1296 and in August at the parliament of Berwick, was published by Prynne from the copy in the Tower and now in the Record Office. Both records were printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1834. The derivation of the word “ragman” has never been satisfactorily explained, but various guesses as to its meaning and a list of examples of its use for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Club’s volume, and in Jamieson’s Scottisk Dictionary, s.v. “Ragman.” The name “ragman roll” survives in the colloquial “rigmarole,” a rambling, incoherent statement.
The name of “Ragman” has been sometimes confined to the record of 1296, of which an account is given in Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London (1884), vol. ii., Introd., p. xxiv; and as to the seals see p. lii and appendix.
RAG-STONE (probably equivalent to “ragged” stone), a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones which are quarried in thin pieces, such as the Horsham sandstone, Yorkshire stone, the slate stones, &c.; but this is more properly flag or slab work. By rag-stone, near London, is meant an excellent material from the neighbourhood of Maidstone. It is a very hard limestone of bluish-grey colour, and peculiarly suited for medieval work. It is often laid as uncoursed work, or random work (see Random), sometimes as random coursed work and sometimes as regular ashlar. The first method, however, is the more picturesque. (See Masonry.)
