By James I. it was in 1608 made a free borough corporate, by the title of “the town and free borough corporate of Wexford.” It returned two members to parliament from 1374 till the Union, when they were reduced to one. In 1885 it was included in the south division of the county.
WEYBRIDGE, an urban district in the Chertsey parliamentary
division of Surrey, England; 19 m. W.S.W from London by
the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 5329. It
lies in the flat valley of the river Wey, 1 m. above its junction
with the Thames. The river is locked up to Godalming, and
navigation is assisted by cuts. Weybridge has grown in modern
times out of a village into a residential town. The church of
St James is modern but contains numerous ancient memorials,
and one by Sir F. Chantrey for the duchess of York (d. 1820),
daughter of Frederick William II. of Prussia, to whose memory
there is also a column on Weybridge Green.
The summit of
this column is that which formerly stood at Seven Dials, London.
The Roman Catholic chapel of St Charles Borromeo was the
burial-place of Louis Philippe, ex-king of the French (d. 1850),
who resided at Claremont in the neighbouring parish of Esher, his
queen and other members of his family, but their bodies were
subsequently removed to Dreux in Normandy To the east
of Weybridge lies Henry VIII.’s park of Oatlands (see Walton-on-Thames).
In 1907 the Brooklands racing track for motorcars
was opened near Weybridge, It has a circuit of 21116 m.
round the inner edge, and including the straight finishing track
is 314 m. in total length, its maximum width is 100 ft., and at the
curves it is banked up to a maximum height of 28 ft. 8 in.
WEYDEN, ROGIER VAN DER [originally Roger de la Pasture][1] (c. 1400–1464), Flemish painter, was born in Tournai, and there apprenticed in 1427 to Robert Campin He became a gild master in 1432 and in 1435 removed to Brussels, where he was shortly after appointed town painter His four historical
works in the Hôtel de Ville have perished, but three tapestries in the Bern museum are traditionally based on their designs. In 1449 Rogier went to Italy, visiting Rome, Ferrara (where he painted two pictures for Lionel d’Este), Milan and probably Florence, On returning (1450) he executed for Pierre Bladelin the “Magi” triptych, now in the Berlin Gallery, and (1435) an
altarpiece for the abbot of Cambrai, which has been identified with a triptych in the Prado Gallery representing the “Crucifixion,” “Expulsion from Paradise” and “Last Judgment.” Van der
Weyden’s style, which was in no way modified by his Italian journey, is somewhat dry and severe as compared with the painting of the Van Eycks, whose pupil Vasari erroneously supposed him to
be, his colour is less rich than theirs, his brush-work more
laboured, and he entirely lacks their sense of atmosphere. On the
other hand, he cared more for dramatic expression, particularly
of a tragic kind, and his pictures have a deeply religious intention.
Comparatively few works are attributed with certainty to
this painter, chief among such are two altarpieces at Berlin,
besides that mentioned above, “The Joys and Sorrows of
Mary,” and “Life of St John the Baptist,” a “Deposition”
and “Crucifixion”
in the Escorial, the Prado triptych,
another (“Annunciation,” “Adoration” and “Presentation”) at Munich, a “Madonna” and a “St John the Baptist” at
Frankfort. The “Seven Sacraments” altarpiece at Antwerp
is almost certainly his, likewise the “Deposition” in the Uffizi, the triptych of the Beaune hospital, and the “Seven Sorrows”
at Brussels.
Two pictures of St Luke painting the Virgin, at
Brussels and St Petersburg respectively, are attributed to him.
None of these is signed or dated. Van der Weyden attracted
many foreigners, notably Martin Schongauer, to his studio, and
he became one of the main influences in the northern art of the
15th century. He died at Brussels in 1464. His descendant,
Rogier van der Weyden the younger, is known to have
entered the Antwerp gild in 1328, but no work of his has yet been satisfactorily authenticated.
See Hasse, Roger van der Weyden und Roger van Brugge (Strassburg. 1905)
WEYLER Y NICOLAU, VALERIANO. Marquess of Tenerife
(1839–), Spanish soldier, was born at Palma de Majorca.
His family were originally Prussians, and served in the Spanish
army for several generations. He entered at sixteen the military
college of infantry at Toledo, and, when he attained the rank
of lieutenant, passed into the staff college, from which he came
out as the head of his class. Two years afterwards he became
captain, and was sent to Cuba at his own request He distinguished
himself in the expedition to Santo Domingo in many
fights, and especially in a daring reconnaissance with few men
into the heart of the enemy’s lines, for which he got the cross
with laurels of San Fernando. From 1868 to 1872 he served
also brilliantly against the Cuban rebels, and commanded a
corps of volunteers specially raised for him in Havana. He
returned to Spain in 1873 as brigadier-general, and took an
active part against the Carlists in the eastern provinces of the
Peninsula in 1875 and 1876, for which he was raised to the rank
of general of division.
Then he was elected senator and given
the title of marquess of Tenerife. He held the post of captain general
in the Canary Isles from 1878 to 1883, and in the Balearic
Isles afterwards. In 18S8 he was sent out as captain-general
to the Philippines, where he dealt very sternly with the native
rebels of the Carolines, of Mindanao and other provinces. On
his return to Spain in 1892 he was appointed to the command
first of the 6th Army Corps in the Basque Provinces and Navarre,
where he soon quelled agitations, and then as captain-general
at Barcelona, where he remained until January 1896. In
Catalonia, with a state of siege, he made himself the terror of
the anarchists and socialists. After Marsha! Campos had failed
to pacify Cuba, the Conservative government of Canovas del
Castillo sent out Weyler, and this selection met the approval
of most Spaniards, who thought him the proper man to crush
the rebellion.
Weyler attempted to do this by a policy of inexorable repression, which raised a storm of indignation, and
led to a demand from America for his recall. This recall was granted by the Liberal government of Sagasta, but Weyler afterwards asserted that, had he been left alone, he would have stamped out the rebellion in six months. After his return to Spain his reputation as a strong and ambitious soldier made him one of those who in case of any constitutional disturbance might be expected to play an important role, and his political
position was nationally affected by this consideration, his
appointment in 1900 as captain-general of Madrid resulted
indeed in more than one ministerial crisis. He was minister of
war for a short time at the end of 1901, and again in 1905. At
the end of October 1909 he was appointed captain-general at
Barcelona, where the disturbances connected with the execution
of Francisco Ferrer were quelled by him without bloodshed.
WEYMAN, STANLEY JOHN (1855–), English novelist,
was born at Ludlow, Shropshire, on the 7th of August 1835, the son of a solicitor. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and at Christ Church, Oxford. He took his degree in modern history in 1877, and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1881, joining the Oxford circuit. He had been practising as a
barrister for eight years when he made his reputation as a novelist by a series of romances dealing with French history:
The House of the Wolf (1889), A Gentleman of France (1893),
Under the Red Robe (1894), Memoirs of a Minister of France
(1895), &c. Among his later novels were: Shrewsbury (1897),
The Castle Inn (1898), Sophia (1900), Count Hannibal (1901),
In King’s Byways (1902), The Long Night (1903), The Abbess
of Vlaye (1904), Starvecrow Farm (1905), Chippinge (1906)
WEYMOUTH, a township of Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on Weymouth harbour, a part of Boston Bay, 9 m S.E. of Boston, between Quincy and Braintree (to the W.) and Hingham to the E. Pop. (1890) 10,866, (1900) 11,324 (1845 foreign-born); (1905, state census) 11,585, (1910) 12,895. Area, 19 sq. m. Weymouth is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and is connected with Boston, Quincy, Braintree, Hingham, Nantasket and Rockland by electric lines. In the township there are several villages, including Weymouth, North Weymouth, East Weymouth and South
- ↑ He has sometimes been wrongly identified with a painter called Roger of Bruges or Ruggiero da Bruggia.
