supply reading for the traveller in the “Rollwagen” or diligences. As a dramatist, Wickram wrote Fastnachtsspiele (Das Narrengiessen, 1537; Der treue Eckart, 1538) and two dramas on biblical subjects, Der verlorene Sohn (1540) and Tobias (1551). A moralizing poem, Der irrereitende Pilger (1556), is half-satiric half-didactic. It is, however, as a novelist that Wickram has left the deepest mark on his time, his chief romances being Ritter Galmy aus Schottland (1539), Gabriotto und Reinhard (1554), Der Knabenspiegel (1554), Von guten und bösen Nachbarn (1556) and Der Goldfaden (1557). These may be regarded as the earliest attempts in German literature to create that modern type of middle-class fiction which ultimately took the place of the decadent medieval romance of chivalry.
Wickram’s works have been edited by J. Bolte and W. Scheel for the Stuttgart Literarischer Verein (vols., 222, 223, 229, 230, 1900–1903); Der Ritter Galmy was republished by F. de la Motte Fouqué in 1806; Der Goldfaden by K. Brentano in 1809; the Rollwagenbüchlein was edited by H. Kurz in 1865, and there is also a reprint of it in Reclam’s Universalbibliothek. See A. Stober, J. Wickram (1866); W. Scherer, Die Anfange des deutschen Prosaromans (1877).
WIDDRINGTON, BARONS. In November 1643 Sir William Widdrington (1610–1651), of Widdrington, Northumberland, son and heir of Sir Henry Widdrington (d. 1623), was created Baron Widdrington, as a reward for his loyalty to Charles I. He had been member for Northumberland in both the Short and the Long Parliaments in 1640, but in August 1642 he was expelled because he had joined the royal standard. He fought for the king chiefly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire during 1642 and 1643; he was governor of Lincoln in 1643, but in 1644, after helping to defend York, he left England. Although in 1648 he had been condemned to death by the House of Commons, he accompanied Charles II. to Scotland in 1650, and he was mortally wounded whilst fighting for him at Wigan, dying on the 3rd of September 1651. His great-grandson, William, the 4th baron (1678–1743), took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, and with two of his brothers was taken prisoner after the fight at Preston. He was convicted of high treason, and his title and estates were forfeited, but he was not put to death, and he survived until the 19th of April 1743. When his son, Henry Francis Widdrington, who claimed the barony, died in September 1774, the family appears to have become extinct.
Other eminent members of this family were Sir Thomas Widdrington and his brother Ralph. Having married a daughter of Ferdinando Fairfax, afterwards 2nd Lord Fairfax, Thomas Widdrington was knighted at York in 1639, and in 1640 he became member of parliament for Berwick. He was already a barrister, and his legal knowledge was very useful during the Civil War. In 1651 he was chosen a member of the council of state, although he had declined to have any share in the trial of the king. Widdrington was elected Speaker in September 1656, and in June 1658 he was appointed chief baron of the exchequer. In 1659 and again in 1660 he was a member of the council of state, and on three occasions he was one of the commissioners of the great seal, but he lost some of his offices when Charles II. was restored. However, he remained in parliament until his death on the 13th of May 1664. He left four daughters, but no sons. Widdrington, who founded a school at Stamfordham, Northumberland, wrote Analecta Eboracensia; some Remaynes of the city of York. This was not published until 1877, when it was edited with introduction and notes by the Rev. Caesar Caine. His younger brother, Ralph Widdrington (d. 1688), was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he made the acquaintance of Milton. In 1654 he was appointed regius professor of Greek at Cambridge, and in 1673 Lady Margaret professor of divinity.
The name of Roger Widdrington was taken by Thomas Preston (1563–1640), a Benedictine monk, who wrote several books of a controversial nature, and passed much of his time in prison, being still a captive when he died on the 3rd of April 1640. (See Rev. E. Taunton, The English Black Monks of St Benedict, 1897.)
In 1840 the writer, Samuel Edward Cook, took the name of Widdrington, his mother being the heiress of some of the estates of this family. Having served in the British navy he lived for some years in Spain, writing Sketches in Spain during the years 1829–1832 (London, 1834); and Spain and the Spaniards in 1843 (London, 1844). He died at his residence, Newton Hall, Northumberland, on the 11th of January 1856 and was succeeded in the ownership of his estates by his nephew, Shalcross Fitzherbert Jacson, who took the name Widdrington. See Rev. John Hodgson, History of Northumberland (1820–1840).
WIDNES, a municipal borough in the Widnes parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, on the Mersey, 12 m. E.S.E. from Liverpool, served by the London & North-Western and Lancashire & Yorkshire railways and the Cheshire lines. Pop. (1901) 28,580. It is wholly of modern growth, for in 1851 the population was under 2000. There are capacious docks on the river, which is crossed by a wrought-iron bridge, 1000 ft. long, and 95 in height, completed in 1868, and having two lines of railway and a footpath. Widnes is one of the principal seats of the alkali and soap manufacture, and has also grease-works for locomotives and waggons, copper works, iron-foundries, oil and paint works and sail-cloth manufactories. The barony of Widnes in 1554–1555 was declared to be part of the duchy of Lancaster. The town was incorporated in 1892, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3110 acres.
WIDOR, CHARLES MARIE (1845– ), French composer and organist, was born at Lyons on the 22nd of February 1845. He studied first at Lyons, then at Brussels under Lemmens for the organ and Fétis for composition. In 1870 he became organist of the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris. He succeeded César Franck as professor of the organ at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was also appointed professor of composition, counterpoint and fugue in 1896. A very prolific composer, he displayed his creative ability in a variety of different styles. His works include an opera, Maître Ambros (Opéra Comique, 1896), La Korrigane (ballet, given at the Opéra, 1880), incidental music to Conte d’avril (1885), Les Jacobites (1885) and Jeanne d’Arc (a pantomime play, 1890), three symphonies, The Walpurgis Night and other works for orchestra, a quintet for strings and piano, trio for piano and strings, a mass, psalms and other sacred compositions, symphonies for organ, a large number of piano pieces and many songs.
WIDUKIND, Saxon historian, was the author of Res gestae Saxonicae. Nothing is known of his life except that he was a monk at the Benedictine abbey of Corvey, and that he died about 1004, although various other conjectures have been formed by students of his work. He is also supposed to have written lives of St Paul and St Thecla, but no traces of these now remain. It is uncertain whether he was a resident at the court of the emperor Otto the Great or not, and also whether he was on intimate terms with Otto’s illegitimate son William, archbishop of Mainz. His Res gestae Saxonicae, dedicated to Matilda, abbess of Quedlinburg, who was a daughter of Otto the Great, is divided into three books, and the greater part of it was undoubtedly written during the lifetime of the emperor, probably about 968. Starting with certain surmises upon the origin of the Saxons, he deals with the war between Theuderich I., king of Austrasia, and the Thuringians, in which the Saxons played an important part. An allusion to the conversion of the race to Christianity under Charlemagne brings him to the early Saxon dukes and the reign of Henry the Fowler, whose campaigns are referred to in some detail. The second book opens with the election of Otto he Great as German king, treats of the risings against his authority, and concludes with the death of his wife Edith in 946. In the third book the historian deals with Otto’s expedition into France, his troubles with his son Ludolf and his son-in-law, Conrad the Red, duke of Lorraine, and the various wars in Germany; but makes only casual reference to Otto’s visits to Italy in 951 and 962. He gives a vivid account of the defeat of the Hungarians on the Lechfeld in August 955, and ends with the death of Otto in 973 and a eulogy on his life.
Widukind formed his style upon that of Sallust; he was familiar with the De vitis Caesarum of Suetonius, the Vita Karoli magni of Einhard, and probably with Livy and Bede. Many quotations from the Vulgate are found in his writings, and there are traces of a knowledge of Virgil, Ovid and other Roman poets. His sentences are occasionally abrupt and lacking in clearness, his Latin words are sometimes germanized (as when he writes michi for mihi) and grammatical errors are not always absent. The earlier part of his work is taken from tradition, but he wrote the contemporary part as one familiar with court life and the events of the day. He says very little about affairs outside Germany, and although laudatory of
