conservatism on slavery and kindred questions displeased extremists, North and South, who prevented his re-election as speaker of the Thirty-first Congress. On the resignation of Daniel Webster to become secretary of state, Winthrop was appointed to the Senate (July 1850), but was defeated in the Massachusetts legislature for the short term (Jan. 30, 1851) and for the long term (April 24, 1851) by a coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers and served only until February 1851. In the same year he received a plurality of the votes cast for governor, but as the constitution required a majority vote, the election was thrown into the legislature, where he was defeated by the same coalition. Thereafter, he was never a candidate for political office. With the breaking up of the Whig party he became an independent and supported Millard Fillmore in 1856, John Bell in 1860, and General G. B. McClellan in 1864. He was president of the Massachusetts Historical Society from 1855 to 1885, and for the last twenty-seven years of his life was president of the Peabody Trust for the advancement of education in the Southern States. Among his noteworthy orations of a patriotic character were those delivered at Boston in 1876, at Yorktown in 1881, and in Washington on the completion of the Washington Monument in 1885. He died in Boston on the 16th of November 1894.
Among his publications were Addresses and Speeches (Boston, 1852-1886); Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vols., Boston, 1864-1867); and Washington, Bowdoin and Franklin (Boston, 1876). See R. C. Winthrop, Jr., Memoir of R. C. Winthrop (Boston, 1897).
WINTHROP, a township and a summer resort of Suffolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., occupying a peninsula jutting out into Massachusetts Bay about 5 m. N.E. of Boston and 3 m. S.E. of Chelsea, and forming part of the north-eastern boundary of Boston Harbour. Pop. (1900) 6058, of whom 1437 were foreign-born and 43 were negroes; (1910, U.S. census) 10,132. Between May and October the population is estimated to be between 14,000 and 16,000. Area, 1.6 sq. m. Winthrop is served by the Winthrop branch of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn railway, and by electric railway from Orient Heights to Revere, Chelsea, East Boston, Lynn and Boston. The township contains several villages connected by a railway loop; there are nine stations in its 5.3 m. of track. The peninsula has about 8 m. of water front on the ocean and the harbour. The northern part nearest the narrow neck connecting with the mainland is a high bluff, known as Winthrop Highlands, having its north-eastern terminus in Grover's Cliff, a bold headland which forms the north-eastern-most point of the peninsula. On Grover's Cliff is Fort Heath, a battery of three powerful long-range guns. At the western end of the Highlands is Fort Banks (a part of Boston's harbour defence), consisting of a masked battery of sixteen 12 in. mortars, each able to drop a 600 ℔ shell on a ship 6 m. at sea. From Grover's Cliff a fine sandy beach facing the open ocean leads to Great Head, the highest elevation on the peninsula. Winthrop Shore Drive (16.73 acres), one of the reservations of the Metropolitan park system, is a public parkway along the shore. From Great Head, a long sandy spit curves away southward, ending in Point Shirley, a hillock and flat sandy plain, separated by Shirley Gut, a narrow channel of deep water, from Deer Island, on which are the Boston House of Correction and City Prison. At Point Shirley is the Point Shirley Club house; at the western foot of Great Head, on Crystal Bay, is the Winthrop Yacht Club house and anchorage; and at Winthrop Center on the west side are the Town Hall, the High School, the Public Library, the Masonic Hall, College Park Yacht Club and Ingleside Park. There are several large summer hotels.
Winthrop, first known as “Pullen Poynt” (Pulling Point) because the tide made hard pulling here for boatmen, was originally a part of Boston; it was part of Chelsea from 1739 until 1846, when with Rumney Marsh it was separately incorporated as North Chelsea, from which it was set off as a township in 1852 under its present name, in honour of Deane Winthrop (1623-1704), who was a son of Governor John Winthrop, the elder, and whose house is still standing. Point Shirley takes its name from Governor William Shirley who helped to establish a cod fishery there in 1753. Before and after the War of Independence Winthrop was a favourite seaside home for Bostonians, many prominent families, including the Gibbons, Hancocks, Bartletts, Emersons, Lorings and Lowells, having country-seats here. The community was a secluded rural retreat until the construction of the railway in 1876 converted it into a watering-place.
See C. W. Hall, Historic Winthrop, 1630-1902 (Boston, 1902).
WINWOOD, SIR RALPH (c. 1563-1617), English politician, was born at Aynhoe in Northamptonshire and educated at St John's College, Oxford. In 1599 he became secretary to Sir Henry Neville (c. 1564-1615), the English ambassador in France, and he succeeded Neville in this position two years later, retaining it until 1603. In this year Winwood was sent to The Hague as agent to the States-General of the United Provinces, and according to custom he became a member of the Dutch council of state. His hearty dislike of Spain coloured all his actions in Holland; he was anxious to see a continuance of the war between Spain and the United Netherlands, and he expressed both his own views and those of the English government at the time when he wrote, “how convenient this war would be for the good of His Majesty's realms, if it might be maintained without his charge.” In June 1608 Winwood signed the league between England and the United Provinces, and he was in Holland when the trouble over the succession to the duchies of Jülich and Cleves threatened to cause a European war. In this matter he negotiated with the Protestant princes of Germany on behalf of James I. Having returned to England Sir Ralph became secretary of state in March 1614 and a member of parliament. In the House of Commons he defended the king's right to levy impositions, and other events of his secretaryship were the inquiry into the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury and the release of Raleigh in 1616. Raleigh was urged by Winwood to attack the Spanish fleet and the Spanish settlements in South America, and the secretary's share in this undertaking was the subject of complaints on the part of the representatives of Spain. In the midst of this he died in London on the 27th of October 1617. “It can hardly be doubted,” says Gardiner, “that, if he had lived till the following summer, he would have shared in Raleigh's ruin.” One of Winwood's daughters, Anne (d. 1643), married Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton, and their son was Ralph Montagu, 1st duke of Montagu.
Winwood's official correspondence and other papers passed to the duke of Montagu, and are now in the possession of the duke of Buccleuch. They are calendared in the Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission on the manuscripts of the duke of Buccleuch. See the Introduction to this Report (1899); and also S. R. Gardiner, History of England, vols. ii . and iii. (1904-1907).
WINZET, NINIAN (1518-1592), Scottish polemical writer, was born in Renfrew, and was probably educated at the university of Glasgow. He was ordained priest in 1540, and in 1552 was appointed master of the grammar school of Linlithgow, from which town he was later “expellit and schott out” by the partisans of Dean Patrick Kinlochy, “preacher” there. He had also enjoyed the office of Provost of the Collegiate Church of St Michael in that town. He retired to Edinburgh, where the return of Queen Mary had given heart to the Catholics. There he took part in the pamphlet war which then raged, and entered into conflict with Knox and other leading reformers. He appears to have acted for a time as confessor to the queen. In July 1562, when engaged in the printing of his Last Blast, he narrowly escaped the vengeance of his opponents, who had by that time gained the upper hand in the capital, and he fled, on the 3rd of September, with the nuncio Gouda to Louvain. He reached Paris in 1565 and became a member of the “German Nation” of the university. At Queen Mary's request he joined Bishop Leslie on his embassy to Queen Elizabeth in 1571, and remained with the bishop after his removal by Elizabeth's orders to ward at Fenny Staunton, Huntingdonshire. When further suspicion fell on Leslie and he was committed to the Tower, Winzet was permitted to return to Paris. There he continued his studies, and in 1574 left for Douai, where in the following year he became a licentiate. He was in residence at Rome from 1575 to 1577, and was then appointed by Pope
