The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 260

JACOBITES, the name given to the adherents of the Stuart dynasty in Great Britain after their expulsion from the throne in 1688, and derived from that of James II., the last Stuart king; they made two great attempts to restore the exiled dynasty, in 1715 and 1745, but both were unsuccessful, after which the movement exhausted itself in an idle sentimentality, which also is by this time as good as extinct.

JACOBS, a German Greek scholar, born at Gotha; editor of "Anthologia Graeca" (1767-1847).

JACOBUS, a gold coin of the reign of James I., worth 25 s.h.i.+llings.

JACOBY, JOHAN, a Prussian politician, born in Konigsberg; bred to medicine, but best known as a politician in a liberal interest, which involved him in prosecutions; was imprisoned for protesting against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine; he was a man of fearless honesty, and one day had the courage to say to the Emperor William I., "It is the misfortune of kings that they will not listen to the truth" (1805-1877).

JACOTOT, JEAN JOSEPH, a celebrated educationalist, born at Dijon, France; after holding various educational appointments, he in 1818 became professor of the French Language and Literature at Louvain, and subsequently held the post of Director of the Military Normal School; he is noted for his "Universal Method" of education, which is based on his a.s.sumption that men's minds are of equal calibre (1770-1840).

JACQUARD LOOM, a loom with an apparatus for weaving figures in textiles, such as silks, muslins, and carpets, which was the invention of an ingenious Frenchman, born in Lyons, of the name of Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834).

JACQUERIE, the name given to an insurrection of French peasants against the n.o.bles in the ILE OF FRANCE (q. v.), which broke out on May 21, 1358, during the absence of King John as a prisoner in England; it was caused by the oppressive exactions of the n.o.bles, and was accompanied with much savagery and violence, but the n.o.bles combined against the revolt, as they did not do at the time of Revolution, preferring rather to leave the country in a pet, and it was extinguished on the 9th June following.

JACQUES BONHOMME, a name given to a French peasant as tamely submissive to taxation.

JADE, is the common name of about 150 ornamental stones, but belongs properly only to nephrite, a pale grey, yellowish, or white mineral found in New Zealand, Siberia, and chiefly in China, where it is highly valued.

JAEL, the Jewish matron who slew Sisera the Canaanitish captain, smiting a nail into his temples as he lay asleep in her tent, Judges iv.

18, 21.

JAEN (26), a picturesque cathedral city, capital of a province of the same name, in Andalusia, Spain, on a tributary of the Guadalquivir, 50 m. NW. of Granada; the province (438) lies along the valley of the Guadalquivir, and was once a Moorish kingdom.

JAGGANNATHA. See JUGGERNAUT.

JAGHIR, revenue from land or the produce of it, a.s.signed in India by the Government to an individual as a reward for some special service.

JAHN, FRED. L., a German patriot, born in Pomerania; did much to rouse his country into revolt against the domination of France in 1813 (1778-1852).

JAHN, JOHAN, a Catholic theologian and Orientalist, born in Moravia; held professors.h.i.+ps in Olmutz and Vienna; was distinguished as a Biblical scholar, author of "Biblical Archaeology," in five vols., as well as an Introduction to the Old Testament, with Grammar, Lexicons, &c., in connection with the Biblical languages (1750-1816).

JAHN, OTTO, philologist and archaeologist, born at Kiel; after holding the post of lecturer at Kiel and Greifswald he, in 1847, was appointed to the chair of Archaeology in Leipzig; becoming involved in the political troubles of 1848-49, he lost his professorial position, but subsequently held similar appointments at Bonn and Berlin; his voluminous writings, which cover the field of Greek and Roman art and literature, and include valuable contributions to the history of music, are of first-rate importance (1813-1869).

JAIL FEVER, the popular name of a fever now known to be a severe form of typhus, such as happened in 1579 at the "Black a.s.size," so called as so many of those in the conduct of it died infected by the prisoners.

JAINAS, sects of Hindus scattered up and down India, allied to the Buddhists, though ecclesiastically in open antagonism to them; they reject the Veda of the Brahmans, and oppose to it another of their own, as also their caste and their sacerdotalism, though they observe the rules of caste among themselves; like the Buddhists, they are divided into an ascetic cla.s.s and a lay, but monasticism is not developed to the same degree among them. There are two princ.i.p.al sects, "the white-gowns"

and "the air-clad," i. e. naked, though it is only at meals, which they eat in common, that the latter strip naked; "Not only do they abstain from animal food, but they drink only filtered water, breathe only through a veil, and go sweeping the ground before them for fear of swallowing or crus.h.i.+ng any smallest animalcule." In religion they are atheists, and admit of no Creator or of any perfection of being at the beginning, only at the end. They distinguish between soul and body, and regard the former as eternal; evil is not in mere existence, but in life, and their Nirvana is a blessedness without break or end. We know little or nothing of the history of these sects; with them conduct is everything; their origin is of later date than that of the Buddhists. See BARTH'S "RELIGIONS OF INDIA," translated by the Editor.

JALAPA (16), capital of the Mexican State of Vera Cruz, is prettily situated at the base of the Cordilleras, 60 m. NW. of Vera Cruz city.

JALISCO (1,250), a maritime state in Mexico facing the Pacific; consists chiefly of elevated plateau; enjoys a fine climate; has long-established mining industries, some agriculture, and a growing trade in cotton and woollen goods, tobacco, &c.; capital, Guadalajara.

JAMAICA ("Land of Springs") (640, of which 15 are whites), a British crown colony, the largest and most important of the British West India Islands; is one of the Greater Antilles group, and lies some 90 m. S. of the eastern end of Cuba; its greatest length E. and W. 144 m.; is traversed by the Blue Mountains (7400 ft.), whose slopes are clad with luxuriant forests of mahogany, cedar, satin-wood, palm, and other trees; of the numerous rivers, only one, the Black River, is navigable and that for only flat-bottomed boats and canoes; there are many harbours (Kingston finest), while good roads intersect the island; the climate is oppressively warm and somewhat unhealthy on the coast, but delightful in the interior highlands; for administrative purposes the land area is divided into three counties, Surrey, Middles.e.x, and Cornwall; the chief trade-products are dye-woods, fruit, sugar, rum, coffee, and spices; discovered in 1494 by Columbus, and since 1670 a possession of England.

JAMES, the name of three disciples of Christ; James, the elder son of Zebedee, by order of the high-priest was put to death by Herod Agrippa; James, the younger son of Alphaeus; and James, the brother of the Lord, stoned to death.

JAMES I., king of Scotland from 1406 to 1437, son of Robert III., born at Dunfermline; in 1406, while on a voyage to France, he was captured by the English and detained by Henry IV. for 18 years, during which time, however, he was carefully trained in letters and in all knightly exercises; returning to Scotland in 1424 with his bride, Jane Beaufort, niece of the English king, he took up the reins of government with a firm hand; he avenged himself on the n.o.bles by whose connivance he had been kept so long out of his throne, reduced the turbulent Highlanders to order, and introduced a number of beneficial reforms (e. g.

a wider parliamentary franchise, a fixed standard for the coinage, a supreme court of civil jurisdiction, a renovated system of weights and measures), and widened Scotland's commercial relations with the Continent; he was a man of scholarly tastes, a patron of learning, and exhibits no mean poetic gift in his well-known poem the "King's Quhair"; his vigorous and sometimes harsh and vindictive efforts to lower the powers of the n.o.bility procured him their inveterate hatred, and in 1437 he was murdered in the Dominican monastery at Perth by a band of conspirators (1394-1437).

JAMES II., king of Scotland from 1437 to 1460, son of preceding; during his minority the country was torn by rival factions amongst the n.o.bility, the chief point of contest being the wards.h.i.+p of the young king; an attempt on the part of the conspirators who had murdered James I. to place their leader, the Earl of Athole, on the throne, was frustrated; in 1449 James a.s.sumed the duties of his kings.h.i.+p, and in the same year married Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Gueldres; an English war then being waged on the Borders was brought to a close, and the young king entered vigorously upon administrative reforms; in these efforts he was hampered by the opposition of the n.o.bility, and his fiery temper led him to partic.i.p.ate in the murder of the chief obstructionist, the Earl of Douglas; protection given to the exiled Douglases by the Yorkists led James to support the claims of Henry VI. in England; he was killed by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh Castle (1430-1460).

JAMES III., king of Scotland from 1460 to 1488, son of James II.; was during his minority under the care of his mother and Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews, the Earl of Angus being lieutenant-general of the kingdom; but the bishop and the earl died before he was 14, and the n.o.bility fell into faction and disorder again; the first to gain power was Lord Boyd (whose son married the king's sister), but a charge of treason brought about his downfall and exile; the king married Princess Margaret of Denmark in 1469, and gave himself up to a life of quiet ease surrounded by men of art and culture, while his brothers Albany and Mar, by their military tastes and achievements, won the affections of the n.o.bles; James, becoming jealous, imprisoned them; Albany, who had intrigued with Edward IV., fled to France, Mar died in Craigmillar Castle; while the king and his army were marching to meet expected English action in 1482 the n.o.bles, instigated by Archibald, Bell-the-Cat, seized and hanged the royal favourites at Lauder, and committed the king to Edinburgh Castle; a short reconciliation was effected, but was soon broken, and civil war ensued; the defeat of the royalist forces at Sauchieburn took place in 1488; the king escaped from the field, but was thrown from his horse, and taking refuge in a house at Beaton's Mill, was there slain (1462-1488).

JAMES IV., king of Scotland from 1488 to 1513, partic.i.p.ated in the rebellion which overthrew his father, James III., and succeeded him; but in remorse for his unfilial conduct wore an iron belt all his life; during his youth his supporters carried on the government in their own interests, and despoiled the n.o.bles who had been loyal to the late king; but when he came of age he showed his independence in choosing good advisers, among them Sir Andrew Wood; his reign was marked by resistance to the claims of the Roman pontiff, by the firm and wise administration of law, the fostering of agriculture, of s.h.i.+pbuilding, and other industries; in 1503 James married Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.; after that king's death relations between the two countries became strained; two English men-of-war captured Andrew Barton's privateers; the jewels which the queen inherited from her father were retained by Henry VIII., and James maintained an alliance with Henry's enemy, France; at the solicitation of the French queen, against the advice of his own queen and n.o.bles, he invaded England in 1513, but the invasion ended in disaster at Flodden, where he and the flower of his army perished; he was an able but a headstrong, a pleasure-loving, and an extravagant man (1472-1513).

JAMES V., king of Scotland from 1513 to 1542, was only an infant when he succeeded to his father's throne; his mother was regent till her marriage with young Angus, when the n.o.bles called James IV.'s cousin, Albany, from France to a.s.sume the regency; French and English factions sprang up; Henry VIII. intrigued in the affairs of the country; anarchy and civil war ensued, and Albany retired to France in 1524; in that year the queen-mother, aided by Henry, took the young king from Sir David Lyndsay, to whom he had been entrusted, and a.s.sumed the government again in his name; the Douglas family usurped his person and the government in 1525; but James a.s.serted himself three years later, and began to reign in person, displaying judgment and resolution, banis.h.i.+ng the Douglases, keeping order in the Highlands and on the Borders, establis.h.i.+ng the College of Justice, protecting the peasantry from the tyranny of the barons, and fostering trade by a commercial treaty with the Netherlands; he married (1) Princess Magdalene of France in 1537, and (2) Mary of Guise in 1538; Henry, aggrieved by James's failure to meet him in conference on Church matters, and otherwise annoyed, sent 30,000 men into Scotland in 1542; disaffection prevented the Scottish forces from acting energetically, and the rout of Solway Moss took place; the king, vexed and shamed, sank into a fever and died at Falkland; in this reign the Reformation began to make progress in Scotland, and would have advanced much farther but that James had to support the clergy to play off their power against the n.o.bles (1512-1542)

JAMES VI. OF SCOTLAND AND I. OF ENGLAND, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Darnley, born in Edinburgh Castle; was proclaimed king of Scotland when only 13 months old, in 1567; entrusted to the Earl of Mar, and educated by George Buchanan; Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton were successively regents, till James a.s.sumed the government in 1581, executing Morton and choosing Arran and Lennox for his advisers; plots and counter-plots, the Raid of Ruthven (1582), the siege of Stirling by some of the n.o.bles with 10,000 troops, mostly from England, the surrender of the king and the fall of Arran in 1585, the insurrection of the Catholic n.o.bles 1491-94, and the Gowrie Conspiracy in 1600, betrayed the restlessness of the kingdom, and the weakness of the king; James married Anne of Denmark 1589; on the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, he succeeded to the throne of England as JAMES I.; was at first popular, but soon forfeited all confidence by his favouritism; he governed through creatures like Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the infamous Buckingham, whose indiscretion brought about a war with Spain in 1624; James died immediately afterwards; he has been described by Sully as "the wisest fool in Christendom"; his conduct was certainly much less creditable than his conversation; he held absurdly high views of the royal prerogative; but he sold patents of n.o.bility, and was careless of the misdeeds of his ministers; he did not live to see revolution, but he saw its precursor in the loosening of the bonds of sympathy between sovereign and people (1566-1625).

JAMES II. OF ENGLAND AND VII. OF SCOTLAND, the son of Charles I., reigned in succession to Charles II. from 1685 to 1688; during the Commonwealth he was a soldier in France and Spain; at the Restoration returned to England as Duke of York, and became Lord High Admiral; avowing himself a Catholic in 1671, the Test Act of 1673 enforced his resignation, and thenceforward repeated attempts were made to exclude him from the succession; on becoming king he promised to maintain the Church and to respect the liberties of the people, but his government all the same was arbitrary and tyrannical; he paraded his Catholicism, persecuted the Covenanters, subordinated English interests to French, permitted the "b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.size," suspended the Test Act, violated the rights of the Universities, gave Church offices to Roman Catholics, and by these and many other acts of despotism made his deposition necessary; leading statesmen invited William of Orange to a.s.sume the throne, and James fled to France; an invasion of Ireland in 1689 ended in his defeat at Boyne Water; he retired again to France, and lived at St. Germains till his death (1633-1701).

JAMES, EPISTLE OF, a Catholic epistle of the New Testament, presumed to have been written by James, the brother of the Lord, addressed to Jewish Christians who, in accepting Christianity, had not renounced Judaism, and the sphere in which it moves is that of Christian morality, agreeably to the standard of ethics given in the Sermon on the Mount. The author looks upon Judaism as the basis of Christianity, and as on the moral side leading up to it, in correspondence with the attestation of Christ, that "salvation is of the Jews."

JAMES, G. P. R., historical novelist, born in London; wrote as many as a hundred novels, beginning with "Richelieu" in 1829, which brought him popularity, profit, and honour; was burlesqued by Thackeray (1801-1860).

JAMES, SIR HENRY, military engineer; superintended the geological survey of Ireland, and became in 1854 director-general of the Ordnance Survey (1803-1877).