- Charles
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/chahrlz/, n.1. (Prince of Edinburgh and of Wales) born 1948, heir apparent to the throne of Great Britain (son of Elizabeth II).2. Ray (Ray Charles Robinson), born 1930, U.S. blues singer and pianist.3. Cape, a cape in E Virginia, N of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay.4. a river in E Massachusetts, flowing between Boston and Cambridge into the Atlantic. 47 mi. (75 km) long.5. a male given name: from a Germanic word meaning "man."
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(as used in expressions)Carolus Magnus Charles the GreatAdams Charles FrancisAddams Charles SamuelAtlas CharlesBabbage CharlesBarkley Charles WadeCharles Daly BarnetBartlett Sir Frederic CharlesBaudelaire Charles PierreBeard Charles AustinBenchley Robert CharlesCharles Edward Anderson BerryCharles Ferdinand de BourbonBessey Charles EdwinBest Charles HerbertAnthony Charles LyntonBlanc Jean Joseph Charles LouisBorromeo Saint CharlesBoulle André CharlesAndré Charles BouleBoyer CharlesBrown Charles BrockdenCharles Albert BrowningBukowski CharlesBulfinch CharlesBurchfield Charles EphraimBurney CharlesCalmette Albert Léon CharlesCalonne Charles Alexandre deCange Charles du Fresne Lord duCarroll CharlesChamberlain Charles JosephSir Charles Spencer ChaplinCharles the LameCharles of AnjouCharles the BadCharles the BaldCharles the SimpleCharles the FatCharles the FairCharles of LuxembourgCharles ICharles Robert of AnjouCarolus Martellus Charles the HammerCharles the MadCharles the Well BelovedCharles VCharles the WiseCharles XCharles Philip Arthur George prince of WalesCharles RayRay Charles RobinsonChauncy CharlesChesnutt Charles WaddellCharles ChristianClarke Arthur CharlesClaudel Paul Louis Charles MarieColman Ronald CharlesCharles William GordonCooley Charles HortonCornwallis Charles Cornwallis 1st Marquess and 2nd EarlCoughlin Charles EdwardCoulomb Charles Augustin deCressent CharlesCurtis Charles GordonDana Charles AndersonDarwin Charles RobertDaubigny Charles FrançoisDawes Charles Gatesde Colmar Charles Xavier Thomasde Gaulle Charles André Marie JosephDemuth CharlesDibdin CharlesDickens Charles John HuffamDilke Sir Charles Wentworth 2nd BaronetDoherty Peter CharlesDraper Charles StarkDrew Charles RichardDuryea Charles Edgar and James FrankEames Charles and RayEliot Charles WilliamErickson Arthur CharlesFeininger Lyonel Charles AdrianFinley Charles OscarFourier François Marie CharlesFox Charles JamesFrémont John CharlesFriml Charles RudolfFuller John Frederick CharlesGibson Charles DanaGoodyear CharlesGordon Charles GeorgeGoren Charles HenryGosden Freeman Fisher and Correll Charles J.Gounod Charles FrançoisGreene Charles Sumner and Henry MatherGrey Charles Grey 2nd EarlGriffes Charles TomlinsonGuillemin Roger Charles LouisHagen Walter CharlesHall Charles MartinWoodrow Charles HermanCharles Hardin HolleyHouston Charles HamiltonHuggins Charles BrentonHughes Charles EvansCharles Marie Georges HuysmansCharles Icle Ivanhoe IvesIves Charles EdwardJackson Charles ThomasCharles Martin JonesKettering Charles FranklinKingsley CharlesKinsey Alfred CharlesL'Enfant Pierre CharlesLamb CharlesLartigue Jacques Henri Charles AugusteLaughton CharlesLe Brun CharlesCharles Édouard JeanneretRay Charles LeonardLindbergh Charles AugustusLoménie de Brienne Étienne Charles deLouis CharlesLovell Sir Alfred Charles BernardSalvatore Lucania later Charles LucianoLyell Sir CharlesMacArthur Charles GordonMackintosh Charles RennieMacready William CharlesManson CharlesMickey Charles MantleMarsh Othniel CharlesMassey Charles VincentMaurras Charles Marie PhotiusMcKim Charles FollenMerrill Charles EdwardMessiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper CharlesMills Charles WrightMingus CharlesMitchum Robert Charles DuranMoley Raymond CharlesMontalembert Charles Forbes René count deMorny Charles Auguste Louis Joseph duke deMusset Louis Charles Alfred deParnell Charles StewartParsons Sir Charles AlgernonPathé CharlesPeale Charles WillsonPeirce Charles SandersPerrault CharlesPhilipon CharlesPinckney CharlesPinckney Charles CotesworthPost Charles WilliamPower Charles GavanReade CharlesRedford Jr. Charles RobertRoberts Sir Charles George DouglasRockingham Charles Watson Wentworth 2nd marquess ofJames Charles RodgersGabriel Charles Dante RossettiRoussel Albert Charles Paul MarieRussell Charles TazeSaint Léon Charles Victor Arthur MichelSaint Saë ns Charles CamilleSainte Beuve Charles AugustinSchulz CharlesSchwab Charles MichaelScribner CharlesCharles ScrivenerSheeler CharlesSherrington Sir Charles ScottShrewsbury Charles Talbot duke and 12th earl ofSiemens Sir Charles WilliamSimic CharlesSismondi Jean Charles Léonard Simonde deSnow Charles PercySpearman Charles EdwardStanhope Charles Stanhope 3rd EarlSteinmetz Charles ProteusCharles Dillon StengelStuart Gilbert CharlesSumner CharlesSwinburne Algernon CharlesTalleyrand Périgord Charles Maurice deTocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clérel deTownes Charles HardTownshend of Rainham Charles Townshend 2nd ViscountVarèse Edgard Victor Achille CharlesVenturi Robert CharlesVergennes Charles Gravier count deWeidman CharlesWilson Charles Thomson ReesWorth Charles FrederickYanofsky CharlesCharles Elwood YeagerZola Émile Édouard Charles AntoineCharles Edward the Young PretenderCharles Edward Louis Philip Casimir StuartLansdowne Henry Charles Keith Petty Fitzmaurice 5th marquess ofLéopold Philippe Charles Albert Meinrad Hubertus Marie MiguelMontesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat baron de La Brède et deNapoléon François Charles Joseph BonaparteCharles Louis Napoléon BonaparteNorthcliffe of Saint Peter Alfred Charles William Harmsworth Viscount* * *
▪ count of Flandersbyname Charles The Good, French Charles Le Bon, Dutch Karel De Goedeborn c. 1084died March 2, 1127, Bruges, Flanderscount of Flanders (1119–27), only son of St. Canute, or Canute IV of Denmark, by Adela, daughter of Robert I the Frisian, count of Flanders. After the assassination of Canute in 1086, his widow took refuge in Flanders, taking with her her son. Charles was brought up by his mother and grandfather, Robert the Frisian, on whose death he did great services to his uncle, Robert II, and his cousin, Baldwin VII, counts of Flanders. Baldwin died of a wound received in battle in 1119 and, having no issue, left by will the succession to his countship to Charles. Charles did not secure his heritage without a civil war, but he was speedily victorious and made his position secure by treating his opponents with great clemency. He now devoted himself to promoting the welfare of his subjects and did his utmost to support the cause of Christianity, both by his bounty and by his example. He refused the offer of the crown of Jerusalem on the death of Baldwin I and declined to be nominated as a candidate for the imperial crown in succession to the Holy Roman emperor Henry V. He was murdered on Ash Wednesday, 1127, in the church of St. Donat at Bruges.county, southern Maryland, U.S., bounded by the Potomac River to the south and west, Mattawoman Creek to the north, and the Patuxent and Wicomico rivers to the east. It is linked to Virginia across the Potomac by the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge. Parklands include the southern part of Cedarville State Forest, Doncaster Demonstration Forest, and Smallwood State Park. Charles county was created in 1658 and named for Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (Baltimore, Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron). Before being moved to La Plata in 1895, the county seat from 1727 was Port Tobacco, one of the oldest extant English settlements in North America.The principal economic activities are tobacco farming and sand and gravel quarrying. Area 461 square miles (1,194 square km). Pop. (2000) 120,546; (2007 est.) 140,444.▪ duke of Brittanybyname Charles Of Bloisborn 1319died Sept. 29, 1364, Auray, Fr.rival duke of Brittany, a son of the French king Philip VI's sister Margaret.Charles's claim to Brittany through his marriage to Joan the Lame of Penthièvre, niece of Duke John III of Brittany, led to a conflict with the other claimants, John of (John (IV)) Montfort and later his son Duke John IV of Brittany, in the 20-year War of the Breton Succession, which also involved the kings of England and France. When John of Montfort began to win most of Brittany, Charles appealed to Philip, who had the peers of France recognize Charles as sole heir to the duchy; meanwhile, John had sought the aid of Edward III of England. On Nov. 1, 1341, Charles seized the city of Nantes and imprisoned John for four years. When Edward attacked Nantes, Pope Clement VI intervened in 1343 to conclude a truce. The war was renewed, however, and Charles was captured at La Roche-Derrien in January 1347 and incarcerated in the Tower of London; he paid a ransom and promised to hold Brittany, under vassalage to Edward. On July 12, 1363, Charles finally agreed on a partition of Brittany with Duke John IV (John IV (or V)) of Brittany but was persuaded by his wife to break the treaty. At the Battle of Auray (Sept. 29, 1364), Charles was killed and his army defeated.▪ duke of BurgundyIntroductionbyname Charles the Bold, French Charles le Téméraireborn Nov. 10, 1433, Dijon, Burgundy [now in France]died Jan. 5, 1477, near Nancy, Lorrainelast of the great dukes of Burgundy (1467 to 1477).Early yearsThe son of Duke Philip III the Good of Burgundy, Charles was brought up in the French manner as a friend of the French dauphin, afterward Louis XI of France, who spent five years in Burgundy before his accession. Although he had shown no hostility toward France before taking over the government of Burgundy during his father's last illness, he thereupon gave rein to an ambition to make Burgundy independent of France and to raise it, if possible, to a kingdom.Charles was almost entirely successful until 1474. He extended Burgundy's possessions, organized them as a state, and freed them from French control. Much annoyed by Louis XI's acquisition of Burgundian territory on the Somme River, he entered upon a lifelong struggle against Louis and became one of the principal leaders of the League of the Public Weal, an alliance of the leading French magnates against Louis. Charles forced Louis to restore to him the territory on the Somme in the Treaty of Conflans (October 1465) and to promise him the hand of his daughter Anne of France, with Champagne as dowry. Louis continued to encourage the towns of Dinant and Liège to revolt against Burgundy. But Charles sacked Dinant (1466), and the Liégeois were defeated in battle and deprived of their liberties after the death of Philip the Good (1467).Charles, now not merely regent but duke in his own right, outdid Louis by obtaining the alliance of Edward IV of England, whose sister Margaret of York he married as his third wife (July 1468). Louis now tried negotiations with Charles at Péronne (October 1468). There, in the course of the discussions, Charles was informed of a fresh revolt of the Liégeois, again aided by Louis. Looking on Louis as a traitor, Charles nevertheless negotiated with him but at the same time forced him to remove Flanders, Ghent, and Bruges from the jurisdiction of the Paris parlement (superior court) and to assist in quelling the revolt; Liège was destroyed, and the inhabitants were massacred. The truce, however, was not lasting. Louis commanded Charles to appear before the parlement of Paris and seized some of the towns on the Somme (1470–71). The Duke retaliated by invading Normandy and the Île-de-France, ravaged the country as far as Rouen, but failed in an attack on Beauvais (1471–72). Another truce was made (November 1472), and Charles decided to wait, before renewing his attempt, for assurances of further help from Edward IV and for the solution of the problem of the eastern border of his states.Charles wished to extend his territories as far as the Rhine and to make them into a single unit by acquiring the lands bordered by Burgundy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Losing no opportunity, he purchased the county of Ferrette, the landgraviate of Alsace, and some other towns from the archduke Sigismund of Austria, in 1469; he secured for himself the inheritance of the old duke Arnold of Gelderland in 1473. To achieve his territorial aims, it remained for him only to subdue Cologne and the Swiss cantons and to get Lorraine from René II (René of Vaudémont).Administrative reformsIn the meantime, Charles had been reorganizing his army and the administration of his territories. Statutes promulgated at Thionville (1473) instituted companies of four squadrons, at his expense, and made rules for discipline and tactics; Charles also had many excellent guns cast. He hired soldiers and took many Italian condottieri (mercenary captains) into his service. Intending to centralize the government, he created by statute a single chambre des comptes to control ducal finances for the Netherlands, a chambre du trésor to survey the administration of his own domain, and a chambre des généraux to control the collection of taxes. He exacted very heavy taxes indeed from the States General (parliament), which became a regular institution in his territories. To administer justice, he established a court called the grand conseil at Mechelen, with jurisdiction to supersede that of the parlement of Paris, and another that met alternately at Beaune and at Dole.It remained for Charles to acquire a royal title. For a short time he entertained designs on the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, but this he renounced. On the other hand, he believed that he had persuaded the emperor Frederick III, in the course of conversations at Trier, to agree to crown him king of Burgundy. The royal insignia were ready and the ceremony arranged, when Frederick precipitately fled by night (September 1473). He probably was suspicious of the ambitious Charles.In less than three years, Charles's dream vanished. The crown had slipped through his fingers. He was obliged to give up his plan of taking the little town of Neuss, which he had unsuccessfully besieged for 11 months (July 1474 to June 1475), from the citizens of Cologne. Moreover, the Treaty of Picquigny (Aug. 29, 1475), concluded by Edward IV and Louis XI, made certain the defection of his English ally. Attacked by René of Lorraine, who had signed an agreement with Louis XI (August 1474), and by a coalition of the Swiss, Sigismund of Austria and the towns on the upper Rhine, Charles took Nancy in November 1475; but, in March and June 1476, he was defeated by the Swiss, at Granson and at Morat. In October he lost Nancy. Then, on Jan. 5, 1477, a further battle was fought outside Nancy, and Charles himself was killed; his mutilated body was discovered some days later.The fragility of his achievement is proved by the serious challenges to it during the minority of Mary of Burgundy, his daughter by Isabella of Bourbon. Yet Charles the Bold was not merely a belated representative of the chivalrous spirit; he was a man of wide knowledge and culture, already a prince of the Renaissance. His haste, his lack of adaptability, and his obstinacy lost him much more than did his visionary approach and his boldness.Michel J. MollatAdditional ReadingThe excellent work by J. Bartier, Charles le Téméraire, rev. ed. (1970), with abundant illustrations, an appendix on the historical, literary, and mythical interpretations of the subject, and a critical bibliography, may be considered definitive. A general survey of the period is found in Willem Pieter Blockmans and Walter Prevenier, The Promised Lands: The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule, 1369–1530 (1999).▪ king of Portugalborn Sept. 28, 1863, Lisbondied Feb. 1, 1908, Lisbonking of a troubled Portugal that was beset by colonial disputes, grave economic difficulties, and political unrest during his reign (1889–1908).The son of King Louis and of Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, he married Marie Amélie of Orléans, a granddaughter of the French king Louis-Philippe, in 1886 and succeeded his father on Oct. 19, 1889. Forces generated by mistakes made before his time proved to be the undoing of this talented and intelligent man, who was also known for his paintings and oceanographical studies. At home, republicans, disaffected monarchists, and Freemasons kept up a running opposition. Popular indignation over the British ultimatum of 1890 demanding Portuguese withdrawal from certain African territories resulted in the republican revolt at Oporto (January 1891).In an effort to surmount political difficulties and bring about economic and administrative reform after a series of strikes and revolts, Charles appointed João Franco as prime minister in May 1906 and allowed him to assume dictatorial powers soon thereafter. Although some useful reforms were effected, strong opposition was aroused by governmental coercion and controversies over extravagances and the private life of Charles. While driving through the streets of Lisbon, the king and his eldest son, Louis Philip, were assassinated. Charles was succeeded by another son, Manuel II.▪ king of Provencebyname Charles of Provence , French Charles de Provencedied Jan. 25, 863third son of the Frankish emperor Lothar I. Upon his father's death (855) he inherited the Rhone valley of Burgundy and Provence. He was the first king of Provence, but he died without issue, and Provence was seized by his elder brother, the emperor Louis II.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
