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William Temple

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Sir William Temple
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(born April 25, 1628, London, Eng. — died Jan. 27, 1699, Moor Park, Surrey) British statesman. As ambassador to The Hague (1668 – 70, 1674 – 79), he formulated England's pro-Dutch foreign policy and arranged the marriage between William of Orange and Princess Mary of England (later William III and Mary II). After retiring from politics in 1681, he wrote numerous essays that were collected for publication by his secretary, Jonathan Swift. He also wrote the acclaimed Observations upon the United Provinces (1673).

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British History: Sir William Temple
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Temple, Sir William (1628-99). Diplomat and author. Educated at Cambridge, Temple moved from Ireland to England in 1663 and became Arlington's protégé. Accredited envoy at Brussels (1665), he negotiated the Triple Alliance as ambassador at The Hague (1668), but retired to England as relations deteriorated; pro-Dutch, he was recalled to negotiate the 1674 treaty ending the Dutch War, and then, with Danby, successfully arranged the alliance between Charles's niece Mary and William of Orange (1677). He retired from politics in 1681 to pursue gardening, fruit-growing, and writing at Moor Park.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sir William Temple
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Temple, Sir William, 1628-99, English diplomat and author. He was married in 1655 to Dorothy Osborne. They settled in Ireland, and in 1661 Temple entered the Irish parliament. He moved (1663) to England, served on various diplomatic missions, and was made a baronet (1666). In 1668 he negotiated with great skill and speed a triple alliance with the Netherlands and Sweden to check the power of France. He became (1668) ambassador to The Hague but was secretly recalled (1670) after Charles II had concluded the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV. He was reappointed (1674) at the conclusion of the unpopular English-Dutch war and negotiated the marriage (1677) of William of Orange to Princess Mary of England. Temple several times refused to become secretary of state, but he did promote a reorganization (1679) of the privy council. After this proved a failure, he retired (1681) to his estate, Moor Park, in Surrey, and devoted his time to writing. He produced a number of political works and essays. Jonathan Swift, who was Temple's secretary for various periods in the 1690s, helped prepare his letters (1700-1703) and memoirs for publication (parts of both had earlier unauthorized publication). Temple's essay, Of Ancient and Modern Learning (1690), precipitated the famous "ancients versus moderns" controversy, which caused Swift to write The Battle of the Books (1697). Temple's style in his personal essays was long considered a model of balanced and polished prose.

Bibliography

See his life and works (1814); biographies by H. Woodbridge (1940, repr. 1966) and R. C. Steensma (1970).

Quotes By: Sir William Temple
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Quotes:

"The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor."

"There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others."

"The first glass is for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the forth for my enemies."

"When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over."

"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

"No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else."

See more famous quotes by Sir William Temple

Wikipedia: William Temple (VC)
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For other persons of the same name, see William Temple.

Lieutenant Colonel William Temple VC (7 November 1833 - 13 February 1919) was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Born in Monaghan Town, Temple was 30 years old and an Assistant Surgeon in the Royal Regiment of Artillery during the Invasion of Waikato (one of the campaigns in the New Zealand Wars), when the following deed took place on 20 November 1863 at Rangiriri, New Zealand for which he and Lieutenant Arthur Frederick Pickard were awarded the VC:

For gallant conduct during the assault on the enemy's position at Rangiriri, in New Zealand, on the 20th of November last, in exposing their lives to imminent danger, in crossing the entrance of the Maori keep, at a point upon which the enemy had concentrated their fire, with a view to render assistance to the wounded, and, more especially to the late Captain Mercer, of the Royal Artillery.

Lieutenant Pickard, it is stated, crossed, and re-crossed the parapet, to procure water for the wounded, when none of the men could be induced to perform this service, the space over which he traversed being exposed to a crossfire; and testimony is borne to the calmness displayed by him, and Assistant-Surgeon Temple, under the trying circumstances in which they were placed.[1]

Temple died in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

References

  1. ^ London Gazette: no. 22896, p. 4552, 23 September 1864. Retrieved on 19 December 2009.

Listed in order of publication year

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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "William Temple (VC)".  Read more