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the shortest route to the Atlantic seaboard from the great grain- | Ottawa from the north. Above the Chaudière Falls the river is producing areas of western America..

The Ottawa was first explored by Samuel de Champlain in 1613. Champlain describes many of its tributaries, the Chaudière and Rideau Falls, the Long Sault, Chats and other rapids, as well as the character of the river and its banks, with minuteness and reasonable accuracy. He places the Chaudière Falls in 45° 38', the true position being 45° 27'. The Long Sault Rapids on the Ottawa, about midway between Montreal and the capital, were the scene of one of the noblest exploits in Canadian history, when in 1661 the young Sieur des Ormeaux with sixteen comrades and a handful of Indian allies deliberately gave their lives to save New France from an invasion of the Iroquois. They intercepted the war party at the Long Sault, and for nearly a week held them at bay. When finally the last Frenchman fell under a shower of arrows, the Iroquois were thoroughly disheartened and returned crestfallen to their own country. For a hundred and fifty years thereafter the Ottawa was the great highway from Montreal to the west for explorers and fur-traders. The portage paths around its cataracts and rapids were worn smooth by the moccasined feet of countless voyageurs; and its wooded banks rang with the inimitable chansons of Old Canada, as the canoe brigades swept swiftly up and down its broad stream. Throughout the 19th century the Ottawa was the thoroughfare of the lumbermen, whose immense rafts were carried down from its upper waters to Montreal and Quebec.

OTTAWA, a city of Carleton county, province of Ontario, and the capital of the Dominion of Canada, on the right bank of the Ottawa river, 101 m. W. of Montreal and 217 m. N.E. of Toronto. The main tower of the parliament building is in 45° 25' 28" N., and 75° 42' 03" W.

The city stands for the most part on a cluster of hills, 60 to 155 ft. above the river. It is on the main line of the Canadian Pacific railway, which affords direct communication with Montreal by two routes, the North Shore and the Short Line, one on either side of the Ottawa river. Branches of the same railway lead to Brockville, on the St Lawrence river, passing through the town of Smith's Falls where connexion is made with the direct line from Montreal to Toronto; to Prescott, also on the St Lawrence; northward through the Gatineau valley to Maniwaki, in the heart of a famous sporting country, and westward to Waltham, on the north side of the Ottawa. The Grand Trunk offers a third route to Montreal, and another line of the same railway leads to Parry Sound, on Georgian Bay. The Ottawa and New York (New York Central) runs to Cornwall, on the St Lawrence, thence to New York. Electric railways afford communication with all parts of the city and extend eastward to Rockliffe Park and the rifle ranges, westward to Britannia on Lake Deschenes, and through the neighbouring town of Hull to Aylmer and Victoria Park. During the summer months steamers ply down the Ottawa to Montreal, and by way of the Rideau canal and lakes to Kingston on the St Lawrence. A road bridge, partially destroyed in the great fire of 1900, connects Ottawa with Hull; a railway bridge spans the river above the Chaudière Falls; and the Royal Alexandra Bridge, below the falls, carries both steam and electric railway tracks, as well as roadways for vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The site of the city is exceedingly picturesque. For 3 m. it follows the high southern bank of the Ottawa, from the Chaudière Falls, whose mist-crowned cauldron is clearly visible from the summit of Parliament Hill, to and beyond the Rideau Falls, so named by early French explorers because of their curtain-like appearance. The Rideau, a southern tributary of the Ottawa, once formed the eastern boundary of the city, which, however, is now absorbing a string of suburbs that lie along its eastern banks. The Rideau Canal cuts the city in two, the western portion being known as Upper Town and the eastern as Lower Town. Roughly speaking the canal divides the two sections of the population, the English occupying Upper Town and the French Lower Town, though Sandy Hill, a fashionable residential district east of the canal, is mainly occupied by the English. Opposite and a little below the mouth of the Rideau, the Gatineau flows into the

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broken by the Deschenes Rapids, and beyond these again it expands into Lake Deschenes, a favourite summer resort for the people of the city. To the north lie the Laurentian Hills, broken by the picturesque Gatineau Valley.

The crowning architectural feature of the city is the splendid group of Gothic buildings on the summit of Parliament Hill, whose limestone bluffs rise 150 ft. sheer from the river. The three blocks of these buildings form sides of a great quadrangle, the fourth side remaining open. The main front of the central or Parliament building is 470 ft. long and 40 ft. high, the Victoria Tower (180 ft. high) rising over the principal entrance. Behind and connected with the Parliament building is an admirably proportioned polygonal hall, 90 ft. in diameter, in which the library of parliament is housed. The corner stone of the main building was laid by the then prince of Wales in 1860. The buildings forming the eastern and western sides of the quadrangle are devoted to departments of the Dominion government. To the south, but outside the grounds of Parliament Hill, stands the Langevin Block, a massive structure in brown sandstone, also used for departmental purposes. The increasing needs of the government have made necessary the erection of several other buildings and an effort has been made to bring as many of these as possible into a harmonious group. The Archives building and the Royal Mint stand on the commanding eminence of Nepean Point, to the eastward of Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canal lying between. Two large departmental buildings occupy ground south of the Archives building and facing Parliament Hill, one containing the Supreme Court as well as the Federal Department of Justice. At the foot of Metcalfe Street, south of Parliament Hill, stands the Victoria Museum, with the department of mines, with the splendid collections of the Geological and Natural History Museum the departmental library, and the National Art Gallery. The Dominion Observatory stands outside the city, in the grounds of the Central Experimental Farm. Plans were approved in 1909 by the government for a union railway station east of the canal, and immediately south of Rideau Street, and a large hotel (Grand Trunk Railway), the Chateau Laurier, at the southern end of Major's Hill Park. Other prominent buildings are the city hall, post office, Carnegie library, normal and model schools, government printing bureau, county court house, the Basilica or Roman Catholic cathedral, and Christ Church cathedral (Church of England), the Roman Catholic university of Ottawa and the collegiate institute.

The city charities include four large general hospitals, two of which are under Protestant auspices; one is controlled by Roman Catholics; the fourth is devoted to contagious diseases. Ottawa is the seat of the Church of England bishop of Ottawa, and of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Ottawa. Several of the philanthropic and educational orders of the latter church are established here, in nunneries, convents or monasteries. As elsewhere in Ontario, the educational system is divided into public schools (undenominational), and separate schools (Roman Catholic), the latter supported by Roman Catholic taxpayers, the former by all other members of the community. The collegiate institute is common to both, and is used as a preparatory school for the universities.

Ottawa has been a great seat of the lumber trade, and the manufacture of lumber still forms an important part of the industrial life of the city, but the magnificent waterpowers of the Chaudière and Rideau Falls are now utilized for matchworks, flour-mills, foundries, carbide factories and many other flourishing industries, as well as for the development of electric light and power, for the lighting of the city and the running of the electric railways.

The people of Ottawa possess a number of public parks, both within and outside the city, partly the result of their own foresight, and partly due to the labours of the Government Improvement Commission. Parliament Hill itself constitutes a park of no mean proportions, one of the noted features of which is the beautiful Lover's Walk, cut out of the side of the cliff half way between the river and the summit. The grounds above contain

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statues of Queen Victoria, as well as of Sir John Macdonald, | sized settlement at its Ottawa end, which came to be known Alexander Mackenzie, Sir George Cartier and other Canadian political leaders. On the eastern side of the canal is Major's Hill Park, maintained by the government. Below Sandy Hill, on the banks of the Rideau, lies Strathcona Park, an admirable piece of landscape gardening constructed out of what was once an unsightly swamp. Crossing the bridges above the Rideau Falls, and passing the heavily wooded grounds of Rideau Hall, the official residence of the governor-general, we come to Rockliffe Park, beyond which lies the government rifle ranges. Rockliffe Park is the easternmost point of an ambitious scheme of landscape gardening planned by the Improvement Commission. From here a driveway extends to Rideau Hall; thence it crosses the Rideau river to a noble thoroughfare cut through the heart of Lower Town, and known as King Edward Avenue. Crossing the canal by the Laurier bridge, the driveway turns south and follows the west bank of the canal for 4 m. to the Central Experimental Farm, an extensive tract of land upon which experiments in model farming are carried out by government specialists, for the benefit of Canadian farmers. From the Experimental Farm the driveway will be carried around the western side of the city to the banks of the Ottawa, connecting by light bridges with a group of islands above the Chaudière Falls which are to be converted into a park reserve.

as Bytown. As the lumber trade developed Bytown rapidly increased in wealth and importance. In 1854 it was incorporated as a city, the name being changed to Ottawa; and four years later Queen Victoria selected Ottawa as the capital of Canada. Ottawa was admirably situated for a capital from a political and military point of view; but there is reason to believe that the deciding factor was the pressure exerted by the four other rival claimants, Montreal, Quebec, Toronto and Kingston, any three | of which would have fiercely resented the selection of the fourth. The first session of parliament in the new capital was opened in 1865.

Ottawa is governed by a mayor, elected by the city at large; a board of control consisting of four members, similarly elected and a board of 16 aldermen, 2 elected by each of the 8 wards. The city returns 2 members to the Dominion House of Commons and two to the provincial legislature.

The population, of which one-third is French-speaking, the remainder English (with the exception of a small German element), has increased rapidly since the incorporation of the city in 1854. It was 59,928 in 1901; 67,572 in 1906; and in 1907, including the suburbs and the neighbouring town of Hull,

Over 100,000.

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The earliest description of the site of Ottawa is that of Samuel de Champlain, in his Voyages. In June 1613, on his way up the river, he came to a tributary on the south side," at the mouth of which is a marvellous fall. For it descends a height of twenty or twenty-five fathoms with such impetuosity that it makes an arch nearly four hundred paces broad. The savages take pleasure in passing under it, not wetting themselves, except from the spray that is thrown off." This was the Rideau Falls, but a good deal of allowance must be made for exaggeration in Champlain's account. Continuing up the river," we passed," he says, a fall, a league from there, which is half a league broad and has a descent of six or seven fathoms. There are many little islands. The water falls in one place with such force upon a rock that it has hollowed out in course of time a large and deep basin, in which the water has a circular motion and forms large eddies in the middle, so that the savages call it Asticou, which signifies boiler. This cataract produces such a noise in this basin that it is heard for more than two leagues." The present name, Chaudière, is the French equivalent of the old Indian name. For two hundred years and more after Champlain's first visit the Chaudière portage was the main thoroughfare from Montreal to the great western fur country; but it was not until 1800 that any permanent settlement was made in the vicinity. In that year Philemon Wright, of Woburn, Massachusetts, built a home for himself at the foot of the portage, on the Quebec side of the river, where the city of Hull now stands; but for some time the precipitous cliffs on the south side seem to have discouraged settlement there. Finally about 1820 one Nicholas Sparks moved over the river and cleared a farm in what is now the heart of Ottawa. Seven years later Colonel John By, R.E., was sent out to build a canal from a point below the Chaudière Falls to Kingston on Lake Ontario. The canal, completed at a cost of $2,500,000, has never been of any great commercial importance; it has never been called upon to fulfil its primary object, as a military work to enable gun-boats and military supplies to reach the lakes from Montreal without being exposed to attack along the St Lawrence frontier. The building of the canal created a fair

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-J. D. Edgar, Canada and its Capital (Toronto, 1898); A. S. Bradley, Canada in the Twentieth Century (London, 1903), pp. 130-140; F. Gertrude Kenny, "Some account of Byof Ottawa; Mrs H. J. Friel, "The Rideau Canal and the Founder of town," Transactions, vol. i., Women's Canadian Historical Society Bytown," ibid.; M. Jamieson, "A glimpse of our city fifty years ago," ibid.; J. M. Oxley," The Capital of Canada," New England America (London, 1832), pp. 191-198; Andrew Wilson, History of Magazine, N.S., 22, 315-323; Godfrey T. Vigne, Six Months in Old Bytown (Ottawa, 1876); Chas. Pope, Incidents connected with Ottawa (Ottawa, 1868); Wm. P. Lett, Recollections of Bytown (Ottawa, 1874); Wm. S. Hunter, Ottawa Scenery (Ottawa, 1855); Joseph Tassé, Vallée de l'Outaouais (Montreal, 1873). (L. J. B.)

OTTAWA, a city and the county-seat of La Salle county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Illinois river, at the mouth of the Fox, about 84 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900) 10,588, of whom 1804 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 9535- It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railways, by interurban electric railways, and by the Illinois & Michigan Canal. There is a monument at Ottawa to the 1400 soldiers from La Salle county who died in the Civil War, and among the public buildings are the County Court House, the Court House for the second district of the Illinois Appellate Court, and Reddick's Library, founded by William Reddick. Ottawa is the seat of the Pleasant View Luther College (co-educational), founded in 1896 by the Norwegian Lutherans of Northern Illinois. There is a medicinal spring, the water of which is called "Sanicula" water. The water supply of the city is derived from eight deep wells. There are about 150 privately owned artesian wells. In the vicinity are large deposits of coal, of glass-sand, and of clay suitable for brick and tile. The city's manufactures include glass, brick, tile, carriages and wagons, agricultural implements, pianos and organs and cigars. The value of the factory products increased from $1,737,884 in 1900 to $2,078,139 in 1905, or 19.6%.

The mouth of the Fox was early visited by French explorers, and Father Hennepin is said to have discovered here in 168: the first deposit of coal found in America. On Starved Rock, a bold hillock about 125 ft. high, on the southern bank of the Illinois, about midway between Ottawa and La Salle, the French explorer La Salle, assisted by his lieutenant Henri de Tonty and a few Canadian voyageurs and Illinois Indians, established (in December 1682) Fort St Louis, about which he gathered nearly 20,000 Indians, who were seeking protection from the Iroquois. The plateau-like summit, which originally could be reached only from the south by a steep and narrow path, was rendered almost impregnable to Indian attack by a sheer cliff on the river side of the hill, a deep ravine along its eastern base and steep declivities on the other sides. On the summit La Salle built store-houses and log huts, which he surrounded by intrenchments and a log palisade. The post was used by fur traders as late as 1718. The hill has borne its present name since about 1770, when it became the last refuge of a small band of Illinois flying before a large force of Pottawattomies, who believed that an Illinois had assassinated Pontiac, in whose conspiracy the Pottawattomies had taken part. Unable to dislodge the Illinois, the Pottawattomies cut off their escape and let them die of starvation. Ottawa was laid out in 1830, incorporated as a village in 1838 and chartered as a city in 1853On the 21st of August 1858 the first of the series of political debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, in their contest for the United States senatorship, was held at

Ottawa. The semi-centennial of this debate was celebrated in 1908, when the Illini Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, caused a suitably inscribed boulder weighing 23 tons to be set up in Washington Park as a memorial. OTTAWA, a city and the county-seat of Franklin county, eastern Kansas, U.S.A., situated on the Osage (Marais des Cygnes) river, about 58 m. (by rail) S.W. of Kansas City. Pop. (1900) 6934, of whom 333 were foreign born; (1905) 7727; (1910) 7670. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé (which has large repair shops here) and the Missouri Pacific railways. There is a Carnegie library, and Forest Park, within the city limits, is a popular meeting place of conventions and summer gatherings, including the annual Ottawa Chautauqua Assembly. Ottawa University (Baptist) was established here in 1865, as the outgrowth of Roger Williams University, which had been chartered in 1860 for the education of Indians on the Ottawa Reservation, and had received a grant of 20,000 acres from the Federal government in 1862. The university comprises an academy, a college, a school of fine arts and a commercial college, and in 1909 had 406 students. Ottawa has an important trade in grain and live-stock; soft coal and natural gas are found in the vicinity; the manufactures include flour, windmills, wire-fences, furniture, bricks, brooms and foundry products. Ottawa was settled in 1854, and was first chartered as a city

in 1866.

OTTER (O. Eng. ole, olor, a common Teutonic word, cf. Dutch and Ger. Oller, Dan. odder, Swed. utler; it is to be referred to the root seen in Gr. dwp, water), a name properly given to the well-known European carnivorous aquatic mammal (Lutra vulgaris, or L. lutra), but also applicable to all the members of the lutrine section of the family Mustelidae (see CARNIVORA). The otter has an elongated, low body, short limbs, short broad feet, with five toes on each, connected together by webs, and all with short, moderately strong, compressed, curved, pointed claws. Head rather small, broad and flat; muzzle very broad; whiskers thick and strong; eyes small and black; ears short and rounded. Tail a little more than half the length of the body and head together, broad and strong at the base, and gradually tapering to the end, somewhat flattened horizontally. The fur is of fine quality, consisting of a short soft whitish grey under-fur, brown at the tips, interspersed with longer, stiffer and thicker hairs, shining, greyish at the base, bright rich brown at the points, especially on the upper-parts and outer surface of the legs; the throat, cheeks, under-parts and inner surface of the legs brownish grey throughout. Individual otters vary in size. The total length from the nose to the end of the tail averages about 3 ft., of which the tail occupies 1 ft. 3 or 4 in. The weight of a full-sized male is from 18 to 24 lb, that of a female about 4 lb less. As the otter lives almost exclusively on fish, it is rarely met with far from water, and usually frequents the shores of brooks, rivers, lakes and, in some localities, the sea itself. It is a most expert swimmer and diver, easily overtaking and seizing fish in the water; but when it has captured its prey it brings it to shore to devour. When lying upon the bank, it holds the fish between its fore-paws, commences at the head and then eats gradually towards the tail, which it is said to leave. The female produces three to five young ones in March or April, and brings them up in a nest formed of grass or other herbage, usually placed in a hollow place in the bank of a river, or under the shelter of the roots of some overhanging tree. The otter is found in localities suitable to its habits throughout Great Britain and Ireland, though less abundantly than formerly, for, being destructive to fish, it is rarely allowed to live in peace when its haunts are discovered. Otter-hunting with packs of hounds of a special breed, and trained for the purpose, is a pastime in many parts of the country. It was formerly the practice to kill the otter with long spears, which the huntsmen carried; now the quarry is picked up and "tailed," or run into by the pack.

The otter ranges throughout the greater part of Europe and Asia; and a closely allied but larger species, L. canadensis, is extensively distributed throughout North America, where it is

pursued for its fur. An Indian species, L. nair, is trained by the natives of some parts of Bengal to assist in fishing, by driving the fish into the nets. In China otters are taught to catch fish, being let into the water for the purpose attached to a long cord.

Otters are widely distributed, and, as they are much alike in size and coloration, their specific distinctions are by no means well defined. Besides those mentioned above, the following have been Peru, and Chili; L. brasiliensis, Brazil; L. maculicollis, South described, L. californica, North America; L. felina, Central America, Africa; L. whiteleyi, Japan; L. chinensis, China and Formosa, and other species. Some, with the feet only slightly webbed, and the claws exceedingly small or altogether wanting on some of the toes, and also with some difference in dental characters, have been separated as a distinct genus, Aonyx. These are L. inunguis from South Africa and L. cinerea from India, Java, and Sumatra.

More distinct still is the sea-otter (Lalax, or Enhydra, lutris). The entire length of the animal from nose to end of tail is about 4 ft., so that the body is considerably larger and more massive than that of the English otter. The skin is peculiarly loose, and stretches when removed from the animal. The fur is remarkable for the preponderance of the beautifully soft woolly under-fur, the longer stiffer hairs being scanty. The general colour is deep liver-brown, silvered or frosted with the hoary tips of the longer stiff hairs. These are, however, removed when the skin is dressed for commercial purposes.

Sea-otters are only found upon the rocky shores of certain parts of the North Pacific Ocean, especially the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, extending as far south on the American coast as

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The Sea-Otter (Latax, or Enhydra, lutris). From Wolf. Oregon; but, owing to the persecution to which they are subjected for the sake of their valuable skins, their numbers are greatly diminishing. The otters are captured by spearing, clubbing, nets and bullets. They do not feed on fish, like true otters, but on clams, mussels, sea-urchins and crabs; and the female brings forth but a single young one at a time, apparently at any season of the year. They are excessively shy and wary; young cubs are often captured by the hunters who have killed the dam, but all attempts to rear them have hitherto

failed.

See Elliott Coues, Monograph on North American Fur-bearing Animals (1877). (W. H. F.; R. L.*)

OTTERY ST MARY, a market town in the Honiton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, 15 m. E. by N. of Exeter, on a branch of the London & South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3495. It is pleasantly situated in the rich valley of the small river Otter. The parish church, the finest in the county, is cruciform, and has the unique feature of transeptal towers, imitated from Exeter Cathedral. The northern has a low spire. The church, which is Early English, with Decorated and Perpendicular additions, contains several ancient tombs. The manor of Ottery belonged to the

abbey of Rouen in the time of Edward the Confessor. The church was dedicated in 1260 by Walter Bronescombe, bishop of Exeter; and c. 1335 Bishop John Grandisson, on founding

a secular college here, greatly enlarged the church; it has been | His power rested wholly on Bavarian bayonets; and when, thought that, by copying the Early English style, he is responsible in 1843, the last of the German troops were withdrawn, he for more of the building than is apparent. The town has a was forced by the outbreak of a revolutionary movement in large agricultural trade. It is the birthplace of Samuel Taylor Athens to grant a constitution and to appoint a ministry of Coleridge (1772); and W. M. Thackeray stayed in the vicinity native Greeks. in youth, his knowledge of the locality appearing in Pendennis. OTTIGNIES, a town of Belgium, in the province of Brabant. It is an important station on the main line from Brussels to Namur, and forms the point of junction with several cross lines. It has extensive modern flower and vegetable gardens. Pop. (1904) 2405.

OTTO, king of Greece (1815-1867), was the second son of Louis I., king of Bavaria, and his wife Teresa of Saxe-Altenburg. He was born at Salzburg on the 1st of June 1815, and was educated at Munich. In 1832 he was chosen by the conference of London to occupy the newly-erected throne of Greece, and on the 6th of February 1833 he landed at Nauplia, then the capital of independent Greece. Otto, who was not yet eighteen, was accompanied by a council of regency composed of Bavarians under the presidency of Count Josef Ludwig von Armansperg (1787-1853), who as minister of finance in Bavaria had succeeded in restoring the credit of the state at the cost of his popularity. The task of governing a semi-barbarous people, but recently emancipated, divided into bitter factions, and filled with an exaggerated sense of their national destiny, would in no case have been easy; it was not facilitated by the bureaucratic methods introduced by the regents. Though Armansperg and his colleagues did a good deal to introduce system and order into the infant state, they contrived to make themselves hated by the Greeks, and with sufficient reason. That the regency refused to respond to the demand for a constitution was perhaps natural, for the experience of constitutional experiments in emancipated Greece had not been encouraging. The result, however, was perpetual unrest; the regency, too, was divided into a French and a Russian party, and distracted by personal quarrels, which led in 1834 to the recall by King Louis of G. L. von Maurer and Karl von Abel, who had been in bitter opposition to Armansperg. Soon afterwards the Mainotes were in open revolt, and the money obtained from foreign loans had to be spent in organizing a force to preserve order. On the 1st of June 1835 Otto came of age, but, on the advice of his father and under pressure of Great Britain and of the house of Rothschild, who all believed that a capable finance minister was the supreme need of Greece, he retained Armansperg as chancellor of state. The wisdom of this course was more than doubtful; for the expenses of government, of which the conversion of Athens into a dignified capital was not the least, exceeded the resources of the exchequer, and the state was only saved from bankruptcy by the continual intervention of the powers. Though King Louis, as the most exalted of Philhellenes, received an enthusiastic welcome when he visited Greece in the winter of 1835, his son's government grew increasingly unpopular. The Greeks were more heavily taxed than under Turkish rule, they had exchanged government by the sword, which they understood, for government by official regulations, which they hated; they had escaped from the sovereignty of the Mussulman to fall under that of a devout Catholic, to them a heretic. Otto was well intentioned, honest and inspired with a genuine affection for his adopted country; but it needed more than mere amiable qualities to reconcile the Greeks to his rule.

In 1837 Otto visited Germany and married the beautiful and talented Princess Amalie of Oldenburg. The union was unfruitful, and the new queen made herself unpopular by interfering in the government. Meanwhile, at the instance of the Swiss Philhellene Eynard, Armansperg had been dismissed by the king immediately on his return, but a Greek minister was not put in his place, and the granting of a constitution was still postponed. The attempts of Otto to conciliate Greek sentiment by efforts to enla. e the frontiers of his kingdom, e.g. by the suggested acquisition of Crete in 1841, failed of their object and only succeeded in embroiling him with the powers.

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With the grant of the constitution Otto's troubles increased. The Greek parliament, like its predecessors during the War of Liberation, was the battleground of factions divided, not by national issues, but by their adherence to one or other of the great powers who made Greece the arena of their rivalry for the control of the Mediterranean. Otto thought to counteract the effects of political corruption and incompetence by overriding the constitution to which he had sworn. The attempt would have been perilous even for a strong man, a native ruler and an Orthodox believer; and Otto was none of these. His prestige, moreover, suffered from the "Pacifico incident" in 1850, when Palmerston caused the British fleet to blockade the Peiraeus, to exact reparation for injustice done to a Levantine Jew who happened also to be a British subject. For the ill-advised intervention in the Crimean War, which led to a second occupation of the Peiraeus, Otto was not responsible; his consent had been given under protest as a concession to popular clamour. His position in Greece was, however, becoming untenable. In 1861 a student named Drusios attempted to murder the queen, and was hailed by the populace as a modern Harmodios. In October 1862 the troops in Acarnania under General Theodore Srivas declared for the king's deposition; those in Athens followed suit; a provisional government was set up and summoned a national convention. The king and queen, who were at sea, took refuge on a British war-ship, and returned to Bavaria, where they were lodged by King Louis in the palace of the former bishops of Bamberg. Here, on the 26th of July 1867, Otto died. He had become strangely persuaded that he held the throne of Greece by divine right; and, though he made no effort to regain it, he refused to acknowledge the validity of the election of Prince George of Denmark,

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See E. A. Thouvenel, La Grèce du roi Othon (Paris, 1890); G. L. von Maurer, Das griechische Volk, &c. (1836); C. W. P. MendelssohnDie Verwaltung König Ottos von Griechenland und Bartholdy, sein Sturz (in Preuss. Jahrbücher, iv. 365); K. T. v. Heigel, Ludwig I., König von Baiern, pp. 149 et seq. (Leipzig, 1872); H. H. Parish, The Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of Greece from the Year 1830 (London, 1838), the author of which was attached to the British Legation at Athens.

OTTO I. (912-973), surnamed the Great, Roman emperor, eldest son of King Henry I. the Fowler by his second wife Matilda, said to be a descendant of the Saxon hero Widukind, was born on the 23rd of November 912. Little is known of his early years, but he probably shared in some of his father's campaigns. In 929 he married Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder, king of the English, and sister of the reigning sovereign Æthelstan. It is said that Matilda wished her second son Henry to succeed his father, as this prince, unlike his elder brother, was born the son of a king. However this may be, Henry named Otto his successor, and after his death in July 936 Otto was chosen German king and crowned by Hildebert, archbishop of Mainz. This ceremony, according to the historian Widukind, was followed by a banquet at which the new king was waited upon by the dukes of Lorraine, Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia. Otto soon showed his intention of breaking with the policy of his father, who had been content with a nominal superiority over the duchies; in 937 he punished Eberhard, duke of Franconia, for an alleged infringement of the royal authority; and in 938 deposed Eberhard, who had recently become duke of Bavaria. During these years the Bohemians and other Slavonic tribes ravaged the eastern frontier of Germany, but although one expedition against them was led by the king in person, the defence of this district was left principally to agents. Trouble soon arose in Saxony, probably owing to Otto's refusal to give certain lands to his half-brother, Thankmar, who, although the king's senior, had been passed over in the succession as illegitimate. Thankmar, aided by an influential Saxon noble named Wichmann, and by Eberhard of Franconia, seized

the fortress of Eresburg and took Otto's brother Henry prisoner; | but soon afterwards he was defeated by the king and killed whilst taking sanctuary. The other conspirators were pardoned, but in 039 a fresh revolt broke out under the leadership of Henry, and Giselbert, duke of Lorraine. Otto gained a victory near Xanten, which was followed by the surrender of the fortresses held by his brother's adherents in Saxony, but the rebels, joined by Eberhard of Franconia and Archbishop Frederick of Mainz continued the struggle, and Giselbert of Lorraine transferred his allegiance to Louis IV., king of France. Otto's precarious position was saved by a victory near Andernach when Eberhard was killed, and Giselbert drowned in the subsequent flight. Henry took refuge with Louis of France, but was soon restored to favour ind entrusted with the duchy of Lorraine, where, however, he was unable to restore order. Otto therefore crossed the Rhine and deprived his brother of authority. Henry then became involved in a plot to murder the king, which was discovered in time, and the good offices of his mother secured for him a pardon at Christmas 941. The deaths of Giselbert of Lorraine and of Eberhard of Franconia, quickly followed by those of two other dukes, enabled Otto to unite the stem-duchies more closely with the royal house. In 944 Lorraine was given to Conrad, surnamed the Red, who in 947 married the king's daughter Liutgard; Franconia was retained by Otto in his own hands; Henry married a daughter of Arnulf, duke of Bavaria, and received that duchy in 947; and Swabia came in 949 to the king's son Ludolf, who had married Ida, a daughter of the late duke, Hermann. During these years the tribes living between the Elbe and the Oder were made tributary, bishoprics were founded in this district, and in 950 the king himself marched against the Bohemians and reduced them to dependence. Strife between Otto and Louis IV. of France had arisen when the French king sought to obtain authority over Lorraine and aided the German rebels in 939; but after the German king had undertaken an expedition into France, peace was made in 942. Afterwards, when Louis became a prisoner in the hands of his powerful vassal Hugh the Great, duke of France, Otto attacked the duke, who, like the king, was his brother-in-law, captured Reims, and negotiated a peace between the two princes; and in subsequent struggles between them his authority was several times invoked. | In 945 Berengar I., margrave of Ivrea, left the court of Otto and returned to Italy, where he soon obtained a mastery over the country. After the death in 950 of Lothair, king of Italy, Berengar sought the hand of his widow Adelaide for his son Adalbert; and Henry of Bavaria and Ludolf of Swabia had already been meddling independently of each other in the affairs of northern Italy. In response to an appeal from Adelaide, Otto crossed the Alps in 951. He assumed the title of king of the Lombards, and having been a widower since 946, married Adelaide and negotiated with pope Agapetus II. about his reception in Rome. The influence of Alberic, prince and senator of the Romans, prevented the pope returning a favourable answer to the king's request. But when Otto returned to Germany in 952 he was followed by Berengar, who did homage for Italy at Augsburg. The chief advisers of Otto at this time were his wife and his brother Henry. Henry's influence seems to have been resented by Ludolf, who in 946 had been formally designated as his father's successor. When Adelaide bore a son, and a report gained currency that Otto intended to make this child his heir, Ludolf rose in revolt and was joined by Conrad of Lorraine and Frederick of Mainz. Otto fell into the power of the rebels at Mainz and was compelled to agree to demands made by them, which, however, he promptly revoked on his return to Saxony. Ludolf and Conrad were declared deposed, and in 953 war broke out in Lorraine and Swabia, and afterwards in Saxony and Bavaria. Otto failed to Lake Mainz and Augsburg; but an attempt on the part of Conrad and Ludolf to gain support from the Magyars, who had seized the opportunity to invade Bavaria, alienated many of their supporters. Otto's brother Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, was successful in restoring the royal authority in Lorraine, so that when Conrad and Frederick soon afterwards submitted to Otto, the struggle was confined to Bavaria. Ludolf was not long in

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following the example of Conrad; and with the capture of Regensburg in 955 the rising ended. Conrad and Ludolf retained their estates, but their duchies were not restored to them. Meanwhile the Magyars had renewed their ravages and were attacking Augsburg. Otto marched against them, and in a battle fought on the Lechfeld on the 10th of August 955 the king's troops gained a brilliant victory which completely freed Germany from these invaders; while in the same year Otto also defeated the Slavs who had been ravaging the Saxon frontier.

About this time the king seems to have perceived the necessity of living and ruling in closer union with the church, a change of policy due perhaps to the influence of his brother Bruno, or forced upon him when his plans for uniting the duchies with the royal house brought rebellion in their train. Lands and privileges were granted to prelates, additional bishoprics were founded, and some years later Magdeburg was made the seat of an archbishop. In 960 Otto was invited to come to Italy by Pope John XII., who was hard pressed by Berengar, and he began to make preparations for the journey. As Ludolf had died in 957 and Otto, his only son by Adelaide, had been chosen king at Worms, the government was entrusted to Bruno of Cologne, and Archbishop William of Mainz, a natural son of the king. Reaching Pavia at Christmas 961, the king promised to defend and respect the church. He then proceeded to Rome, where he was crowned emperor on the 2nd of February 962. After the ceremony he confirmed the rights and privileges which had been conferred on the papacy, while the Romans promised obedience, and Pope John took an oath of fidelity to the emperor. But as he did not long observe his oath he was deposed at a synod held in St Peter's, after Otto had compelled the Romans to swear they would elect no pope without the imperial consent; and a nominee of the emperor, who took the name of Leo VIII., was chosen in his stead. A pestilence drove Otto to Germany in 965, and finding the Romans again in arms on his return in 966, he allowed his soldiers to sack the city, and severely punished the leaders of the rebellion. His next move was against the Greeks and Saracens of southern Italy, but seeking to attain his objects by negotiation, sent Liudprand, bishop of Cremona, to the eastern emperor Nicephorus II. to arrange for a marriage treaty between the two empires. Nicephorus refused to admit the validity of Otto's title, and the bishop was roughly repulsed; but the succeeding emperor, John Zimisces, was more reasonable, and Theophano, daughter of the emperor Romanus II., was married to the younger Otto in 972. The same year witnessed the restoration of peace in Italy and the return of the emperor to Germany, where he received the homage of the rulers of Poland, Bohemia and Denmark; but he died suddenly at Memleben on the 7th of May 973, and was buried at Magdeburg.

Otto was a man of untiring perseverance and relentless energy, with a high idea of his position. His policy was to crush all tendencies to independence in Germany, and this led him to grant the stem-duchies to his relatives, and afterwards to ally himself with the church. Indeed the necessity for obtaining complete control over the church was one reason which induced him to obtain the imperial crown. By this step the pope became his vassal, and a divided allegiance was rendered impossible for the German clergy. The Roman empire of the German nation was indeed less universal and less theocratic under Otto, its restorer, than under Charlemagne, but what it lacked in splendour it

gained in stability. His object was not to make the state religious but the church political, and the clergy must first be officials of the king, and secondly members of an ecclesiastical order. He shared the piety and superstition of the age, and did much for the spread of Christianity. Although himself a stranger to letters he welcomed scholars to his court and eagerly seconded the efforts of his brother Bruno to encourage learning; and while he neither feared nor shirked battle, he was always ready to secure his ends by peaceable means. Otto was of tall and commanding presence, and although subject to violent bursts of passion, was liberal to his friends and just to his enemies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See Widukind, Res gestae Saxonicae; Liudprand of Cremona, Historia Ottonis; Flodoard of Rheims, Annales;

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