Word Finder - countess

definition

The wife of a count or earl.

definition

A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right; a female holder of an earldom.

example

Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower is 24th Countess of Sutherland; her son will be the 25th Earl.

The countess tried to frown, but could not.

He married in 1847 the countess Clam-Martinic, but there was no issue of the marriage.

Charles's ambition aimed at wider fields, and when Margaret, countess of Flanders, asked help of the French court against the German king William of Holland, by whom she had been defeated, he gladly accepted her offer of the county of; Hainaut in exchange for his assistance (1253); this arrangement was, however, rescinded by Louis of France, who returned from captivity in 1254, and Charles gave up Hainaut for an immense sum of money.

Yesterday the Countess of Meath came again to see me.

In his singlehanded duel with the strength of Germany, Gregory received material assistance from the Countess Matilda of Tuscany.

Dupin de Francueil, a farmer-general of the revenue, who married the widow of Count Horn, a natural son of Louis XV., she in her turn being the natural daughter of Maurice de Saxe, the most famous of the many illegitimate children of Augustus the Strong, by the lovely countess of Konigsmarck.

In 1688 his widow was created countess of Stafford for life, and his eldest son, Henry, had the earldom of Stafford, with special remainder to his brothers.

Lord Byron resided at Ravenna for eighteen months in 1820-21, attracted by the charms of the Countess Guiccioli.

It formed part of the donation of the Countess Matilda to the papacy.

No charter has been found, but a judgment given under a writ of quo warranto in 1578 confirms to the burgesses freedom from toll, passage and pontage, the tolls and stallage of the quay and the right to hold two fairs - privileges which they claimed under charters of Baldwin de Redvers and Isabel de Fortibus, countess of Albemarle, in the 13th century, and Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon, in 1405.

Chretien states that he composed the poem (which he left to be completed by Godefroi de Leigni) at the request of the countess Marie of Champagne, who provided him with matiere et san.

Albany had to blockade Margaret in Stirling Castle before she would surrender her sons, After being obliged to capitulate, Margaret returned to Edinburgh, and being no longer responsible for the custody of the king she fled to England in September, where a month later she bore to Angus a daughter, Margaret, who afterwards became countess of Lennox, mother of Lord Darnley and grandmother of James I.

The strong castle built by Robert de Romille in the time of the Conqueror was partly demolished in 1648, but was restored by the countess of Pembroke.

The church of the Holy Trinity, mainly Perpendicular, was also partly demolished during the Civil War, but was restored by the countess of Pembroke.

The title of princess of Battenberg, derived from an old residence of the grand-dukes of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or "Serene Highness," on the countess and her descendants in 1858.

The formation of a Latin empire in the East increased the popes prestige; while at home it was his policy to organize Countess Matildas heritage by the formation of Guelph leagues, over which he presided.

He was the second son of Emmanuel Scrope Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe, who died governor of Barbadoes in March 1735, and of Mary Sophia Charlotte, a daughter of the baroness Kilmansegge, afterwards countess of Darlington, the mistress of George I.

The second earl's daughter Anne (1651-1732), who succeeded him as a countess in her own right, married in 1663 the famous duke of Monmouth, who was then created 1st duke of Buccleuch; and her grandson Francis became 2nd duke.

Two days later Isabella, countess of Buchan, claimed the right of her family, the Macduffs, earls of Fife, to place the Scottish king on his throne, and the ceremony was repeated with an addition flattering to the Celtic race.

After his abdication he married the countess and spent the rest of his life in quiet retirement upon his private estate in Silesia.

There is a Queen Eleanor cross commemorating the countess of Loudoun, by Sir Gilbert Scott.

The well itself is covered by a fine Gothic building, said to have been erected by Margaret, countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII., with some portions of earlier date.

He begged the countess to obtain a secret interview for him with the queen, and a meeting took place in August 1784 in a grove in the garden at Versailles between him and a lady whom the cardinal believed to be the queen herself.

In any case the countess profited by the cardinal's conviction to borrow from him sums of money destined ostensibly for the queen's works of charity.

Enriched by these, the countess was able to take an honourable place in society, and many persons believed her relations with Marie Antoinette, of which she boasted openly and unreservedly, to be genuine.

In any case the jewellers believed in the relations of the countess with the queen, and they resolved to use her to sell their necklace.

The necklace was given up. Rohan took it to the countess's house, where a man, in whom Rohan believed he recognized a valet of the queen, came to fetch it.

The police set to work to find all her accomplices, and arrested the girl Oliva and a certain Reteaux de Villette, a friend of the countess, who confessed that he had written the letters given to Rohan in the queen's name, and had imitated her signature on the conditions of the bargain.

People, however, persisted in the belief that the queen had used the countess as an instrument to satisfy her hatred of the cardinal de Rohan.

The Dominican church, built in 1749 after the model of St Peter's at Rome, contains a monument by Thorvaldsen to the Countess Dunin-Borkowska; the Greek St Nicholas church was built in 1292; and the Roman Catholic St *Mary church was built in 1363 by the first German settlers.

He was on friendly terms with the prince's mistress,Henrietta Howard, af terwards countess of Suffolk.

This countess of Dysart (afterwards duchess of Lauderdale) was a famous beauty of the period, and notorious both for her amours and for her political influence.

The commune of Cremona is first mentioned in a document of r098, recording its investiture by the countess Matilda with the territory known as Isola Fulcheria.

Map was, as we have seen, frequently in France; Chretien had for patroness Marie, countess of Champagne, step-daughter to Henry II., Map's patron; Map's position was distinctly superior to that of Chretien.

Charles's first wife was Blanche, daughter of Otto IV., count of Burgundy, and of Matilda (Mahaut), countess of Artois, to whom he was married in 1307.

He was designated by Gregory as one of four men most worthy to succeed him, and, after a vacancy of more than five months following the decease of Victor III., he was elected pope on the 12th of March 1088 by forty cardinals, bishops, and abbots assembled at Terracina, together with representatives of the Romans and of Countess Matilda.

He maintained an alliance with the Norman Duke Roger, Robert Guiscard's son and successor, and united the German with the Italian opposition to the emperor by promoting the marriage of the Countess Matilda with young Welf of Bavaria.

Invited to Tuscany by the Countess Matilda, he convoked a council at Piacenza in March 1095, attended by so vast a number of prelates and laymen that its sessions were held in the open air, and addressed by ambassadors of Alexis, the Byzantine emperor, who sought aid against the Mussulmans.

Bonif ace died in 1052, and in the following year the margraviate passed to his daughter, the famous The countess Matilda, who ruled for forty years and played a prominent part in the history of Italy in that period.

It is at this Ghibel- time that the people of Florence first began to acquire influence, and while the countess presided at the courts of justice in the name of the Empire, she was assisted by a group of great feudal nobles, judges, lawyers, &c., who formed, as elsewhere in Tuscany, the boni homines or sapientes.

After the death of Countess Matilda in 1115 the grandi or boni homines continued to rule and administer justice, but in the name of the people - a change hardly noticed at first, but which marks the foundation of the commune.

When the newly elected successor to the throne, the highly popular prince Christian Augustus of Augustenburg, died suddenly in Skane in May 181o, the report spread that he had been poisoned, and that Fersen and his sister, the countess Piper, were accessories.

A few days after her birth her mother left England, and provision for her maintenance having been made by Charles she lived at Exeter under the care of Lady Dalkeith (afterwards countess of Morton) until the surrender of the city to the parliamentarians, when she was taken to Oatlands in Surrey.

At this time he was already so much the coming man that, upon the retirement of Count Lobanov, his mother-in-law, Countess Toll, saw fit to inform Count Muraviev that her son-in-law, upon his appointment as foreign minister, would bear him in mind.

The' independence of the former city was of much later origin, only dating from the death of Countess Matilda (1115), but it rapidly rose to an ever-increasing power, and to inevitable rivalry with Pisa.

This seems to be sufficiently attested by the fact that he was greatly liked and esteemed, not only in the pulpit but in private intercourse, by cultivated women like the countess of Biickeburg, the duchess of Weimar and Frau von Stein, and, what perhaps is more, was exceedingly popular among the gymnasium pupils, in whose education he took so lively an interest.

Doebner ((Leipzig, 1886); Lettres et memoires, edited by Countess Bentinct London, 1880); duke of Portland, Hist.

Although he had a numerous family by his wife, he was completely under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, afterwards created Countess Lichtenau, a woman of strong intellect and much ambition.

Besides his relations with his maitresse en titre, the countess Lichtenau, the king - who was a frank polygamist - contracted two "marriages of the left hand" with Fraulein von Voss and the countess Ddnhoff.

In 1336 it was besieged by the English under William, Lord Montacute, afterwards 1st earl of Salisbury, but was successfully defended by Black Agnes of Dunbar, countess of March, a member of the Murray family.