FETTERCAIRN, a burgh of barony of Kincardineshire, Scotland, 412 m. N.W. of Laurencekirk. Pop. of parish (1901) 1390. The chief structures include a public hall, library and reading-room, and the arch built to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. The most interesting relic, however, is the market cross, which originally belonged to the extinct town of Kincardine. To the S.W. is Balbegno Castle, dating from 1509, and planned on a scale that threatened to ruin its projector. It contains a lofty hall of fine proportions. Two miles N. is Fasque, the estate of the Gladstones, which was acquired in 1831 by Sir John Gladstone (1764–1851), the father of W. E. Gladstone. The castle, which stands in beautiful grounds, was built in 1809. Sir John Gladstone’s tomb is in the Episcopal church of St Andrew, which he erected and endowed. In the immediate vicinity are the ruins of the royal castle of Kincardine, where, according to tradition, Kenneth III. was assassinated in 1005, although he is more generally said to have been slain in battle at Monzievaird, near Crieff in Perthshire.
FETTERS AND HANDCUFFS, instruments for securing the feet and hands of prisoners under arrest, or as a means of punishment.
The old names were manacles, shackbolts or shackles,
gyves and swivels. Until within recent times handcuffs were of
two kinds, the figure-8 ones which confined the hands close
together either in front or behind the prisoner, or the rings from
the wrists were connected by a short chain much on the model
of the handcuffs in use by the police forces of to-day. Much
improvement has been made in handcuffs of late. They are much
lighter and they are adjustable, fitting any wrist, and thus the
one pair will serve a police officer for any prisoner. For the
removal of gangs of convicts an arrangement of handcuffs connected
by a light chain is used, the chain running through a ring
on each fetter and made fast at both ends by what are known
as end-locks. Several recently invented appliances are used as
handcuffs, e.g. snaps, nippers, twisters. They differ from
handcuffs in being intended for one wrist only, the other portion
being held by the captor. In the snap the smaller circlet is
snapped to on the prisoner’s wrist. The nippers can be instantly
fastened on the wrist. The twister, not now used in England as
being liable to injure prisoners seriously, is a chain attached to
two handles; the chain is put round the wrist and the two
handles twisted till the chain is tight enough.
Leg-irons are anklets of steel connected by light chains long enough to permit of the wearer walking with short steps. An obsolete form was an anklet and chain to the end of which was attached a heavy weight, usually a round shot. The Spanish used to secure prisoners in bilboes, shackles round the ankles secured by a long bar of iron. This form of leg-iron was adopted in England, and was much employed in the services during the 17th and 18th centuries. An ancient example is preserved in the Tower of London. The French marine still use a kind of leg-iron of the bilbo type.
FEU, in Scotland, the commonest mode of land tenure. The
word is the Scots variant of “fee” (q.v.). The relics of the
feudal system still dominate Scots conveyancing. That system
has recognized as many as seven forms of tenure—ward, socage,
mortification, feu, blench, burgage, booking. Ward, the original
military holding, was abolished in 1747 (20 G. II. c. 20), as an
effect of the rising of 1745. Socage and mortification have long
since disappeared. Booking is a conveyance peculiar to the
borough of Paisley, but does not differ essentially from feu.
Burgage is the system by which land is held in royal boroughs.
Blench holding is by a nominal payment, as of a penny Scots, or
a red rose, often only to be rendered upon demand. In feu
holding there is a substantial annual payment in money or in
kind in return for the enjoyment of the land. The crown is the
first overlord or superior, and land is held of it by crown vassals,
but they in their turn may “feu” their land, as it is called, to
others who become their vassals, whilst they themselves are
mediate overlords or superiors; and this process of sub-infeudation
may be repeated to an indefinite extent. The Conveyancing
Act of 1874 renders any clause in a disposition against sub-infeudation
null and void. In England on the other hand, since
1290, when the statute Quia Emptores was passed, sub-infeudation
is impossible, as the new holder simply effaces the grantor,
holding by the same title as the grantor himself. Casualties,
which are a feature of land held in feu, are certain payments
made to the superior, contingent on the happening of certain
events. The most important was the payment of an amount
equal to one year’s feu-duty by a new holder, whether heir or
purchaser of the feu. The Conveyancing Act of 1874 abolished
casualties in all feus after that date, and power was given to
redeem this burden on feus already existing. If the vassal does
not pay the feu-duty for two years, the superior, among other
remedies, may obtain by legal process a decree of irritancy,
whereupon tinsel or forfeiture of the feu follows. Previously to
1832 only the vassals of the crown had votes in parliamentary
elections for the Scots counties, and this made in favour of sub-infeudation
as against sale outright. In Orkney and Shetland
land is still largely possessed as udal property, a holding derived
or handed down from the time when these islands belonged
to Norway. Such lands may be converted into feus at the will
of the proprietor and held from the crown or Lord Dundas. At
one time the system of conveyancing by which the transfer
of feus was effected was curious and complicated, requiring the
presence of parties on the land itself and the symbolical handing
over of the property, together with the registration of various
documents. But legislation since the middle of the 19th century
has changed all that. The system of feuing in Scotland, as
contrasted with that of long leaseholds in England, has tended
to secure greater solidity and firmness in the average buildings
of the northern country.
See Erskine’s Principles; Bell’s Principles; Rankine, Law of Landownership in Scotland.
FEUCHÈRES, SOPHIE, Baronne de (1795–1840), Anglo-French adventuress, was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, in
1795, the daughter of a drunken fisherman named Dawes.
She grew up in the workhouse, went up to London as a servant,
and became the mistress of the duc de Bourbon, afterwards
prince de Condé. She was ambitious, and he had her well
educated not only in modern languages but, as her exercise
books—still extant—show, in Greek and Latin. He took her
to Paris and, to prevent scandal and to qualify her to be received
at court, had her married in 1818 to Adrien Victor de Feuchères,
a major in the Royal Guards. The prince provided her dowry,
made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. The baroness,
pretty and clever, became a person of consequence at the court
of Louis XVIII. De Feuchères, however, finally discovered
the relations between his wife and Condé, whom he had been
assured was her father, left her—he obtained a legal separation
in 1827—and told the king, who thereupon forbade her appearance
at court. Thanks to her influence, however, Condé was
induced in 1829 to sign a will bequeathing about ten million
francs to her, and the rest of his estate—more than sixty-six
millions—to the duc d’Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe.
Again she was in high favour. Charles X. received her at court,
Talleyrand visited her, her niece married a marquis and her
nephew was made a baron. Condé, wearied by his mistress’s
importunities, and but half pleased by the advances made him
by the government of July, had made up his mind to leave
France secretly. When on the 27th of August 1830 he was
found hanging dead from his window, the baroness was suspected
and an inquiry was held, but the evidence of death being the
result of any crime appearing insufficient, she was not prosecuted.
Hated as she was alike by legitimatists and republicans, life
in Paris was no longer agreeable for her, and she returned to
London, where she died in December 1840.
FEUCHTERSLEBEN, ERNST, Freiherr von (1806–1849), Austrian physician, poet and philosopher, was born in Vienna on the 29th of April 1806; of an old Saxon noble family. He attended the “Theresian Academy” in his native city, and in 1825 entered its university as a student of medicine. In 1833 he obtained the degree of doctor of medicine, settled in Vienna as a practising surgeon, and in 1834 married. The young doctor kept up his connexion with the university, where he lectured, and
