her unexpected death with calmness and composure, about B. C. 300.
AGIGAN LUCREZIA,
Was the wife of Colla, an Italian composer of secondary rank, who was in London in 1777. His compositions were almost exclusively sung by his wife, of whom Burney, in his History of Music, speaks as "a wonderful performer," saying that she had two octaves of fair natural voice, and stating, on the authority of Sacchini, that in early youth she could go up to B flat, in altissimo. Her shake was perfect, her intonation true, and her execution marked and rapid. From London she went to Parma, and died there in 1783.
AGNES,
A German Empress. She was the daughter of Duke William of Aquitaine, and in the year 1043, on the death of his first wife, was espoused by King Henry the Third, of Germany. In 1047 she and her husband received the imperial crown at Rome, from the hands of Pope Clement the Second. By this marriage Agnes bad five children, two sons and three daughters, and her eldest son, Henry, being only five years old when the death of his father took place, the empress was entrusted by the princess of the empire, with the regency. She is generally praised for the manner in which, during several years, she discharged the important duties of this office; but a woman's hand could scarcely have sufficient power to control the unruly spirits of those stormy times. With the view of conciliating the dukes who had been hostile to the late king, she bestowed upon them several vacant duchies, and the power thus given into their hands was turned against her. One of them carried off her daughter Matilda, when only eleven years of age, and others formed a conspiracy for the purpose of getting possession of the young king, and the administration of the affairs of the empire; the former object they accomplished in the year 1062, when Agnes resolved to withdraw from public life; her friends, however, persuaded her to remain in the regency, which she did for a time; but being unable to obtain the restoration of her son, she finally retired to a monastery in Italy, where she died in 1077.
AGNES DE MERANIA,
Daughter of the duke de Merania, married Philip Augustus, king of France, after he was divorced by his bishops from his wife, Ingeborge, sister of the King of Denmark. The Pope declared this second marriage null, and placed France under an interdict, till Philip should take back Ingeborge. Philip was at length obliged to do this, and Agnes died of grief the same year, 1201 at Poissy. Her two children were declared legitimate by the Pope.
AGNES OF FRANCE,
The only child that Louis the Seventh, of France, had by his third wife, Alix de Champagne, was sent before she was ten years old to marry Cesar Alexis, the young son of Emmanuel Comnenus, emperor of Constantinople. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp, 1179, and the next year Alexis, though then only thirteen, succeeded his father in the government. But in 1183 a prince of the same family, Andronicus, deposed and murdered Alexis,
