Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/185

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heirs and of full age’ (King's Council in Ireland, p. 326).

[Rymer's Fœdera, vol. iii. (Record edit.); King's Council in Ireland, Walsingham's Gesta Abbatum S. Albani and Hist. Angl. i. (all above in Rolls Ser.); Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1377–81 and 1381–5; Rot. Parl. ii. iii.; Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 509; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, viii. 183–4; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland; Duckett's Duchetiana, pp. 268–83; Duckett's ‘Manorbeer Castle and its Early Owners’ in Archæologia Cambrensis, 4th ser. xi. 137–45; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vol. vii.]

M. T.


WINDUS, JOHN (fl. 1725), author of ‘A Journey to Mequinez,’ was the historian of a mission despatched by George I in 1720 under Commodore Charles Stewart, with a small squadron and the powers of a plenipotentiary, to treat for a peace with the emperor of Morocco. The squadron sailed on 24 Sept. 1720, and in the following May a conference was held between the ambassador's party and the Basha Hamet Ben Ali Ben Abdallah at Tetuan. A treaty of peace, by which piracy was prohibited and the English prisoners released, was signed at Ceuta in January 1721, and Windus thereupon returned to England in Stewart's flagship, the Dover. Windus utilised the four months he spent on land in ‘Barbary’ to collect materials for an account of the Moors, and in 1725, with a dedication to ‘James, earl of Berkley, vice-admiral of England,’ he published ‘A Journey to Mequinez, the residence of the present Emperor of Fez and Morocco’ (Albumazer Muley Ishmael), London, for Jacob Tonson, 1725, 8vo.

No work on Morocco had hitherto appeared in English, with the exception of the somewhat meagre ‘West Barbary’ (1671) of Lancelot Addison [q. v.], and much interest was excited by Windus's book. An influential list of subscribers was obtained, and the volume rapidly went through several editions, and was pirated in Dublin. The author was assisted in his task by M. Corbière, who had at one time resided at the Moorish court, and the work was illustrated by engravings by Fourdrinier, the plates being dedicated to William Pulteney, Lord Cobham, the Duke of Argyll, and other distinguished persons. It was reprinted in the ‘Collection of Voyages’ of 1767, in the ‘World Displayed’ (1774, vol. xvii. 12mo), and in Pinkerton's ‘Collection of Voyages’ (1808, vol. xv. 4to). It was drawn upon to a large extent by Thomas Pellew [q. v.] in his ‘History and Adventure in South Barbary,’ written in 1739, and to some extent also in Thomas Shaw's ‘Travels or Observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant’ (1738, folio). The description of the manners of the people and the methods of the government renders the book ‘a curiosity,’ as it was pronounced by James Boswell and by Stevenson (Cat. of Voyages and Travels, No. 598).

[Windus's Journey to Mequinez; Blackwood's Magazine, xxxi. 205; Budgett Meakin's Moorish Empire, 1899; Playfair's Bibliography of Morocco, 1892; an interesting supplement to Windus is supplied in John Braithwaite's History of the Revolutions in the Empire of Morocco, 1729.]

T. S.


WINEFRIDE (Welsh, Gwenfrewi) is the name of a legendary saint supposed to have lived in the seventh century. She is said to have been the daughter of Teuyth or Temic ap Eliud, of princely lineage, belonging to Tegengle, North Wales. Teuyth gave land to St. Beino, and put his daughter under his teaching. A chieftain, Caradoc ap Alaric or Alan, cut off the maiden's head, and when it touched the ground a spring appeared, namely, St. Winefride's Well or Holywell, Flint. The head was reunited to the body, and Winefride became abbess of Gwytherin.

There is no evidence that this legend is older than the twelfth century, in the course of which, about 1140, Robert of Shrewsbury [q. v.] found her relics, claimed them for Shrewsbury, and wrote her life. Leland's statement that a monk Elerius wrote a contemporary life is uncorroborated. A Welsh life, probably of the middle of the twelfth century (printed by Rees in Cambro-British Saints, pp. 16, 17, 198–209, 303), does not mention the translation of the relics, but otherwise closely resembles Robert's life.

[Robert's life is given in Surius, iv. 20, and Capgrave; Fleetwood's Life and Miracles of St. Winefride, with her Litanies; Hardy's Descr. Cat. I. i. 179–84, and the article in the Dict. of Christian Biogr.]

M. B.

'WINFRID, afterwards called Boniface (680-756), saint. [See Boniface.]

WING, VINCENT (1619–1668), astronomer, was the eldest son of Vincent Wing (1587-1660) of North Luffenham, Rutland, where he was born on 9 April 1619. The family was of Welsh origin. By his own exertions he acquired some knowledge of Latin, Greek, and mathematics, 'consuming himself in study.' In 1648 he became known as joint author, with William Leybourn [q. v.], of 'Urania Practica.' In the following year he published independently 'A Dreadful Prognostication,' containing predictions 'drawn from the effects of