that in his eastern conquests Ecgbert recovered what had been the rightful property of his kin. The father of Ecgbert was called Ealhmund, and we find an Ealhmund, king in Kent, mentioned in a charter dated 784, who is identified with Ecgbert’s father in a late addition to the Chronicle under the date 784. It is possible, however, that the Chronicle in 825 refers to some claim through Ine of Wessex from whose brother Ingeld Ecgbert was descended.
See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by Earle and Plummer (Oxford, 1899); W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885–1893). Also a paper by Sir H. H. Howorth in Numismatic Chronicle, third series, vol. xx. pp. 66-87 (reprinted separately, London, 1900), where attention is called to the peculiar dating of several of Ecgbert’s charters, and the view is put forward that he remained abroad considerably later than the date given by the Chronicle for his accession. On the other hand a charter in Birch, Cart. Sax., purporting to date from 799, contains the curious statement that peace was made between Cœnwulf and Ecgbert in that year.
ECGBERT, or Ecgberht (d. 766), archbishop of York, was made bishop of that see in 734 by Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria, succeeding Wilfrid II. on the latter’s resignation. The pall was sent him in 735 and he became the first northern archbishop after Paulinus. He was the brother of Eadberht, who ruled Northumbria 737–758. He was the recipient of the famous letter of Bede, dealing with the evils arising from spurious monasteries. Ecgberht himself wrote a Dialogus Ecclesiasticae Institutionis, a Penitentiale and a Pontificale. He was a correspondent of St Boniface, who asks him to support his censure of Æthelbald of Mercia.
See Bede, Continuatio, sub. ann. 732, 735, 766, and Epistola ad Ecgberctum (Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Chronicle, sub ann. 734, 735, 738, 766 (Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899); Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents (Oxford, 1869–1878), iii. 403-431; Proceedings of Surtees Society (Durham, 1853).
ECGFRITH (d. 685), king of Northumbria, succeeded his father Oswio in 671. He was married to Æthelthryth, daughter of Anna of East Anglia, who, however, took the veil shortly after Ecgfrith’s accession, a step which possibly led to his long quarrel with Wilfrid archbishop of York. Ecgfrith married a second wife, Eormenburg, before 678, the year in which he expelled Wilfrid from his kingdom. Early in his reign he defeated the Picts who had risen in revolt. Between 671 and 675 Ecgfrith defeated Wulfhere of Mercia and seized Lindsey. In 679, however, he was defeated by Æthelred of Mercia, who had married his sister Osthryth, on the river Trent. Ecgfrith’s brother Ælfwine was killed in the battle, and the province of Lindsey was given up when peace was restored at the intervention of Theodore of Canterbury. In 684 Ecgfrith sent an expedition to Ireland under his general Berht, which seems to have been unsuccessful. In 685, against the advice of Cuthbert, he led a force against the Picts under his cousin Burde, son of Bile, was lured by a feigned flight into their mountain fastnesses, and slain at Nechtanesmere (now Dunnichen) in Forfarshire. Bede dates the beginning of the decline of Northumbria from his death. He was succeeded by his brother Aldfrith.
See Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine, Historians of Church of York, Rolls, Series, London, 1879–1894), 19, 20, 24, 34, 39, 44; Bede, Hist. Eccl. (Plummer, Oxford, 1896), iii. 24, iv. 5, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, 26.
ECGONINE, in chemistry, C9H15NO3, a cycloheptane derivative with a nitrogen bridge. It is obtained by hydrolysing cocaine with acids or alkalis, and crystallizes with one molecule of water, the crystals melting at 198° to 199° C. It is laevo-rotatory, and on warming with alkalis gives iso-ecgonine, which is dextro-rotatory. It is a tertiary base, and has also the properties of an acid and an alcohol. When boiled with caustic baryta it gives methylamine. It is the carboxylic acid corresponding to tropine, for it yields the same products on oxidation, and by treatment with phosphorus pentachloride is converted into anhydroecgonine, C9H13NO2, which, when heated to 280° C. with hydrochloric acid, splits out carbon dioxide and yields tropidine, C8H13N. Anhydroecgonine melts at 235° C., and has an acid and a basic character. It is an unsaturated compound, and on oxidation with potassium permanganate gives succinic acid. It is apparently a tropidine monocarboxylic acid, for on exhaustive methylation it yields cycloheptatriene-1·3·5-carboxylic acid-7. Sodium in amyl alcohol solution reduces it to hydroecgonidine C9H15NO2, while moderate oxidation by potassium permanganate converts it into norecgonine. The presence of the heptamethylene ring in these compounds is shown by the production of suberone by the exhaustive methylation, &c., of hydroecgonidine ethyl ester (see Polymethylenes and Tropine). The above compounds may be represented as:
ECHEGARAY Y EIZAGUIRRE, JOSÉ (1833– ), Spanish mathematician, statesman and dramatist, was born at Madrid in March 1833, and was educated at the grammar school of Murcia, whence he proceeded to the Escuela de Caminos at the capital. His exemplary diligence and unusual mathematical capacity were soon noticed. In 1853 he passed out at the head of the list of engineers, and, after a brief practical experience at Almería and Granada, was appointed professor of pure and applied mathematics in the school where he had lately been a pupil. His Problemas de geometría analítica (1865) and Teorías modernas de la física unidad de las fuerzas materiales (1867) are said to be esteemed by competent judges. He became a member of the Society of Political Economy, helped to found La Revista, and took a prominent part in propagating Free Trade doctrines in the press and on the platform. He was clearly marked out for office, and when the popular movement of 1868 overthrew the monarchy, he resigned his post for a place in the revolutionary cabinet. Between 1867 and 1874 he acted as minister of education and of finance; upon the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty he withdrew from politics, and won a new reputation as a dramatist.
As early as 1867 he wrote La Hija natural, which was rejected, and remained unknown till 1877, when it appeared with the title of Para tal culpa tal pena. Another play, La Última Noche, also written in 1867, was produced in 1875; but in the latter year Echegaray was already accepted as the successful author of El Libro talonario, played at the Teatro de Apolo on the 18th of February 1874, under the transparent pseudonym of Jorge Hayaseca. Later in the same year Echegaray won a popular triumph with La Esposa del vengador, in which the good and bad qualities—the clever stagecraft and unbridled extravagance—of his later work are clearly noticeable. From 1874 onwards he wrote, with varying success, a prodigious number of plays. Among the most favourable specimens of his talent may be mentioned En el puño de la espada (1875); O locura ó santidad (1877), which has been translated into Swedish and Italian; En el seno de la muerte (1879), of which there exists an admirable German version by Fastenrath. El gran Galeoto (1881), perhaps the best of Echegaray’s plays in conception and execution, has been translated into several languages, and still holds the stage. The humorous proverb, ¿Piensa mal y acertarás? exemplifies the author’s limitations, but the attempt is interesting as an instance of ambitious versatility. His susceptibility to new ideas is illustrated in such pieces as Mariana (1892), Mancha que limpia (1895), El Hijo de Don Juan (1892), and El Loco Dios (1900): these indicate a close study of Ibsen, and El Loco Dios more especially might be taken for an unintentional parody of Ibsen’s symbolism.
Echegaray succeeded to the literary inheritance of López de Ayala and of Tamayo y Baus; and though he possesses neither the poetic imagination of the first nor the instinctive tact of the second, it is impossible to deny that he has reached a larger audience than either. Not merely in Spain, but in every land where Spanish is spoken, and in cities as remote from Madrid as Munich and Stockholm, he has met with an appreciation incomparably beyond that accorded to any other Spanish dramatist of recent years. But it would be more than usually rash to prophesy that this exceptional popularity will endure. There have been signs of a reaction in Spain itself, and Echegaray’s return to politics in 1905 was significant enough. He applies
