took part in the expedition to Rhé in 1627 is uncertain, but there is no doubt that he continued to be refused promotion, and that even his scanty pay earned during the Cadiz adventure was not received. Exasperated by his ill-treatment, his discontent sharpened by poverty, and his hatred of Buckingham intensified by a study of the Commons “Remonstrances” of the previous June, and by a work published by Eglesham, the physician of James I., in which Buckingham was accused of poisoning the king, Felton determined to effect his assassination. He bought a tenpenny knife on Tower Hill, and on his way through Fleet Street he left his name in a church to be prayed for as “a man much discontented in mind.” He arrived at Portsmouth at 9 o’clock in the morning of the 23rd of August 1628, and immediately proceeded to No. 10 High Street, where Buckingham was lodged. Here mingling with the crowd of applicants and unnoticed he stabbed the duke, who immediately fell dead. Though escape would have been easy he confessed the deed and was seized and conveyed to the Tower, his journey thither, such was the unpopularity of the duke, being accompanied by cries of “God bless thee” from the people. Charles and Laud desired he should be racked, but the illegal torture was prevented by the judges. He was tried before the king’s bench on the 27th of November, pleaded guilty, and was hanged the next day, his body being exposed in chains subsequently at Portsmouth.
FELTRE, MORTO DA, Italian painter of the Venetian school,
who worked at the close of the 15th century and beginning of the
16th. His real name appears to have been Pietro Luzzo; he is also
known by the name Zarato or Zarotto, either from the place of his
death or because his father, a surgeon, was in Zara during the
son’s childhood: whether he was termed Morto (dead) from his
joyless temperament is a disputed point. He may probably
have studied painting first in Venice, but under what master is
uncertain. At an early age he went to Rome, and investigated
the ancient, especially the subterranean remains, and thence to
Pozzuoli, where he painted from the decorations of antique crypts
or “grotte.” The style of fanciful arabesque which he formed for
himself from these studies gained the name of “grottesche,”
whence comes the term “grotesque”; not, indeed, that Morto
was the first painter of arabesque in the Italian Renaissance, for
art of this kind had, apart from his influence, been fully developed,
both in painting and in sculpture, towards 1480, but he may have
powerfully aided its diffusion southwards. His works were
received with much favour in Rome. He afterwards went to
Florence, and painted some fine grotesques in the Palazzo
Pubblico. Returning to Venice towards 1505, he assisted
Giorgione in painting the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and seems to
have remained with him till 1511. If we may trust Ridolfi,
Morto eloped with the mistress of Giorgione, whose grief at this
transaction brought him to the grave; the allegation, however,
is hardly reconcilable with other accounts. It may have been
in 1515 that Morto returned to his native Feltre, then in a very
ruinous condition from the ravages of war in 1509. There he
executed various works, including some frescoes, still partly
extant, and considered to be almost worthy of the hand of
Raphael, in the loggia beside San Stefano. Towards the age of
forty-five, Morto, unquiet and dissatisfied, abandoned painting
and took to soldiering in the service of the Venetian republic.
He was made captain of a troop of two hundred men; and fighting
valorously, he is said to have died at Zara in Dalmatia, in 1519.
This story, and especially the date of it, are questionable: there
is some reason to think that Morto was painting as late as 1522.
One of his pictures is in the Berlin museum, an allegorical subject
of “Peace and War.” Andrea Feltrini was his pupil and assistant
as a decorative painter.
FELTRE (anc. Feltria), a town and episcopal see of Venetia,
Italy, in the province of Belluno, 20 m. W.S.W. of it by rail,
situated on an isolated hill, 885 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901)
5468 (town), 15,243 (commune). The cathedral has a fine polygonal
apse of the 16th century. The Palazzo del Consiglio, now
a theatre, is attributed to Palladio. At one end of the chief
square of the town, the Piazza Maggiore, is the cistern by which
the town is supplied with water, and a large fountain. There
are some remains of the medieval castle. The ancient Feltria,
which lay on the road (Via Claudia) from Opitergium to Tridentum,
does not seem to have been a place of any importance under
the Romans. Vittorino dei Rambaldoni da Feltre (1378–1446)
was a famous educator and philosopher of his time.
FELUCCA (an Italian word; in forms like the Span. faluca,
Fr. felouque, it appears in other languages; it is probably of
Arabic origin, cf. fulk, a ship, and falaka, to be round; the
modern Arabic form is falūkah), a type of vessel used in the
Mediterranean for coasters or fishing-boats. It is a long, low
and narrow undecked vessel, built for speed, and propelled by
oars or sails. The sails are lateen-shaped and carried on one or
two masts placed far forward (see Boat).
FEMALE, the correlative of “male,” the sex which performs
the function of conceiving and bearing as opposed to the begetting
of young. The word in Middle English is femelle, adopted
from the French from the Lat. femella, which is a diminutive,
and in classical Latin used strictly as such, of femina, a woman.
The present termination in English is due to a connexion in
ideas with “male.” In various mechanical devices, where two
corresponding parts work within the other, the receiving part is
often known as the “female,” as for example in the “male”
and “female screw.” The O. Fr. feme, modern femme, occurs in
legal phraseology in feme covert, a married woman, i.e. one
protected or covered by a husband, and in feme sole, one not so
protected, a widow or spinster (see Women and Husband and Wife).
FEMERELL, properly Fumerell (from O. Fr. fumeraille,
Lat. fumus, smoke), the old English term given to the lantern
in the ridge of a hall roof for the purpose of letting out the smoke
of the fire kindled on a central hearth.
FENCING. If by “fencing”—the art of fence, i.e. of defence
or offence—were meant generally the dexterous use of the sword,
the subject would be wide indeed; as wide, in fact, as the history
of the sword (q.v.) itself. But, in its modern acceptation, the
meaning of the word has become considerably restricted. The
scope of investigation must therefore be confined to one kind of
swordsmanship only: to that which depends on the regulated,
artificial conditions of “single combat.” It is indeed this play,
hemmed in by many restrictions, which we have come to mean
more specially by “fencing.” It differs, of course, in many
respects, from what may be called the art of fighting in the light
of nature. But as its restrictions are among the very elements
which work to the perfection of the play, it is undoubtedly in
the history of swordsmanship as applied to duelling (see Duel)
that we shall trace the higher development of the art.
It may be said that the history of fencing, therefore, would be tantamount to the history of private duelling. Now, this is an ethical subject; one, again, which would carry the investigation too far; and it need not be taken up farther back than the middle of the 16th century, when, on the disuse of the medieval wager of battle, the practice of private duelling began to take an assured footing in a warlike society. It is curious to mark that the first cultivation of refined cunning in fence dates from that period, which corresponds chronologically with the general disuse of armour, both in battle and in more private encounters. It is still more curious to note that, in order to fit himself to meet what was an illegal but aristocratic obligation, the gallant of those days had to appeal to a class of men hitherto little considered: to those plebeian adepts, in fact, who for generations had cultivated skill in the use of hand weapons, on foot and without armour. Thus it came to pass that the earliest masters of fence in all countries, namely, the masters of the art of conducting skilfully what was essentially considered as an honourable encounter, were almost invariably to be found among a somewhat dishonoured gentry—gladiators, free companions, professional champions, more or less openly recognized, or bravoes of the most uncompromising character.
In Germany, which may be considered the cradle of systematic swordsmanship, these teachers of the sword had, as early as the 15th century, formed themselves into gilds; among which the best known were the Marxbrüder, or the Associates of St Marcus
