Spain was bound to pay heavy subsidies, which its exhausted treasury was quite unable to afford. The emperor hoped to obtain money. Elizabeth Farnese hoped to secure the Italian duchies for her sons, and some vague stipulations were made that Charles VI. should give his aid for the recovery by Spain of Gibraltar and Minorca. When Ripperda returned to Madrid at the close of 1725 he asserted that the emperor expected him to be made prime minister. The Spanish sovereigns, who were overawed by this quite unfounded assertion, allowed him to grasp the most important posts under the crown. He excited the violent hostility of the Spaniards, and entered into a complication of intrigues with the French and English governments. His career was short. In 1726 the Austrian envoy, who had vainly pressed for the payment of the promised subsidies, came to an explanation with the Spanish sovereigns. It was discovered that Ripperda had not only made promises that he was not authorized to make, but had misappropriated large sums of money. The sovereigns who had made him duke and grandee shrank from covering themselves with ridicule by revealing the way in which they had been deceived. Ripperda was dismissed with the promise of a pension. Being in terror of the hatred of the Spaniards, he took refuge in the English embassy. To secure the favour of the English envoy, Colonel William Stanhope, afterwards Lord Harrington, he betrayed the secrets of his government. Stanhope could not protect him, and he was sent as a prisoner to the castle of Segovia. In 1728 he escaped, probably with the connivance of the government, and made his way to Holland. His last years are obscure. It is said that he reverted to Protestantism, and then went to Morocco, where he became a Mahommedan and commanded the Moors in an unsuccessful attack on Ceuta. But this story is founded on his so-called Memoirs, which are in fact a Grubstreet tale of adventure published at Amsterdam in 1740. All that is really known is that he did go to Morocco, and that he died at Tetuan in 1737.
See Arnold Ritter von Arneth, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (Vienna, 1864), for the negotiations of 1725, and Gabriel Syveton, Une Cour et un aventurier au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1896). His Memoirs were translated into English by J. Campbell, London, 1750.
RISHANGER, WILLIAM (c. 1250-c. 1312), English chronicler, made his profession as a Benedictine at St Alban's abbey in 1271, of which he perhaps became the official chronicler. The most important of his writings is the Narratio de bellis apud Lewes et Evesham. Though written many years afterwards
and drawn from other sources, it is a spirited account of the
barons' war. He is so great an admirer of Simon de Montfort
that this work has been called a hagiography. He is credited
with the authorship of a chronicle covering the period 1250-1306;
this has been disputed, but the work is printed under his name by Riley. Another work of his, of not much importance, is a chronicle entitled Recapitulatis brevis de gestis domini Edwardi, &c. He is probably not the author of other works commonly attributed to him.
Authorities. — Wilhelmi Rishanger chronica et annales, Rolls Series, Introduction ed. H. T. Riley; the Narratio de bellis apud Lewes et Evesham, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camden Society, 1840.
RISK hazard, chance of danger or loss, especially the
chance of loss to property or goods which an insurance company
undertakes to make good to the insurer in return for the
recurrent payment of a sum called the premium (see Insurance).
The word appears late in English, and in the 17th century in
the Fr. form risque or It. risco or risgo, for risico, risigo; cf.
Sp. riesgo. The Med. Lat. riscus, rischium, and risicum are
found, according to Du Cange (Gloss., qq.v.), as early as the
13th century. Skeat (Etym. Dict., 1910) accepts Diez's suggestion that the word is originally a sailor's term, and is to be referred to Sp. risco, a steep rock, from Lat. resecare, to cut back, shut off; thus Sp. arriesgar, to run into danger, means literally “to go against a rock.”
RIST, JOHANN VON (1607-1667), German poet, was born at Ottensen in Holstein on the 8th of March 1607; the son of the Lutheran pastor of that place. He received his early training in Hamburg and Bremen; after studying theology at Rinteln and Rostock, he became in 1633 private tutor in a family of Heide, and two years later (1635) was appointed pastor of the village of Wedel on the Elbe, where he laboured until his death on the 31st of August 1667. Rist first made his name known to the literary world by a drama, Perseus (1634), which he wrote while at Heide, and in the next succeeding years he produced a number of dramatic works of which the allegory Das friedewünschende Teutschland (1647) and Das friedejauchzends Teutschland (1653) (new ed. of both by H. M. Schletterer, 1864) are the most interesting. Rist soon became the central figure in a school of minor poets, and honours were showered upon him from every side. The emperor Ferdinand III. crowned him laureate in 1644, ennobled him in 1653, and invested him with the dignity of a Count Palatine, an honour which enabled him to crown, and to gain numerous poets for the Elbschwanen order, a literary and poetical society which he founded in 1656. He had already, in 1645, been admitted, under the name “Daphnis aus Cimbrien,” to the literary order of Pegnitz, and in 1647 he became, as “Der Rüstige,” a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. It is, however, as a writer of church hymns (see Hymns) that Rist is best known to fame. Among these several are still retained in the evangelical hymn book: e.g. O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort and Ermunt're dich, mein schwacher Geist. Collections of his poems appeared under the titles Musa Teutonica (1634) and Himmlische Lieder (1643).
Selections of Rist's writings have been published by W. Müller in vol. viii. of his Bibliothek deutscher Dichter des 17. Jahrh. (1822-1838), and by K. Goedeke and E. Goeze (1885). See T. Hansen, Johann Rist und seine Zeit (1872); K. T. Gaedertz, J. Rist als niederdeutscher Dramatiker (Jahrb. f. niederdeutsche Sprache, vol. vii., 1881); and M. von Waldberg's article in the Allg. deutsche Biographie.
RISTITCH (or Ristich), JOVAN (1831-1899), Servian statesman,
was born at Kragugevats in 1831. He was educated at
Belgrade, Heidelberg, Berlin and Paris. After failing to
obtain a professorship in the high school of Belgrade, he was
appointed in 1861 Servian diplomatic agent at Constantinople.
His reputation was enhanced by the series of negotiations
which ended in the withdrawal of the Turkish troops from
the Servian fortresses in 1867. On his return from Constantinople
he was offered a ministerial post by Prince Michael, who
described him as “his right arm,” but declined office, being
opposed to the reactionary methods adopted by the prince's
government. He had already become the recognized leader
of the Liberal party. After the assassination of Prince
Michael in 1868, he was nominated member of the council of
regency, and on the 2nd January 1869 the first Servian
constitution, which was mainly his creation, was promulgated.
When Prince Milan attained his majority in 1872, Ristitch
became foreign minister; a few months later he was appointed
prime minister, but resigned in the following autumn (1873).
He again became prime minister in April 1876, and conducted
the two wars against Turkey (July 1876-March 1877 and
December 1877-March 1878). At the congress of Berlin he
laboured with some success to obtain greater advantages for
Servia than had been accorded to her by the treaty of San
Stefano. The provisions of the treaty of Berlin, however,
disappointed the Servians, owing to the obstacles now raised
to the realization of the national programme; the Ristitch
government became unpopular, and resigned in 1880. In
1887 King Milan (who had assumed the royal title in 1882),
alarmed at the threatening attitude of the Radical party,
recalled Ristitch to power at the bead of a coalition cabinet;
a new constitution was granted in 1888, and in the following
year the king abdicated in favour of his son, Prince Alexander.
Ristitch now became head of a council of regency, entrusted
with power during the minority of the young king, and a
Radical ministry was formed. In 1892, however, Ristitch
transferred the government to the Liberal party, with which
he had always been connected. This step and the subsequent
