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Karl Pearson

Karl Pearson (born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936 ) was an English eugenicist, mathematician, and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also a proponent of Social Darwinism and eugenics, and his thought is an example of what is today described as scientific racism. Pearson was a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton. He edited and completed both William Kingdon Clifford's Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) and Isaac Todhunter's History of the Theory of Elasticity, Vol. 1 (1886–1893) and Vol. 2 (1893), following their deaths.

Early life and education
Pearson was born in Islington, London, into a Quaker family. His father was William Pearson QC of the Inner Temple, and his mother Fanny (née Smith), and he had two siblings, Arthur and Amy. Pearson attended University College School, followed by King's College, Cambridge, in 1876 to study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G. H. Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Pearson also studied Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He became an accomplished historian and Germanist and spent much of the 1880s in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna, Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club.

Pearson was offered a Germanics post at King's College, Cambridge. Comparing Cambridge students to those he knew from Germany, Karl found German students inathletic and weak. He wrote to his mother, "I used to think athletics and sport was overestimated at Cambridge, but now I think it cannot be too highly valued."

On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge:

"Back in Cambridge, I worked in the engineering shops, but drew up the schedule in Mittel- and Althochdeutsch for the Medieval Languages Tripos."

In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects:

"I rush from science to philosophy, and from philosophy to our old friends the poets; and then, over-wearied by too much idealism, I fancy I become practical in returning to science. Have you ever attempted to conceive all there is in the world worth knowing—that not one subject in the universe is unworthy of study? The giants of literature, the mysteries of many-dimensional space, the attempts of Boltzmann and Crookes to penetrate Nature's very laboratory, the Kantian theory of the universe, and the latest discoveries in embryology, with their wonderful tales of the development of life—what an immensity beyond our grasp! [...] Mankind seems on the verge of a new and glorious discovery. What Newton did to simplify the planetary motions must now be done to unite in one whole the various isolated theories of mathematical physics."

Pearson then returned to London to study law, emulating his father. Quoting Pearson's own account: "Coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln's Inn, drew up bills of sale, and was called to the Bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing on heat at Barnes, on Martin Luther at Hampstead, and on Lassalle and Marx on Sundays at revolutionary clubs around Soho."

Career
His next career move was to the Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics, deputising for the mathematics professor at King's College, London in 1881 and for the professor at University College London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford died. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions. The collaboration, in biometry and evolutionary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics. Pearson became Galton's protégé, at times to the verge of hero worship.

After Galton's death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography—a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries, and photographs—published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson's own money paying for their print runs. The biography, done "to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public", triumphed Galton's life, work and personal heredity. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin.

When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London for a chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the Galton Chair of Eugenics, later the Galton Chair of Genetics —in accordance with Galton's wishes. Pearson formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), which combined the Biometric and Galton Laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death.

Personal life
In 1890, Pearson married Maria Sharpe. The couple had three children: Sigrid Loetitia Pearson, Helga Sharpe Pearson, and Egon Pearson, who became a statistician himself and succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College. Maria died in 1928 and in 1929 Karl married Margaret Victoria Child, a co-worker at the Biometric Laboratory. He and his family lived at 7 Well Road in Hampstead, now marked with a blue plaque. He died at Coldharbour, Surrey, on 27 April 1936.

Einstein and Pearson's work
When the 23-year-old Albert Einstein started the Olympia Academy study group in 1902, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, his first reading suggestion was Pearson's The Grammar of Science. This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he argued, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who travelled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time.

Pearson's relativity was based on idealism, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. "There are many signs", he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists." (Preface to second Ed., The Grammar of Science) Further, he stated, "... science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind ... In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." (Ibid., Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." (Ibid., Ch. III, § 4)

Political views and eugenics
Pearson was a "zealous" atheist and a freethinker. Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx. His commitment to socialism and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935.

A eugenicist who applied social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw war against "inferior races" as a logical implication of the theory of evolution. "My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation", he wrote, "is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races." He reasoned that, if August Weismann's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock.

Weismann argued that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers."

"History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended."

In The Myth of the Jewish Race Raphael and Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson's 1925 opposition (in the first issue of the journal Annals of Eugenics which he founded) to Jewish immigration into Britain. Pearson alleged that these immigrants "will develop into a parasitic race. [...] Taken on the average, and regarding both sexes, this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior physically and mentally to the native population".

Pearson concluding remarks on stepping down as editor of the Annals of Eugenics, indicate a sense of failure of his aim to use the scientific study of eugenics as a guide for moral conduct and public policy. "My endeavour during the twenty-two years in which I have held the post of Galton Professor has been to prove in the first place that Eugenics can be developed as an academic study, and in the second place to make the conclusions drawn from  that study a ground for social propagandism only when there are sound scientific reasons upon which to base our judgments and as a result  our opinions as to moral conduct.  Even  at the present  day there are far too many general impressions drawn from limited or too often wrongly interpreted experience, and far too many inadequately demonstrated and too lightly accepted theories for any nation to proceed hastily with unlimited Eugenic legislation. This statement, however, must never be taken as an excuse for indefinitely suspending all Eugenic teaching and every form of communal action in matters of sex."

Nonetheless, in June 2020 UCL announced that it was renaming two buildings which had been named after Pearson, because of his connection with eugenics.

Contributions to biometrics
Karl Pearson was important in the founding of the school of biometrics, which was one of several competing theories to describe evolution and population inheritance at the turn of the 20th century. His series of eighteen papers, "Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution" established him as the founder of the biometrical school for inheritance. In fact, Pearson devoted much time during 1893 to 1904 to developing statistical techniques for biometry. These techniques, which are widely used today for statistical analysis, include the chi-squared test, standard deviation, and correlation and regression coefficients. Pearson's Law of Ancestral Heredity stated that germ plasm consisted of heritable elements inherited from the parents as well as from more distant ancestors, the proportion of which varied for different traits. Karl Pearson was a follower of Galton, and although the two differed in some respects, Pearson used a substantial amount of Francis Galton's statistical concepts in his formulation of the biometrical school for inheritance, such as the law of regression. The biometric school, unlike the Mendelians, focused not on providing a mechanism for inheritance, but rather on providing a mathematical description for inheritance that was not causal in nature. While Galton proposed a discontinuous theory of evolution, in which species would have to change via large jumps rather than small changes that built up over time, Pearson pointed out flaws in Galton's argument and actually used Galton's ideas to further a continuous theory of evolution, whereas the Mendelians favored a discontinuous theory of evolution. While Galton focused primarily on the application of statistical methods to the study of heredity, Pearson and his colleague Weldon expanded statistical reasoning to the fields of inheritance, variation, correlation, and natural and sexual selection.

For Pearson, the theory of evolution was not intended to identify a biological mechanism that explained patterns of inheritance, whereas Mendelian's theory postulated the gene as the mechanism for inheritance. Pearson criticized Bateson and other biologists for their failure to adopt biometrical techniques in their study of evolution. Pearson criticized biologists who did not focus on the statistical validity of their theories, stating that "before we can accept [any cause of a progressive change] as a factor we must have not only shown its plausibility but if possible have demonstrated its quantitative ability" Biologists had succumb to "almost metaphysical speculation as to the causes of heredity," which had replaced the process of experimental data collection that actually might allow scientists to narrow down potential theories.

For Pearson, laws of nature were useful for making accurate predictions and for concisely describing trends in observed data. Causation was the experience "that a certain sequence has occurred and recurred in the past". Thus, identifying a particular mechanism of genetics was not a worthy pursuit of biologists, who should instead focus on mathematical descriptions of empirical data. This, in part led to the fierce debate between the biometricians and the Mendelians, including Bateson. After Bateson rejected one of Pearson's manuscripts that described a new theory for the variability of an offspring, or homotyposis, Pearson and Weldon established Biometrika in 1902. Although the biometric approach to inheritance eventually lost to the Mendelian approach, the techniques Pearson and the biometricians at the time developed are vital to studies of biology and evolution today.

Contributions to statistics
Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine, psychology and social history. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave, Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, and Alice Lee. He also founded the journal Annals of Eugenics (now Annals of Human Genetics) in 1925. He published the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.

Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are:

 * Correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient (first developed by Auguste Bravais and Francis Galton) was defined as a product-moment, and its relationship with linear regression was studied.
 * Method of moments. Pearson introduced moments, a concept borrowed from physics, as descriptive statistics and for the fitting of distributions to samples.
 * Pearson's system of continuous curves. A system of continuous univariate probability distributions that came to form the basis of the now conventional continuous probability distributions. Since the system is complete up to the fourth moment, it is a powerful complement to the Pearsonian method of moments.
 * Chi distance. A precursor and special case of the Mahalanobis distance.
 * p-value. Defined as the probability measure of the complement of the ball with the hypothesized value as center point and chi distance as radius.
 * Foundations of statistical hypothesis testing theory and statistical decision theory. In the seminal "On the criterion..." paper, Pearson proposed testing the validity of hypothesized values by evaluating the chi distance between the hypothesized and the empirically observed values via the p-value, which was proposed in the same paper. The use of preset evidence criteria, so called alpha type-I error probabilities, was later proposed by Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson.
 * Pearson's chi-squared test. A hypothesis test using normal approximation for discrete data.
 * Principal component analysis. The method of fitting a linear subspace to multivariate data by minimising the chi distances.
 * The first introduction of the histogram is usually credited to Pearson.

Awards from professional bodies
Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects this:
 * 1896: elected FRS: Fellow of the Royal Society
 * 1898: awarded the Darwin Medal
 * 1911: awarded the honorary degree of LLD from the University of St Andrews
 * 1911: awarded a DSc from University of London
 * 1920: offered (and refused) the OBE
 * 1932: awarded the Rudolf Virchow medal by the Berliner Anthropologische Gesellschaft
 * 1935: offered (and refused) a knighthood

He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries' Club. A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Publications

 * Pearson, Karl (1880). The New Werther. C, Kegan Paul & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1882). The Trinity: A Nineteenth Century Passion-play. Cambridge: E. Johnson.
 * Pearson, Karl (1887). Die Fronica. Strassburg: K.J. Trübner
 * Pearson, Karl (1887). The Moral Basis of Socialism. William Reeves, London.
 * Pearson, Karl (1888). The Ethic of Freethought. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rep. University Press of the Pacific, 2002.
 * Pearson, Karl (1892). The Grammar of Science. London: Walter Scott. Dover Publications, 2004 ISBN 0-486-49581-7
 * Pearson, Karl (1892). The New University for London: A Guide to its History and a Criticism of its Defects. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
 * Pearson, Karl (1897). The Chances of Death and Other Studies in Evolution, 2 Vol. London: Edward Arnold.
 * Pearson, Karl (1904). On the Theory of Contingency and its Relation to Association and Normal Correlation. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1905). On the General Theory of Skew Correlation and Non-linear Regression. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1906). A Mathematical Theory of Random Migration. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1907). Studies in National Deterioration. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Pollard, A.F. Campbell (1907). An Experimental Study of the Stresses in Masonry Dams. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1907). A First Study of the Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Barrington, Amy (1909). A First Study of the Inheritance of Vision and of the Relative Influence of Heredity and Environment on Sight. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl; Reynolds, W. D., & Stanton, W. F. (1909). On a Practical Theory of Elliptical and Pseudo-elliptical Arches, with Special Reference to the Ideal Masonry Arch.
 * Pearson, Karl (1909). The Groundwork of Eugenics. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1909). The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Barrington, Amy (1910). A Preliminary Study of Extreme Alcoholism in Adults. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Elderton, Ethel M. (1910). A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1910). The Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring: A Reply to the Cambridge Economists. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Elderton, Ethel M. (1910). A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1911). An Attempt to Correct some of the Misstatements Made by Sir Victor Horsley and Mary D. Sturge, M.D. in the Criticisms of the Galton Laboratory Memoir: A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism, &c. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl; Nettleship, Edward, & Usher, Charles (1911–1913). A Monograph on Albinism in Man, 2 Vol. London: Dulau & Co., Ltd.
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). The Problem of Practical Eugenics. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). Tuberculosis, Heredity and Environment. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1913). On the Correlation of Fertility with Social Value: A Cooperative Study. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Jaederholm, Gustav A. (1914). Mendelism and the Problem of Mental Defect, II: On the Continuity of Mental Defect. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl; Williams, M.H., & Bell, Julia (1914). A Statistical Study of Oral Temperatures in School Children. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1914-24-30). The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, 3 Vol. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
 * Pearson, Karl (1915). Some Recent Misinterpretations of the Problem of Nurture and Nature. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl; Young, A.W., & Elderton, Ethel (1918). On the Torsion Resulting from Flexure in Prisms with Cross-sections of Uni-axial Symmetry Only. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Bell, Julia (1919). A Study of the Long Bones of the English Skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1920). The Science of Man: its Needs and its Prospects. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Karn, Mary Noel (1922). Study of the Data Provided by a Baby-clinic in a Large Manufacturing Town. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1922). Francis Galton, 1822–1922: A Centenary Appreciation. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1923). On the Relationship of Health to the Psychical and Physical Characters in School Children. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1926). On the Skull and Portraits of George Buchanan. Edinburgh, London: Oliver & Boyd.
 * Pearson, Karl (1926). On the Skull and Portraits of George Buchanan. Edinburgh, London: Oliver & Boyd.

Articles
 * Pearson, Karl (1897). "On Telegony in Man," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LX, pp. 273–283.
 * Pearson, Karl (1897). "On a Form of Spurious Correlation which May Arise when Indices are Used in the Measurement of Organs," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LX, pp. 489–502.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Whiteley, M.A. (1899). "Data for the Problem of Evolution in Man, I: A First Study of the Variability and Correlation of the Hand," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXV, pp. 126–151.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Beeton, Mary (1899). "Data for the Problem of Evolution in Man, II: A First Study on the Inheritance of Longevity and the Selective Death-rate in Man," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXV, pp. 290–305.
 * Pearson, Karl (1900). "On the Law of Reversion," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXVI, pp. 140–164.
 * Pearson, Karl; Beeton, M., & Yule, G.U. (1900). "On the Correlation Between Duration of Life and the Number of Offspring," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXVII, pp. 159–179.
 * Pearson, Karl (1900). "On the Criterion that a Given System of Deviations from the Probable in the Case of a Correlated System of Variables is Such that it can be Reasonably Supposed to Have Arisen from Random Sampling," Philosophical Magazine, 5th Series, Vol. L, pp. 157–175.
 * Pearson, Karl (1901). "On Lines and Planes of Closest Fit to Systems of Points in Space," Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. II, pp. 559–572.
 * Pearson, Karl (1902–1903). "The Law of Ancestral Heredity," Biometrika, Vol. II, pp. 221–229.
 * Pearson, Karl (1903). "On a General Theory of the Method of False Position", Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. 5, pp. 658–668.
 * Pearson, Karl (1907). "On the Influence of Past Experience on Future Expectation," Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. XIII, pp. 365–378.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Gibson, Winifred (1907). "Further Considerations on the Correlations of Stellar Characters," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. LXVIII, pp. 415–448.
 * Pearson, Karl (1930). "On a New Theory of Progressive Evolution," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 1–2, pp. 1–40.
 * Pearson, Karl (1931). "On the Inheritance of Mental Disease," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 3–4, pp. 362–380.
 * Pearson, Karl (1902–1903). "The Law of Ancestral Heredity," Biometrika, Vol. II, pp. 221–229.
 * Pearson, Karl (1903). "On a General Theory of the Method of False Position", Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. 5, pp. 658–668.
 * Pearson, Karl (1907). "On the Influence of Past Experience on Future Expectation," Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. XIII, pp. 365–378.
 * Pearson, Karl, & Gibson, Winifred (1907). "Further Considerations on the Correlations of Stellar Characters," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. LXVIII, pp. 415–448.
 * Pearson, Karl (1930). "On a New Theory of Progressive Evolution," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 1–2, pp. 1–40.
 * Pearson, Karl (1931). "On the Inheritance of Mental Disease," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 3–4, pp. 362–380.
 * Pearson, Karl (1930). "On a New Theory of Progressive Evolution," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 1–2, pp. 1–40.
 * Pearson, Karl (1931). "On the Inheritance of Mental Disease," Annals of Eugenics, Vol. IV, Nos. 3–4, pp. 362–380.

Miscellany
 * Pearson, Karl (1885). The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co. (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1886–1893). A History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials from Galilei to the Present Time, Vol. 2, Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1889). The Elastical Researches of Barré de Saint-Venant. Cambridge University Press (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1888). The Positive Creed of Freethought: with Some Remarks on the Relation of Freethought to Socialism. Being a Lecture Delivered at South Place Institute. London: William Reeves.
 * Pearson, Karl (1901). National Life from the Stand-point of Science: An Address Delivered at Newcastle. London: Adam & Charles Black.
 * Pearson, Karl (1908). A Second Study of the Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis: Marital Infection. London: Dulau & Co. (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1910). Nature and Nurture, the Problem of the Future: A Presidential Address. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1911). The Academic Aspect of the Science of Eugenics: A Lecture Delivered to Undergraduates. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). Treasury of Human Inheritance, 2 Vol. Dulau & Co., London (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). Eugenics and Public Health: An Address to Public Health Officers. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics. The Cavendish Lecture: An Address to the Medical Profession. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1912). Social Problems, their Treatment, Past, Present, and Future: A Lecture. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1914). On the Handicapping of the First-born: Being a Lecture Delivered at the Galton Laboratory. London: Dulau & Co.
 * Pearson, Karl (1914). Tables for Statisticians and Biometricians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1919–22). Tracts for Computers. Cambridge University Press (editor).
 * Pearson, Karl (1921). Side Lights on the Evolution of Man: Being a Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1922). Tables of the Incomplete Γ-Function. London: Pub. for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research by H.M. Stationery Office.
 * Pearson, Karl (1923). Charles Darwin, 1809–1882: An Appreciation. Being a Lecture Delivered to the Teachers of the London County Council. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1927). The Right of the Unborn Child: Being a Lecture Delivered... to Teachers from the London County Council Schools. Cambridge University Press.
 * Pearson, Karl (1934). Tables of the Incomplete Beta-function. Cambridge University Press. second ed., 1968 (editor).

title: Karl Pearson


text:
Marjorie Merriweather Post

Marjorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – September 12, 1973) was an American businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist. She was the daughter of C. W. Post and the owner of General Foods Corporation. For much of Marjorie Post's life, she was known as the wealthiest woman in the United States.

Post used much of her fortune to collect art, particularly Imperial-era Russian art, much of which is now on display at Hillwood, the museum which was her estate in Washington, D.C. She is also known for her mansion, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Early life
Marjorie Merriweather Post was born in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter and only child of C. W. Post and Ella Letitia Merriweather. At age 27, following her father's death in 1914, she became the owner of the rapidly growing Postum Cereal Company, founded in 1895. She inherited a US$ 20 million fortune.

Post lived in Battle Creek, Michigan from ages 3-14. She then moved to Washington, D.C. to attend the Mount Vernon Seminary and College (now the George Washington University's Mount Vernon Campus). She maintained a close lifelong relationship with her alma mater and served as its first alumna trustee. Today, a collection of her correspondence with Mount Vernon administrators is maintained by GWU's Special Collections Research Center. Post's complete collection of personal papers, as well as those of her father, are held by the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library.

General Foods Corporation
Post became the owner of Postum Cereal Company in 1914, after the death of her father, and was a director of the company until 1958. She, along with her second husband, E.F. Hutton, began expanding the business and acquiring other American food companies such as Hellmann's Mayonnaise, Jell-O, Baker's Chocolate, Maxwell House, and many more. In 1929, Postum Cereal Company was renamed General Foods Corporation.

While taking a voyage on her yacht, the Hussar, she came across the innovations of Clarence Birdseye in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Birdseye had developed a new way to preserve food by freezing it. Post foresaw the future advantages of frozen food, and bought Birdseye's company, which eventually became a success.

Philanthropy
Post funded a U.S. Army hospital in France during World War I, and, decades later, the French government awarded her the Legion of Honour, in the degree of Commander. Starting in 1929 and throughout the Great Depression, she financed and personally supervised a Salvation Army feeding station in New York. She also donated the cost of the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Washington. Years later in 1971, she was among the first three recipients of the Silver Fawn Award, presented by the Boy Scouts of America. The 425-acre (172 ha) Lake Merriweather at Goshen Scout Reservation in Goshen, Virginia, was named in her honor.

In 1966, at Long Island University's C.W. Post College, located on her former Long Island estate, she became honorary housemother of Zeta Beta Tau's Gamma Delta chapter, often hosting the fraternity brothers for brunches. Post served as the honorary house mother of the college's first local fraternity, Sigma Beta Epsilon, which, in 1969, became the New York Beta chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Since Post had borne only girls, she referred to the fraternity of sons-in-law as her "boys", while they called her "Mother Marjorie". Post was honored by Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity as a "Golden Daughter of Minerva".

She donated $100,000 to the National Cultural Center in Washington that would later become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 1955, she contributed $100,000 to the National Symphony for free concerts that led to the beginning of the Music for Young America Concerts, which she financed annually. The Merriweather Post Pavilion, an outdoor concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, is named for her.

Jewelry
Some of Post's jewelry, bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is displayed in the Harry Winston exhibit. Pieces in the collection include the Napoleon Diamond Necklace and the Marie Louise Diadem, a 275-ct (55 g) diamond-and-turquoise necklace and tiara set that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise; the Marie Antoinette Diamond Earrings, a pair of diamond earrings set with pear shapes, weighing 14 ct (2.8 g) and 20 ct (4 g), once belonging to Marie Antoinette; the Blue Heart Diamond, a 30.82-ct (6.164 g) heart-shaped blue diamond ring; and an emerald-and-diamond necklace and ring, once belonging to Habsburg aristocrat and one time emperor of Mexico, Maximilian.

Russian art collection
According to the Hermitage Museum Foundation, Post was a Russophile. During the 1930s, the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin began selling art treasures and other valuables seized from the Romanov family and former Russian aristocrats after the Russian Revolution to earn hard currency for its industrialization and military armament programs. Critics have claimed that these items were expropriated; however, the transactions by Post and her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, were from the recognized governmental authority. Neither Post nor Davies were involved with the original seizing of the items. Allegations later surfaced that many works of art from the Tretyakov Gallery and other collections were either donated or offered at nominal prices to the couple, who were both art collectors. Davies is also alleged to have purchased art expropriated from Soviet citizens well after the Russian Revolution, including victims of Stalin's Terror at discount prices from Soviet authorities.

Many of the items, which remain under the control of the Post estate or its agents, can be viewed at Hillwood, her former estate. Hillwood has operated as a private museum since Post's death and displays her French and Russian art collection, featuring the work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and paintings.

Notable residences

 * Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida: Designed by Marion Sims Wyeth and Joseph Urban, Post willed Mar-a-Lago to the United States federal government in 1973 as a retreat for presidents and visiting foreign dignitaries. Congress repealed acceptance of the estate in 1980 and the Post Foundation sold it to Donald Trump in 1986. Ultimately the mansion was thus used for this purpose during the Trump administration. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1980; it had been a National Historic Site since 1969.
 * Hillwood (Washington, D.C.): now operates as a private museum since Post's death and displays her French and Russian art collection, featuring the work of Fabergé, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, and paintings.
 * Camp Topridge, Upper St. Regis Lake, New York: a "rustic retreat" in the Adirondack Mountains. It included a fully staffed main lodge and private guest cabins, each staffed with its own butler. The expansive Great Camp, built in 1923 by Benjamin A. Muncil, eventually contained nearly 70 buildings, as well as a Russian dacha, on 300 acres. It was one of only two Adirondack camps to be featured in Life magazine.
 * Sea Cloud (Hussar V): a yacht that was personally designed by Post, and built as a replacement for the original yacht Hussar IV for her and her second husband, E. F. Hutton, in 1931. It was the largest privately owned sea-going yacht in the world at the time. They traveled the world on it for portions of the year with their daughter Nedenia. After her divorce from Hutton, she renamed the yacht Sea Cloud, and continued to sail it with her new husband Joseph E. Davies for his ambassadorial trips to the Soviet Union. She sold the yacht in 1955 to the President of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo; it is now a cruise ship.
 * Hillwood (Long Island): Built in 1922 in Brookville, New York, after Post purchased and greatly altered the former Warburton Hall Estate, it was designed in the Tudor revival style by architect Charles Mansfield Hart. Post sold it in 1951 to Long Island University, and the property later become LIU Post. In 2005, it was restored and renamed Winnick House and is used for campus administration, academic offices and event space.

Marriages
Edward Bennett Close: In 1905, Post married investment banker Edward Bennett Close of Greenwich, Connecticut. They divorced in 1919. Together, they had two daughters: Via his second marriage, Edward Bennett Close would later become the paternal grandfather of actress Glenn Close.
 * Adelaide Brevoort Close (1908–1998), who married three times, to Thomas Wells Durant, Merrall MacNeille, and Augustus Riggs IV.
 * Eleanor Post Close (1909–2006), later known in the media as "Eleanor Post Hutton", married six times, to film director Preston Sturges, Etienne Marie Robert Gautier, George Curtis Rand, Hans Habe, Owen D. Johnson (son of author Owen Johnson), and orchestra conductor Léon Barzin.

Edward Francis Hutton: Post was married for a second time, in 1920, to financier Edward Francis Hutton. In 1923, he became the chairman of the board of the Postum Cereal Company. Together they developed a larger variety of food products, including Birdseye Frozen Foods. The company became the General Foods Corporation in 1929. Post and Hutton divorced in 1935. They had one daughter:
 * Nedenia Marjorie Hutton (1923–2017), better known as the actress Dina Merrill.

Joseph E. Davies: In 1935, Post married her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, a Washington, D.C., lawyer. They had no children and were divorced in 1955. From 1937 to 1938, in a crucial period leading up to World War II, Davies served as the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, ruled at that time by Joseph Stalin. During this time, Davies and Post acquired many valuable Russian works of art from Soviet authorities at very reasonable prices.

Herbert A. May: Post's final marriage, in 1958, was to Herbert A. May, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman and the former master of fox hounds of the Rolling Rock Hunt Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. That marriage ended in divorce in May 1964 and she subsequently reclaimed the name Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Death
Post died at her Hillwood estate in Washington, D.C., on September 12, 1973, after a long illness, and was buried there. She left the bulk of her estate to her three daughters, Adelaide Close, Eleanor Post Close, and Nedenia Hutton.

In popular culture
Merriweather Post was portrayed by Ann Harding in the 1943 film Mission to Moscow, a fictionalization of her third husband, Joseph E. Davies's book detailing his time as Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

, a film based on The New York Times feature "Mystery on Fifth Avenue", describing a riddle-laden renovation of a triplex undertaken by Eric Clough and the architectural firm 212box, built for Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s, was in development by J. J. Abrams.

Merriweather Post was played by Anne Francis in the 1987 miniseries Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.

Merriweather Post was portrayed by Morgan Bradley in the History Channel series, The Food that Built America.

A fictionalized version of Merriweather Post was played by Amy Schumer in the 2024 Netflix film Unfrosted written by Jerry Seinfeld.

Legacy
Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, is named in her honor because of her years of sustained financial support for the National Symphony.

Merriweather Hall (formerly 'The Post House') and Post Hall, at the George Washington University's Mount Vernon Campus, is named in her honor.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Marjorie Merriweather Post


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Reign of Fire (film)

Reign of Fire is a 2002 post-apocalyptic science fantasy film directed by Rob Bowman and starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco and Gerard Butler with the screenplay written by Matt Greenberg, Gregg Chabot, and Kevin Peterka.

The film is set in England in the year 2020, twenty years after a London Underground tunneling project inadvertently awakened dragons from centuries of slumber and the creatures have subsequently replaced humans as the dominant species on Earth. With the fate of mankind at stake, two surviving parties, led by Quinn Abercromby (Bale) and Denton Van Zan (McConaughey), find that they must work together to hunt down and destroy the beasts in a desperate attempt to take back the world.

The film was released by Touchstone Pictures on 12 July 2002. Upon release, it received generally mixed reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office, grossing far less than expected, only $82 million on a $60 million budget.

Plot
When Quinn Abercromby is visiting a London Underground construction project, workers penetrate a cave and a huge dragon emerges from hibernation, incinerating the workers with its fire breath. The only survivor is Quinn, whose mother Karen, the project engineer, is killed protecting him. The dragon flies out of the Underground and soon more dragons appear. The world's militaries fail to stop the spread of the dragon population and target large populated areas with nuclear weapons, leaving humans nearly extinct.

Twenty years later, the dragons are dying off but have become increasingly aggressive in search of food. Quinn, along with his best friend Creedy, leads a community of survivors at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland where he plans to outlast dragons until they go back into hibernation; as insurance, he shares his notes and plans with Jared, an orphan he rescued and is mentoring to take over as community leader. The community is short on supplies and in a state of unrest pending the harvest of their meager crops. Eddie and a group of his followers steal a truck to harvest the crops for food, but they are attacked by a dragon. Quinn, Creedy, and Jared repel the dragon, but the dragon burns the majority of the crops, leaving the community without food.

Shortly afterward, a group of heavily armed Americans led by Denton Van Zan arrive in an armored convoy, including a Chieftain tank and an AgustaWestland AW109 utility helicopter. Quinn is initially skeptical and suspects that they are marauders, but Van Zan convinces him to let them stay when he reveals the dragons' main weakness: poor vision during twilight. With Quinn's help, Van Zan and his team hunt and slay the dragon who destroyed the crops.

Van Zan introduces Quinn to Alex Jensen, his team's helicopter pilot and intelligence officer, and brief Quinn on their mission. After killing hundreds of dragons, Alex discovered that they were all female; she postulates that they reproduce quickly because the species relies on a single male to fertilize all the eggs en masse. Having tracked the spread of the dragons, they believe that the male is located in London and that if they kill it, the dragons will no longer be able to reproduce, effectively killing the species. Quinn, suspecting that the male dragon is the same one that killed his mother, refuses to help, knowing that London is infested with dragons and that if they fail, the dragons will track them back to their shelter.

Van Zan drafts the castle defenders, despite Quinn's objections and a physical altercation between the two. Van Zan, Alex, and some of the castle's men then depart for London, but true to Quinn's warnings, their caravan is attacked by the male dragon. Everyone except for Van Zan and Alex are killed. The dragon then finds the castle and attacks, killing many of the inhabitants. Quinn gets the survivors to an underground bunker, but they are trapped by rubble when the dragon returns; during its final attack, Creedy is killed.

Van Zan and Alex return and free everyone trapped in the bunker. Quinn leaves Jared in charge and decides to help Van Zan and Alex hunt down the male dragon. They fly to London and find hundreds of female dragons, one of which is cannibalized by the much larger male out of hunger. This scatters the female dragons and leaves the male alone and undefended. Van Zan coordinates a plan: split up, bait the male into attacking, ground him with explosive crossbow bolts, and then shoot one into his mouth once he is ground level. The plan initially works, but the dragon detonates the first explosive bolt early with its fire breath and Van Zan is swallowed whole. Quinn and Alex gather the last explosives and lure the dragon to ground level, where Quinn fires an explosive down the dragon's throat, killing it.

Three months later, Quinn and Alex erect a radio tower on a hill overlooking the North Sea, having seen no dragons since the battle in London. Jared arrives and reveals they have made contact with a group of French survivors who want to speak to the group's leader. Quinn officially declares Jared the new community leader and dedicates himself to rebuilding civilization with Alex.

Production
Kevin Peterka and Gregg Chabot wrote the original screenplay in 1996, after which they sold it to Spyglass Media Group. In 2000 Matt Greenberg revised the screenplay for production.

Reign of Fire was filmed in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains, at the Glendasan Valley Lead Mines. Permission was given on the condition that the area was not damaged and the crew removed all sets once filming was complete. However, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe stopped many planned scenes from being filmed due to quarantine restrictions.

The dead dragon was designed and built by Artem, with visual effects by Secret Lab. The dragon's digital effects posed a problem for animators: "'In recent years there have been several movies starring creatures with scaled surfaces. Among these are Jurassic Park, Dragonheart, and Lake Placid. The surfaces of these creatures have generally been constructed by layering painted textures atop displacement maps. This gives the model texture, but the scales stretch and shrink under the movement of the creature, giving a rubbery look that is not realistic.'" In order to overcome this limitation, the then-groundbreaking work done by digital effects animator Neil Eskuri on Disney's 2000 release Dinosaur was utilized as a benchmark in order to create a realistic physical simulation of the dragon. According to Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa, the film called for "100 ft creatures with wing spans of 300 ft that could undergo enormous speeds and accelerations. The artistic direction required each dragon to have wings that transition between a variety of physical behaviors and interact with the environment."

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 42% based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The site's consensus states: "Reign of Fire gains some altitude with its pyrotechnic action and a smolderingly campy Matthew McConaughey, but the feature's wings are clipped by a derivative script and visual effects that fizzle out." On Metacritic, it has a score of 39 out of 100, based on 30 reviews from critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.

Joe Leydon of Variety said of the film, "An uncommonly exciting and satisfying post-apocalyptic popcorn flick, Director Rob Bowman deftly combines an uncommonly satisfying mix of medieval fantasy, high-tech military action and "Mad Max"-style misadventure." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, saying "the season could do with more grinning, spinning, un-self-important, happy-to-be-B throwback movies like this one." Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times noted that "the movie might have been a minor classic if it had maximized its own possibilities. But until the rush wears off, the picture is as much fun as a great run at a slot machine: even when your luck runs out, you're losing only pocket change."

Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, describing it as "a vast enterprise marshaled in the service of such a minute idea", adding that "the movie makes no sense on its own terms, let alone ours. And it is such a grim and dreary enterprise. One prays for a flower or a ray of sunshine as those grotty warriors clamber into their cellars and over their slag heaps."

Reign of Fire was third at the US box-office receipts during its opening weekend (12 July 2002), taking in $15,632,281, behind Road to Perdition and Men in Black II.

Awards
Reign of Fire was nominated for one Saturn Award, but lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and two Festival de Cine de Sitges awards, winning one.

Video game
In 2002, Kuju Entertainment released the video game adaptation Reign of Fire for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, which received mixed reviews much like the film it was based on.

Cancelled sequel
In a 2002 interview, Christian Bale was asked: "Is there a sequel possibility to Reign of Fire?" to which Bale responded "Possibly. I told Scott Moutter, who plays my stepson in the movie, that he's well positioned to take the sequel from me because of the way the movie ends!". However, due to the film underperforming at the box office, no development on a sequel has been spoken of since.

Legacy
The mechanism of dragon's fire breath in this movie, inspired from biology of real-life creatures such as anti-predator adaptation of bombardier beetle and poison glands of vipers, was used in later works such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Gods of Egypt, and Game of Thrones.

title: Reign of Fire (film)


text:
C. W. Post

Charles William Post (October 26, 1854 – May 9, 1914) was an American innovator, breakfast cereal and foods manufacturer and a pioneer in the prepared-food industry. He was the founder of what is now Post Consumer Brands.

Early life and education
Post, commonly known as "C. W.", was born October 26, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois, the son of Charles Rollin Post and Caroline Lathrop Post, and grew up in the adopted hometown of Abraham Lincoln, who served as President of the United States during Post's childhood.

Post graduated from public schools in Springfield, and then enrolled at Illinois Industrial University, where he remained for two years before leaving without a degree.

After a brief stay in Independence, Kansas, Post returned to Springfield, where he remained for over a decade working as a salesman and manufacturer of agricultural machinery. During this interval Post invented and patented several farm implements, including a plow, a harrow, and a hay-stacking machine.

In November 1874, Post married Ella Letitia Merriweather; they had one daughter, Marjorie. Ella supported her husband throughout his career and cared for him when he was ill. As Post became wealthier and began spending more time away from Ella, who was often ill, his relationship with her waned. Against her wishes, Post separated from her in 1904 and married his second wife, Leila Young, his 27-year-old secretary, in November 1904. Marjorie, who remained close to her father, later said that her mother died of "a broken heart" after Post divorced her and married his secretary. In a deceitful attempt to have his daughter become closer with his secretary (soon to be wife), C. W. hired her to be a travel companion for Marjorie. When Marjorie realized the ruse, she deeply resented Leila.

Career
Post suffered a mental breakdown in November 1885, the result of the stress and overwork which accompanied his job as a farm implement manufacturer. Post made a break with his previous life, moving to Texas in 1886, where he came into association with a group of real estate developers in Fort Worth, who were attempting to establish a new community on the eastern outskirts of a town called Riverside. In 1888, Post began a real estate development of his own in Fort Worth on 200 acre that he had obtained, platting the land for streets and homes and constructing two mills.

The stress of this work again proved too much for Post's constitution, and a second breakdown followed in 1891. Post began a period of extensive travels in search of a cure, coming to take particular interest in the chemistry of digestion. After a period traversing Europe, Post visited the Battle Creek Sanitarium of Battle Creek, Michigan, a facility operated by John Harvey Kellogg (brother of Kellogg Company founder Will Keith Kellogg). Post has been accused of stealing several of Kellogg's recipes, including Kellogg's Caramel Coffee Cereal (Post's Postum), Cornflakes (Toasties), and Malted Nuts (Grape-Nuts).

In 1895, Post founded Postum Cereal Co., with his first product, Postum cereal beverage. Post's first breakfast cereal premiered in 1897, and he named the product Grape-Nuts cereal because of the fruity aroma noticed during the manufacturing process and the nutty crunch of the finished product. In 1904, he followed up the Grape-Nuts label with a brand of corn flakes, which was first called Elijah's Manna before being renamed Post Toasties in 1908. The British government refused to allow Post to market his cereal in the United Kingdom using the name Elijah's Manna, stating that it was sacrilegious.

In 1906, Post invested some of his substantial earnings from his food products manufacturing into Texas real estate, purchasing a massive 225,000 acre tract in Garza and Lynn Counties. Post platted a new town, which he called Post City. Shade trees were planted, farm parcels laid out, and a hotel, a school, churches, and a department store were constructed for the new Garza County seat.

In 1907, Collier's Weekly published an article questioning the claim made in advertisements that Grape-Nuts could cure appendicitis. Post responded with advertisements questioning the mental capacity of the article's author, and Collier's Weekly sued for libel. The case was heard in 1910, and Post was fined $50,000. The decision was overturned on appeal, but advertisements for Postum products stopped making such claims.

Post was a staunch opponent of the trade union movement and was remembered by the National Association of Manufacturers as one who "opposed bitterly boycotts, strikes, lockouts, picketing and other forms of coercion in the relations between employer and employee". Post was also a leading public advocate of the open shop system. However, as compensation, Post paid the highest wages, and provided bonuses and benefits. Near Battle Creek, he had model homes built that were sold to employees under certain conditions.

Death
At the end of 1913, the chronically ill Post's health deteriorated to the point that he canceled public appearances.

In early March 1914, he was believed to be suffering from appendicitis, and was rushed via a nonstop train from California to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, to be operated on by Drs. William and Charles Mayo, who were regarded as the nation's preeminent surgeons at the time. The Mayo brothers operated successfully on Post sometime between March 5 and March 10, 1914, but Post's abdominal pain persisted, according to the book American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Post then returned to his home in Santa Barbara, California with his stomach pain persisting. On May 9, 1914, despondent over his ongoing stomach illness and its symptoms, Post committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot. He was 59 years old. He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek.

Legacy
Post's 27-year-old daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post, inherited his company along with most of his vast fortune, one of the largest of the early 20th century.

Marjorie Merriweather Post later married financier E. F. Hutton and owned a 177 acre estate on Long Island's North Shore called "Hillwood." Marjorie sold the estate in 1951 for $200,000 to Long Island University, which founded its residential C.W. Post College in 1954, marking the 100th anniversary of C. W. Post's birth. For a while named the C.W. Post Center and then the C.W. Post Campus, what was C.W. Post College has now become mainly a commuter campus called LIU/Post, and it has about 8,500 full- and part-time students and over 100,000 alumni.

The World War II Liberty Ship, SS C. W. Post, was named in his honor.

title: C. W. Post


text:
Frederick V of the Palatinate

Frederick V (Friedrich; 26 August 1596 – 29 November 1632) was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the derisive sobriquet "the Winter King" (Czech: Zimní král; German: Winterkönig).

Frederick was born at the hunting lodge (Jagdschloss) in Deinschwang, Palatinate (present-day Lauterhofen, Germany). He was the son of Frederick IV and of Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, the daughter of William the Silent and Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier. An intellectual, a mystic, and a Calvinist, he succeeded his father as Prince-Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate in 1610, and at the age of 17 was married to the Protestant princess Elizabeth Stuart.

In 1618 the largely Protestant Czech nobility of Bohemia rebelled against their Catholic king, Ferdinand II, beginning a conflict that would become the Thirty Years' War. Frederick was asked to assume the crown of Bohemia. He accepted the offer and was crowned on 4 November 1619, as Frederick I. The estates chose Frederick because he was the leader of the Protestant Union, a military alliance founded by his father, and hoped for the support of Frederick's father-in-law, James VI of Scotland and I of England. However, James opposed his son-in-law's takeover of Bohemia from the Habsburgs and Frederick's allies in the Protestant Union failed to support him militarily by signing the Treaty of Ulm. His brief reign as king of Bohemia ended with his defeat at the Battle of White Mountain on 8 November 1620 – a year and four days after his coronation.

After the battle, the Imperial forces invaded Frederick's Palatine lands, forcing him to flee to his uncle Prince Maurice, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic in 1622. An Imperial edict formally deprived him of the Palatinate in 1623. He lived the rest of his life in exile with his wife and family, mostly at The Hague, and died in Mainz in 1632.

His eldest surviving son Charles Louis was restored to the electorate in 1648 under the Peace of Westphalia. Another son was Prince Rupert of the Rhine, one of the most colourful figures of his time. His daughter Princess Sophia was eventually named heiress presumptive to the British throne, and is the founder of the Hanoverian line of kings.

Youth, 1596–1610
Frederick was born on 26 August 1596 was born at the hunting lodge (Jagdschloss) in Deinschwang, Palatinate (present-day Lauterhofen, Germany). His father, Frederick IV, was the ruler of Electoral Palatinate; his mother was Louise Juliana of Nassau, the daughter of William I of Orange and Charlotte de Bourbon-Monpensier. Frederick was related to almost all of the ruling families of the Holy Roman Empire and a number of diplomats and dignitaries attended his baptism at Amberg on 6 October 1596. The Palatine Simmerns, the elder branch of the House of Wittelsbach, were noted for their attachment to Calvinism; this was in marked contrast to the other cadet branch of Wittelsbachs, headed by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, which was deeply devoted to the Roman Catholic Church.

The capital of the Palatinate, Heidelberg, was suffering from an outbreak of bubonic plague at this time, so Frederick spent his first two years in the Upper Palatinate before being brought to Heidelberg in 1598. In 1604, at his mother's urging, he was sent to Sedan to live in the court of his uncle Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon. During his time at Sedan, Frederick was a frequent visitor to the court of Henry IV of France. His tutor was Calvinist theologian Daniel Tilenus, a professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan. During the Eighty Years' War and the French Wars of Religion, Tilenus called for the unity of Protestant princes, and taught that it was their Christian duty to intervene if their brethren were being harassed. These views are likely to have shaped Frederick's future policies.

Controversy over guardianship, 1610–1614
On 19 September 1610, Frederick's father, Frederick IV, died from "extravagant living"; his son being 14 years old at the time. Under the terms of the Golden Bull of 1356, Frederick's closest male relative would serve as his guardian and as regent of the Palatinate until Frederick reached the age of majority. However, his nearest male relative, Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, was a Catholic, so, shortly before his death, Frederick IV had named another Wittelsbach, John II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, as his son's guardian. Frederick V welcomed John to Heidelberg, whereas Wolfgang William was denied entry. This led to a heated dispute among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1613, Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor intervened in the dispute, with the result being that Frederick V was able to begin his personal rule in the Palatinate even though he was still underage. The dispute ended in 1614, when Frederick attained his eighteenth birthday. However, much bad blood among the houses was caused by this dispute.

Marriage to Elizabeth Stuart
Frederick IV's marriage policy had been designed to solidify the Palatinate's position within the Reformed camp in Europe. Two of Frederick V's sisters were married to leading Protestant princes: his sister Luise Juliane to his one-time guardian John II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, and his sister Elizabeth Charlotte to George William, Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick IV had hoped that his daughter Katharina would marry the future Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, although this never came to pass. In keeping with his father's policy, Frederick V sought a marriage to Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England. James had initially considered marrying Elizabeth to Louis XIII of France, but these plans were rejected by his advisors. Frederick's advisors in the Palatinate were worried that if Elizabeth were married to a Catholic prince, this would upset the confessional balance of Europe, and they were thus resolved that she should marry Frederick V. Hans Meinhard von Schönberg, who had served as Frederick V's Hofmeister since his return to Heidelberg, was sent to London to court the princess in spring 1612. After intense negotiations, a marriage contract was signed on 26 May 1612, over the objection of her mother, Queen Anne.

Frederick travelled to London to collect his bride, landing on English soil on 16 October 1612. Frederick and Elizabeth, who had previously corresponded in French, now met each other for the first time, and got on well together. They were formally engaged in January 1613 and married on 14 February 1613 at the royal chapel at the Palace of Whitehall. The event was celebrated in John Donne's poetic masterpiece Epithalamion, or Mariage Song on the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine being married on St. Valentines Day. Shortly before the ceremony, Frederick was inducted into the Order of the Garter and he wore the Order's chain during the wedding ceremony. Elaborate celebrations, organised by Francis Bacon, followed the ceremony; these included a performance of The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn by Francis Beaumont and The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn by George Chapman.

On their return trip to Heidelberg, Frederick and Elizabeth travelled to The Hague to visit Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange before leaving for Germany on 5 May 1613. The couple entered Heidelberg on 12 June 1613, amidst widespread celebration. Elizabeth was popular with Frederick's subjects, and this popularity grew when, on 1 January 1614, she gave birth to a son, Frederick Henry.

As part of the marriage negotiations, Frederick had agreed to expand Heidelberg Castle. These renovations were completed in 1615 and the "Elizabeth Entrance" to Heidelberg Castle was dedicated.

Electoral reign before the Thirty Years' War, 1614–1618
One of Frederick's first acts upon taking the reins of government was attendance at a meeting of the Protestant Union, during which he was struck by fever and nearly died. Subsequently contemporaries described him as changed, melancholy and possibly depressed. As such, Frederick transferred much responsibility to his chancellor, Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg.

Frederick undertook a large building campaign, designed to glorify his regime. In addition to the renovations to Heidelberg Castle mentioned above, he commissioned a courtyard garden, the Hortus Palatinus, designed by English gardener Inigo Jones and French engineer Salomon de Caus. Frederick was depicted therein as Apollo and as Hercules.

Politically, Frederick positioned himself as a leader of the Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire, and as a defender of the liberty of the German nobles against the Catholic Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor. Since the Peace of Augsburg, the Empire had been delicately balanced between Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist principalities (although Calvinism was not recognised in the Peace of Augsburg). The conflicts between princes of these three faiths developed into a deep struggle over the Empire's constitution. Furthermore, the Twelve Years' Truce, a hiatus in the Eighty Years' War, was set to expire in 1621, and was likely to lead to renewed fighting between the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire. With its central location in Germany, the Palatinate was vulnerable to incursions of imperial troops from the Habsburg hereditary lands. Unlike many principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, the Electoral Palatinate was not a solid dominion, but instead consisted of two unconnected provinces surrounded by foreign lands. The Lower Palatinate centred on Heidelberg, while the Upper Palatinate centred on Amberg. The Lower Palatinate's economy was dominated by agriculture, while the Upper Palatinate was a mining region with one of the most successful economies in Europe.

Background and plans
The Kingdom of Bohemia was an elective monarchy, and despite being a kingdom, was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Since 1526, the kings of Bohemia had all been members of the House of Habsburg; since 1555, these kings had also been emperors. In the early seventeenth century, however, Bohemia faced a political crisis. The Estates of the realm of Bohemia became worried that the Habsburgs were planning to transform Bohemia into an absolute monarchy. A large number of Bohemian nobles were Protestant and feared that a Catholic emperor would attempt to impose Catholicism on Bohemia. Thus, a substantial opposition movement developed to the rule of Emperor Rudolf II. Rudolf had waged the Long War against the Ottoman Empire from 1593 to 1606. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Rudolf sought to launch a new war against the Ottomans. To gain Bohemian support, Rudolf agreed to guarantee Bohemia's religious liberty, issuing his so-called Letter of Majesty in 1609. Still, the Bohemian nobles remained suspicious of Rudolf and in contact with the Protestant Union.

The Bohemian Estates elected the Habsburg Matthias as Rudolf's heir, and Matthias became king of Bohemia in 1611 and emperor in 1612. Yet in the latter year there was discussion within the Protestant Union about fielding a Protestant candidate to supplant Matthias as king of Bohemia, and Frederick's name was discussed in this regard. Strategists in the Palatinate believed that if Frederick became king, this would lead John George I, Elector of Saxony, to break his alliance with the Habsburgs and come fully to the Protestant cause. This assumption proved unfounded. Meanwhile, the sectarian conflicts in Bohemia continued. In 1617, Matthias prevailed on the Bohemian Estates to elect the Habsburg Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, as heir to the throne of Bohemia. Ferdinand was an intensely loyal Catholic, and many Protestant noblemen believed that Ferdinand intended to withdraw the protections of Rudolf II's Letter of Majesty. These suspicions were further aroused when Imperial officials ordered Protestants to stop erecting Protestant churches on the "Stifts", lands held by ecclesiastical lords who were not subject to the Bohemian Estates. The Protestants claimed the status of these lands fell under the term "royal land", and thus were subject to Bohemia's authority by the Letter of Majesty – a very disputed legal interpretation which the Habsburg government rejected. On 23 May 1618, an assembly of Protestant noblemen, led by Count Jindřich Matyáš Thurn, stormed Prague Castle, and seized two Imperial governors, Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice. The rebels charged them with violating the Letter of Majesty, found them guilty, and threw them and their scribe Philip Fabricius out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. This event – known as the Second Defenestration of Prague – marked the beginning of the Bohemian Revolt, and with it, the beginning of the Thirty Years' War.

In these circumstances Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg, Frederick V's governor of the Upper Palatinate, moved to intervene in Bohemia. He did not initially propose nominating Frederick as king because the young elector was still seen as politically inexperienced, and was a Calvinist, while there were virtually no Calvinists in Bohemia. At any rate, Frederick was not initially eager to defy the Emperor, who had praised Frederick's loyalty. Frederick did not publicly break with the Emperor, but in a letter to his father-in-law, James I of England, he placed the blame for the Bohemian vote on the Jesuits and the Spanish party at the Habsburg court. This was a questionable evasion of the role played by Frederick's own agents.

The first mention in Prague of Frederick's name as a possible candidate as king of Bohemia came in November 1618. It is not known if Frederick's agents played a role in talking up his possible candidacy. Palatine diplomat Christoph von Dohna approached James I of England with the possibility of Frederick becoming king, but James reacted negatively to this idea. The princes of the Protestant Union similarly rejected the idea, fearing it might lead to religious war and the Elector of Saxony was staunchly opposed.

Behind the scenes, Frederick authorised sending a force under Count Ernst von Mansfeld to support the Bohemian rebels. In August 1618, forces under Mansfeld entered Bohemia and led the Siege of Pilsen, which saw Pilsen fall to rebel forces on 21 November 1618, leaving the entire kingdom in Protestant hands. Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor died on 20 March 1619. Although his successor, the future Emperor Ferdinand II, had previously been crowned King of Bohemia, the Estates of Bohemia now refused to recognise him as their king. Fearing an invasion by Imperial forces, the Estates sought an alliance with the other members of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Silesia, Lusatia, Moravia) and on 31 July 1619 at Prague, these states formed the Bohemian Confederacy, dedicated to opposing the Habsburgs; under the terms of this agreement, Protestantism became virtually the state religion of the Bohemian lands. In August 1619, the general parliament of all the Bohemian lands declared that Ferdinand had forfeited the Bohemian throne. This formally severed all ties between Bohemia and the Habsburgs and made war inevitable. Ferdinand of Bavaria, Archbishop of Cologne predicted this decision would lead to twenty, forty, or sixty years of war.

The preferred candidate of Bohemians as their new king was the Elector of Saxony, but he let it be known he would not accept the throne. This left Frederick as the most senior Protestant prince available, since no one else was willing to risk conflict with the emperor. In August 1619, the chances of Frederick becoming King of Bohemia became greater when Gabriel Bethlen launched an anti-Habsburg revolt in Royal Hungary. This was also precisely the period when Ferdinand was travelling to Frankfurt for his coronation.

Frederick in Prague
On 26 August 1619, the states of the Bohemian Confederacy elected Frederick as the new King of Bohemia, Frederick receiving news of his election on 29 August in Amberg.

Two days later, Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick was the only elector who voted against Ferdinand; even the Protestant prince-electors John George I of Saxony and John Sigismund of Brandenburg adhered to the tradition of supporting the Habsburg Imperial candidate. The electoral college also condemned the Bohemian Confederation's attempt to remove Ferdinand from the throne of Bohemia and declared that the 1617 vote of the Estates of Bohemia, making Ferdinand King of Bohemia, was binding. Frederick's decision to accept the Bohemian crown has been the subject of much historical speculation. Later Catholic propaganda, in a view accepted by Friedrich Schiller, portrayed the decision as based mainly on Elizabeth Stuart's desire to be a queen. More recently, historians have concluded that Frederick's decision was based primarily on a sense of duty to his fellow Protestants, although Frederick wavered between his obligations to the emperor and his commitment to his religious brethren. There also seems to have been economic considerations; the Upper Palatinate was at that time Europe's center for iron production, while Bohemia was a focal point for the tin and glass trade. Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg, told Frederick that a union of the two areas could be commercially advantageous.

On 12 September 1619, the Protestant Union met at Rothenburg ob der Tauber and called on Frederick not to intervene in Bohemian affairs. Other possible allies – the Dutch Republic, Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and the Republic of Venice – sent letters saying they would not be able to offer Frederick assistance if he accepted the Bohemian offer. Only Gabriel Bethlen offered words of encouragement.

Between 24 September and 28, Frederick reached his decision "not to resist the will of the Almighty" and thus decided to accept the Bohemian crown. The Dutch Republic, the Republic of Venice, Denmark, and Sweden recognised Frederick as King of Bohemia.

On 29 September 1619, Frederick left Heidelberg for Prague. He travelled through Ansbach, Amberg, Neumarkt, and Waldsassen, where he was met by representatives from the Bohemian Estates. Together, they then travelled through Cheb, Sokolov, Žatec, Louny, and Slaný. Finally on 31 October 1619, Frederick entered Prague, along with 568 people and 100 cars, and was greeted enthusiastically.

Coronation
Frederick donned the Crown of Saint Wenceslas in St. Vitus Cathedral on 4 November 1619. The coronation was conducted not by the Archbishop of Prague but by the Utraquist administrator of the diocese, Jiřík Dicastus, and a Protestant elder, Jan Cyril Špalek z Třebíče. The liturgy was modelled on that used at the coronation of Charles IV, with only a few parts altered. The litany was sung – per the Catholic tradition – rather than spoken as was normally done by the Calvinists. Frederick was anointed with little objection. At the end of the coronation, the Estates paid homage to Frederick.

Although a large part of the country was already devastated by war, and many refugees were encamped in the town, the coronation was celebrated with lavish parties.

Reign
Frederick assumed a weak crown and a state torn with internal divisions. The state's finances had been disrupted for years, and, at any rate, Bohemian kings had only very limited ability to raise funds, being primarily dependent on the goodwill of the nobility and the tax allocations of the diets. The Protestant nobles felt that higher taxes were necessary to pay for war against the German Catholic League, but the country already felt overburdened in the wake of the Long War. Further limiting Frederick's ability to manoeuvre was the need to distribute royal bounty to supporters in order to ensure their loyalty to his regime.

In Prague, Frederick soon came to be alienated from a portion of the nobility and the clergy. Neither Frederick nor his wife spoke Czech, so court offices were staffed primarily with foreigners, while the administration of the localities was left to the local nobles. This made an alliance of the royal family with the corporate bodies of the realm difficult.

Further alienation was caused by Frederick V's court preacher, Abraham Scultetus, who was determined to use his new post to advance the cause of Calvinism in Bohemia. The Utraquist churches had retained the use of relics and images in church, but Scultetus now launched an iconoclastic crusade against images: beginning on 21 December 1619, images were removed from St. Vitus Cathedral, and on 27–28 December, the famous Prague Altarpiece of Lucas Cranach the Elder depicting the Virgin Mary was destroyed. There was even a rumour that the grave of St. Wenceslaus was to be desecrated. Scultetus' iconoclasm was deeply unpopular, and Frederick attempted to distance himself from it, claiming that his orders were not being carried out by his followers. The nickname "The Winter King" appeared shortly after the beginning of Frederick's reign and our first printed reference using the term came in a 1619 Imperial pamphlet that presented the phrase in the context of a royal chronogram. Frederick's propagandists attempted to respond to the phrase by arguing that Frederick was in fact a "Winter Lion" who defended the crown of Bohemia against troublemakers and liars, and that he would also be a "Summer Lion."

Meanwhile, Ferdinand II rallied his forces against Frederick. On 21 October 1619, he signed a treaty with Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, leader of the Catholic League. This treaty provided that Maximilian would be commander of the forces against Frederick, promised that Maximilian would retain all of the occupied Bohemian lands for himself, and that he would be granted Frederick's electoral title as well. The Emperor was also able to obtain the support of Elector John George I of Saxony; John George's court preacher, Matthias Hoe von Hoenegg, encouraged the Emperor to smash Frederick and the Bohemians.

Frederick's chancellor, Christian of Anhalt, urged Frederick to call a meeting of Protestant princes at Nuremberg in December 1619. This conference was a fiasco, as few princes bothered to send representatives. John George of Saxony declined to send a representative. Those who did attend half-heartedly promised to secure Frederick's Rhineland territories during Frederick's absence in Bohemia.

In March 1620, during a meeting of the Imperial party at Mulhouse, Frederick despatched a legal defense of his actions. He argued that he had not broken the imperial peace because Bohemia was located outside of the Holy Roman Empire and there was not, therefore, a conflict between an imperial prince and the emperor. Frederick argued that it would therefore be illegal for Ferdinand to use imperial power against him. This meeting, which included John George of Saxony and Maximilian of Bavaria, rejected Frederick's argument, finding that Bohemia was an indivisible part of the Empire. On 1 April 1620, the Imperial party issued an ultimatum calling on Frederick to leave Bohemia by 1 June. If Frederick did not comply by this date, Ferdinand threatened to enforce his right as Holy Roman Emperor and rightful King of Bohemia to overthrow the usurper.

A little later, John George of Saxony signed a treaty with Ferdinand in which Ferdinand guaranteed the practice of Lutheranism in Bohemia and recognized the secular areas in the Netherlands. Ferdinand also agreed to give John George Lusatia, thus cementing John George's dominance of the Upper Saxon Circle.

This was the context when the parliament of the Bohemian Confederacy met on 25 March 1620. Frederick called for massive tax increases and conscription to fight the impending Imperial threat. To raise money for the Bohemian forces, Frederick used his private funds, pawned his jewels and, in May 1620, drove the Palatinate into insolvency when he decided to move two tons of gold to Bohemia.

Bad news continued to arrive for Frederick. James VI of Scotland and I of England refused to support his son-in-law militarily. The Netherlands sent only a small force and promised only 50,000 florins a month for Frederick. Worst of all for Frederick, on 3 July 1620, the Protestant Union signed the Treaty of Ulm (1620), thereby withdrawing their support for Frederick and declaring neutrality in the conflict between Frederick and the Catholic League.

Battle of White Mountain, 8 November 1620
With the signing of the Treaty of Ulm Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquis of the Balbases, began raising Imperial troops in the Spanish Netherlands and in the Alsace region.

In early August 1620, 25,000 troops, under the command of Spinola, marched into Bohemia. In the third week of August, they shifted their focus and marched into the nearly unarmed Electoral Palatinate, occupying Mainz. The Electoral Palatinate was defended by only 2,000 English volunteers and the country was easily taken. Imperial troops set up camp in Frankenthal and Mannheim. Spinola crossed the Rhine on 5 September 1620 and proceeded to capture Bad Kreuznach on 10 September and Oppenheim on 14 September. From Bohemia, Frederick was powerless to stop the occupation of his ancestral homeland. After capturing Linz, Upper Austria, Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria crossed the Bohemian border on 26 September 1620. At Rokycany, Maximilian's forces first met with the 15,000 ragtag, poorly paid and poorly equipped troops that Frederick had managed to raise. Frederick visited his army on 28 September 1620, but, lacking a military background, left the conduct of the war to his generals. Frederick focused his attention on organizing supplies and preparing fortifications.

After a series of skirmishes, on 5 November 1620, Frederick drew his forces back towards Prague and Imperial troops followed them. On 7 November, Bohemian forces determined to make a stand at White Mountain, just outside Prague. The day before, King Frederick had ridden down the lines and exhorted the soldiers. He then rushed to Prague to implore the Bohemian Estates to raise money for his troops and to receive the envoys of the English king. However, it was too late. When, on 8 November 1620, Frederick wanted to ride back to the troops, he was met at the gates of Prague by fleeing soldiers of his army and his chancellor, Anhalt, who informed him of the disaster: the Bohemian army had received a crushing defeat that morning in the Battle of White Mountain.

Escape
Anhalt could recommend only one option to Frederick: immediate flight. As such, on 9 November, Frederick fled to the Silesian capital of Breslau, along with his wife and child, some advisers, and not much more baggage than the Bohemian Crown Jewels.

Maximilian took Prague shortly after Frederick's departure. From Silesia, Frederick wanted to plan revenge for the Battle of White Mountain, but the Silesian Estates refused to support this project, and he was forced to leave Silesia in early 1621. Contemporary pamphleteers – both Catholic and Protestant – were merciless in their portrayal of Frederick's flight from Prague. After Frederick's Garter was found in Prague, pamphleteers routinely portrayed him with his stockings falling down.

On 21 January 1621, Ferdinand issued a decree against Frederick and Anhalt, accusing them of breach of peace, supporting rebels, and treason. Ferdinand decreed that Frederick's lands and titles within the Holy Roman Empire were now forfeited. On 6 February 1621, representatives of the Protestant Union met with Ferdinand at Heilbronn to protest, but they soon agreed to support the settlement in the Palatinate, and the Palatinate remained occupied by Spanish troops. At this point, the Protestant Union had essentially ceased to exist.

The Twelve Years' Truce ended on 9 April 1621. On 14 April, Frederick joined his wife at The Hague. The Dutch Republic and Frederick signed a contract in which he accepted the support of the Netherlands for the reconquest of his dominions.

In Bohemia, the crushing of the Bohemian Revolt had terrible consequences. Twenty-seven Bohemian nobles were killed in the Old Town Square executions on 21 June 1621. Afterwards, the heads of twelve nobles, along with the hand of Joachim Andreas von Schlick, were nailed to the Old Town Tower of Charles Bridge, where they remained for ten years. The elective monarchy was now abolished; the role of the Estates greatly curtailed; and the Letter of Majesty was torn by Ferdinand himself. Only Lutheranism remained tolerated in Bohemia, and in the coming years, the rest of the population would be actively re-Catholicized. Bohemia would remain part of the Habsburg monarchy until 1918.

Fall of Frederick's ancestral lands, 1621–22
In summer 1621, John II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, Frederick's former guardian who had served as regent of the Electoral Palatinate when Frederick left for Prague, resigned. Frederick was also at this time placed under the Imperial ban, which permitted the forfeiture of his territories and effectively rendered him an outlaw.

However, Ernst von Mansfeld continued to occupy a portion of the Upper Palatinate and had successfully resisted efforts by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly to dislodge him. Mansfeld crossed into the Rhenish Palatinate in early 1622, and on 21 April 1622, Frederick joined Mansfeld there. Frederick attempted to convince other Protestant princes to reconstitute the Protestant Union, but met with limited success. Frederick's cause was boosted by a 27 April 1622 victory over Tilly's forces at the Battle of Wiesloch, but this boost was short lived. Frederick's forces under the command of Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Baden-Durlach were defeated at the Battle of Wimpfen on 6 May 1622; and then forces under Christian the Younger of Brunswick were soundly defeated at the Battle of Höchst on 20 June 1622.

Frederick was increasingly under Mansfeld's influence at this time, and was growing disillusioned with the Protestant cause. With Frederick's knowledge, Mansfeld raided Darmstadt and captured Louis V, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and his son Johann as hostages. This was clearly a violation of Imperial law, and cost Frederick whatever remaining sympathy he still had in Europe. During his retreat into Alsace, Mansfeld burned a city and thirty villages. Frederick dismissed Mansfeld after he became convinced he would be unable to reconquer his hereditary lands. Frederick then spent the summer with his uncle, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, in Sedan.

Shortly thereafter, troops under Tilly and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba completed the Spanish conquest of the Electoral Palatinate. After an eleven-week siege, Heidelberg fell on 19 September 1622; Mannheim similarly fell on 5 November 1622. Only the British garrison in Frankenthal now held out. After the conquest of Heidelberg, the Protestant churches were closed, the university was closed, and at the request of Maximilian, the great library, the famous Bibliotheca Palatina (3500 manuscripts), was presented as a gift of thanks to Pope Gregory XV in appreciation of the 620,000 guilders he had provided for financing the campaigns of the Catholic League. On 23 February 1623, Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor awarded Frederick's electoral title to Maximilian of Bavaria, who now became Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria. Maximilian was also awarded the conquered territory of Upper Palatinate as a fief. Other territories of the Electoral Palatinate (Parkstein, Weiden in der Oberpfalz, and Peilstein im Mühlviertel) were awarded to Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg.

Exile, 1622–1632
In late 1622 and early 1623, Frederick organised a Palatinate government-in-exile at The Hague. This Palatinate council was headed by Ludwig Camerarius.

During the negotiations for the Spanish match, Frederick urged his father-in-law not to go through with the match.

There were attempts at reconciling Frederick with the emperor in 1624–25 and in 1627, but these came to naught. Frederick was willing to compromise with the emperor, but he wanted the restoration of his lands and electoral title, and the emperor was not inclined to restore these to Frederick. Frederick held out some hope that his lands might be retaken militarily, but these hopes were crushed on 27 August 1626, when the forces of Christian IV of Denmark were crushed by Tilly at the Battle of Lutter.

Frederick left most of the day-to-day business of his government-in-exile to his counselors, although he did take some interest in his finances. Frederick was very stingy in funding his administration, and yet, in order to maintain the dignity of a royal court, he spent vast sums on building and entertainment, quickly blowing through donations from the English and Dutch governments. For example, in 1629, Frederick commissioned Bartholomeus van Bassen to build him a large summer palace in Rhenen, the 'Koningshuis'. When completed in 1631, this palace had a large central residence, a courtyard, a two-storey main building with two wings projecting to the south, and was surrounded by large gardens. Frederick spent much of his time there in hunting and long walks. Frederick suffered a personal tragedy on 17 January 1629. He was traveling to Amsterdam to view the Spanish treasure fleet captured by the Dutch West India Company when his boat capsized while crossing the Haarlemmermeer, a body of water near Haarlem. Frederick survived the accident, but his eldest son, the fifteen-year-old Frederick Henry of the Palatinate, did not. Frederick himself sustained serious physical injuries in the accident, and would not fully recover for 15 months.

At the Diet of Regensburg (1630), Frederick formally petitioned to be forgiven for having accepted the crown of Bohemia and admitted his wrongdoing. But nothing came of this. In March 1631, Frederick despatched diplomat Sir Robert Anstruther to hold discussions with Ernst Egon VIII, Count of Fürstenberg, president of the Imperial Privy Council, about restoring Frederick's lands, but Frederick died before these could bear any fruit.

Death, 1632
In 1630, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden intervened in the Thirty Years' War on the Protestant side. He won the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) against the Imperial army and marched into southern Germany. When the Swedes captured Oppenheim in December 1631, Frederick believed the time was ripe for him to reestablish himself in the Palatinate, and he left for Heidelberg.

In February 1632, Frederick met Gustavus Adolphus at Frankfurt, with Gustavus Adolphus paying Frederick full royal honours. However, Gustavus Adolphus did not offer Frederick support for restoring him in the Palatinate because England and the Netherlands had not signed off on such a proposal.

Frederick subsequently took part in Gustavus Adolphus' march into the Duchy of Bavaria, and was present for the march into Munich on 17 May 1632. He pressed his case with Gustavus Adolphus, who told Frederick that he would accept Frederick's restoration without Dutch/British support only if Frederick would agree to hold the Palatinate as a fief of the King of Sweden. The lands of the Palatinate were simply too important strategically for Gustavus Adolphus to hand them over to Frederick. Gustavus Adolphus also insisted that Frederick would have to establish equal rights for Lutherans in his territories. Frederick refused Gustavus Adolphus' conditions and they parted. Frederick travelled to Swedish-occupied Mainz, intending to return to the Hague.

About this time, England finally determined to send an expeditionary force to Germany. Unfortunately for Frederick, it was too late. Gustavus Adolphus was killed at the Battle of Lützen (1632) on 16 November, and in October, Frederick developed an infection that got worse in the following weeks. The famed physician Peter Spina was summoned from Darmstadt to Mainz, but nothing could be done for Frederick. Frederick died on the morning of 29 November 1632, of a "pestilential fever".

Frederick's son and heir, Charles Louis, was only 15 years old. Therefore, his uncle, Frederick's brother Ludwig Philipp of Simmern-Kaiserslautern, served as regent. Frederick's internal organs were buried at St. Catherine's in Oppenheim and his embalmed body was taken to Frankenthal. On 9 June 1635, with Spanish troops approaching, Ludwig Philipp fled to Kaiserslautern with Frederick's body. It is believed that Ludwig Philipp transferred Frederick's body to Sedan in September 1637, but Frederick's final resting place is unknown.

Family and children
He married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England and of Anne of Denmark in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall on 14 February 1613 and had the following children:

 * 1) Frederick Henry (1614–1629)—(drowned)
 * 2) Charles Louis (1617–1680), became Elector Palatine in 1648
 * 3) Elisabeth (1618–1680)
 * 4) Rupert (1619–1682) of English Civil War fame.
 * 5) Maurice (1620–1652) who also served in the English Civil War.
 * 6) Louise Hollandine (1622–1709)
 * 7) Louis (1623–1624), died in infancy.
 * 8) Edward (1625–1663)
 * 9) Henriette Marie (1626–1651)
 * 10) Philip Frederick (1627–1650)
 * 11) Charlotte (1628–1631)
 * 12) Sophia (1630–1714), heir presumptive to the thrones of England and Ireland by the Act of Settlement, 1701. Married Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. Her son became King George I of Great Britain in 1714.
 * 13) Gustavus (1632–1641), died young, of epilepsy.

title: Frederick V of the Palatinate