This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

Zeventien Provinciën Diecisiete Provincias Siebzehn Provinzen Dix-sept Provinces The Seventeen Provinces
States of the Holy Roman Empire
← 1482–1581 →   →
Flag
Map of the Provinces
Capital	Brussels
Language(s)	Dutch, Low Saxon, Frisian, Walloon, Luxembourgish, French
Religion	Roman Catholic (official) After 1530s Protestantism and Anabaptism (inside northern areas, minority, unofficial)
Government	Monarchy
Historical era	Middle Ages
- Established	1482
- Joined Burgundian Circle	1512
- Dutch declaration of independence	July 26, 1581

The Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 15th century and 16th century, roughly covering the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, French Flanders), and a small part of Western Germany.

The Seventeen Provinces were originally held by the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois and later by the Habsburgs, first by the Spanish and then Austrian line. From 1512 the Provinces formed the major part of the Burgundian Circle.

Composition[link]

The map corresponds to the following provinces:

1. the County of Artois
2. the County of Flanders, including the burgraviates of Lille, Douai, Orchies, the Lordship of Tournai and the Tournaisis
3. the Lordship of Mechelen
4. the County of Namur
5. the County of Hainaut
6. the County of Zeeland
7. the County of Holland
8. the Duchy of Brabant, including the Margraviate of Antwerp, the counties of Leuven and of Brussels, and the advocacy of the Abbey of Nivelles and of Gembloux
9. the Duchy of Limburg, including the counties of Dalhem and Valkenburg and the Lordship of Herzogenrath
10. the Duchy of Luxembourg
11. the Prince-Bishopric, later Lordship of Utrecht
12. the Lordship of Frisia
13. the Duchy of Guelders
14. the Lordship of Groningen (including the Ommelanden)
15. the Lordship of Drenthe, Lingen, Wedde, and Westerwolde
16. the Lordship of Overijssel
17. the County of Zutphen

It was not always the same Seventeen Provinces represented at the Estates-General of the Netherlands. Sometimes one delegation was included in another.

In later years the county of Zutphen became a part of the Duchy of Guelders, and the Duchy of Limburg was dependent on the Duchy of Brabant. The Lordship of Drenthe is sometimes considered as part of the Lordship of Overijssel. On the other hand the French-speaking cities of Flanders were sometimes recognised as a separate province.
Therefore, in some lists Zutphen and Drenthe are replaced by

• burgraviates of Lille, Douai, Orchies (also called Lilloise Flanders)
• Tournai and the Tournaisis

There were a number of fiefdoms in the Low Countries that were not part of the Seventeen Provinces, mainly because they did not belong to the Burgundian Circle but to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle. The largest of these was the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the green area on the map, including the County of Horne. The ethnically and culturally Netherlandish duchies of Cleves and Julich did not join either. In the north, there were also a few smaller entities like the island of Ameland that would retain their own lords until the French Revolution.

Historians came up with different variations of the list, but always with 17 members. This number could have been chosen because of its Christian connotation.^{[1][clarification needed]}

History[link]

History of the Low Countries v t e
Frankish Kingdom (5th to 10th century)				Frisian Kingdom (600-734)
Carolingian Empire after 800
	West Francia ("France")	Independent Kingdom of Middle Francia (Lotharingia) (843–870)
Flanders and Lotharingia in Kingdom of West Francia (870–880)
	County of Flanders (862–1384) and other principalities (10th–14th centuries)	Kingdom then Duchy of Lotharingia in East Francia ("Germany") (880-1190)
Prince-Bishopric of Liège (980-1794) Duchy of Bouillon (988-1795) Imperial Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy (1138-1795)		Duchy of Brabant (1183-1430) and other principalities (10th–15th centuries)	County/ Duchy of Luxembourg (963–1443)	County of Holland (880-1432) and other principalities (10th–15th centuries)
	Burgundian Netherlands (1384–1477)
	Habsburg Netherlands (Seventeen Provinces) (1482–1556)
	Spanish Netherlands (Southern Netherlands) (1556–1714)			Dutch Republic (1581–1795)
	Austrian Netherlands (Southern Netherlands) (1714–1795)
Liège Revolution (1789–1792)	United States of Belgium (1790)
Part of the French Republic (1795–1804) and the French Empire (1804–1815)				Batavian Republic (1795–1806)
				Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810)
United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830)
Kingdom of Belgium (since 1830)			Gr Duchy Luxembourg (personal union)	Kingdom of the Netherlands (since 1830)
			Gr Duchy Luxembourg (since 1890)

Leo Belgicus map.

The Seventeen Provinces originated from the Burgundian Netherlands. The dukes of Burgundy systematically became the lord of different provinces. Mary I of Valois, Duchess of Burgundy was the last of the House of Burgundy.

When she married Maximilian I of Habsburg, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the provinces were acquired by the House of Habsburg in 1482, with the exception of the Duchy of Burgundy itself, which, with an appeal to Salic law, had been reabsorbed into France upon the death of Mary's father, Charles the Bold. Maximilian's grandson, Charles V of Habsburg, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain, eventually united all seventeen provinces under his rule, the last one being the Duchy of Guelders, in 1543.

Most of these provinces were fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. Two provinces, the County of Flanders and County of Artois, were originally French fiefs, but sovereignty was ceded to the Empire in the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529.

The Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 determined that the Provinces should remain united in the future and inherited by the same monarch. Therefore, Charles V introduced the title of Heer der Nederlanden ("Lord of the Netherlands"). Only he and his son could ever use this title.

After Charles V's abdication in 1556, his realms were divided between his son, Philip II of Habsburg, King of Spain, and his brother, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Seventeen Provinces went to his son, the king of Spain.

Conflicts between Philip II and his Dutch subjects led to the Eighty Years' War, which started in 1568. The seven northern provinces gained their independence as a republic called the Seven United Provinces. They were:

1. the Lordship of Groningen and of the Ommelanden
2. the Lordship of Friesland
3. the Lordship of Overijssel
4. the Duchy of Guelders (except its upper quarter) and the County of Zutphen
5. the Prince-Bishopric, later Lordship of Utrecht
6. the County of Holland
7. the County of Zeeland

The southern provinces, Flanders, Brabant, Namur, Hainaut, Luxembourg and the others, were restored to Spanish rule due to the military and political talent of the Duke of Parma, especially at the Siege of Antwerp (1584–1585). Hence, these provinces became known as the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands.

The northern Seven United Provinces kept parts of Limburg, Brabant, and Flanders during the Eighty Years' War (see Generality Lands), which ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

Artois and parts of Flanders and Hainaut (French Flanders and French Hainaut) were ceded to France in the course of the 17th and 18th century.

Economy[link]

A map of the European Spanish Empire after the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) as depicted in the Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912) - Habsburg lands are shaded green

By the mid-16th century, the Margraviate of Antwerp (Duchy of Brabant) had become the economic, political, and cultural center of the Netherlands after its capital had shifted from the nearby Lordship of Mechelen to the city of Brussels.

Bruges (County of Flanders) had already lost its prominent position as economic powerhouse of northern Europe. And Holland was gradually gaining importance in the 15th and 16th centuries.

However after the revolt of the seven northern provinces (1568), the Sack of Antwerp (1576), the Fall of Antwerp (1584-1585), and the resulting closure of the Scheldt river to navigation, a large number of people from the southern provinces emigrated north to the new republic. The center of prosperity moved from cities in the south such as Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels to cities in the north, mostly Holland, including Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam.

Netherlands[link]

To distinguish between the older and larger Low Countries of the Netherlands from the current country of the Netherlands, Dutch speakers usually drop the plural for the latter. They speak of Nederland in singular for the current country and of de Nederlanden in plural for the integral domains of Charles V.

In other languages, this has not been adopted, though the larger area is sometimes known as the Low Countries in English.

The fact that the term Netherlands has such different historical meanings can sometimes lead to difficulties in expressing oneself correctly. For example, composers from the 16th century are often said to belong to the Dutch School (Nederlandse School). Although they themselves would not have objected to that term at that time, today it may wrongly create the impression that they were from the current Netherlands. In fact, they were almost exclusively from current Belgium.

Flanders[link]

The same confusion exists around the word Flanders. Historically, it applied to the County of Flanders. But when the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium sought more rights in the 19th century, the word Flanders was reused, but now to indicate the Dutch speeking part of Belgium (see Flemish Movement).
There is absolutely no match between the territory of the County of Flanders and present-day Flanders.

• French Flanders belonged to the County of Flanders, but is today part of France.
• Zeelandic Flanders belonged to the County of Flanders, but is today part of the Netherlands.
• Tournai and the Tournaisis was some period considered as part of the County of Flanders, but is today part of Wallonia.

• The present-day Belgian province of Flemish Brabant belongs to present-day Flanders, but was part of the Duchy of Brabant.
• The present-day Belgian province of Antwerp belongs to present-day Flanders, but was part of the Duchy of Brabant.
• The present-day Belgian province of Limburg belongs to present-day Flanders, but was part of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.

This explains for instance why the province of East Flanders is not situated in the east of present-day Flanders.

Coats of arms[link]

See also[link]

• Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands
• The Netherlands (disambiguation)
• Burgundian Netherlands
• Greater Netherlands
• French Flemish
• Benelux

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Map of the Seventeen Provinces (1555)

v t e Burgundian Circle (1512–1806) of the Holy Roman Empire Seventeen Provinces of Habsburg Netherlands Seceded 1581 Drenthe · Friesland · Groningen · Holland · Overijssel · Utrecht · Zeeland · Zutphen Remained Artois2 · Brabant · Flanders · Guelders · Hainaut · Limburg · Luxembourg · Mechelen · Namur County Burgundy3 Imperial City Besançon3 Dependent territories Antwerp · Breda1 1 until 1648;    2 until 1659;   3 until 1678.

Look up 17 or seventeen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Seventeen may refer to:

• 17 (number)
• 17, the year 17 AD (or CE)
• 17 BC, the year 17 BC (or BCE)
• 17 AH, the year 17 AH in the Islamic calendar

Seventeen or 17 may also refer to:

Books and magazines[link]

• Seventeen (magazine), an American magazine for teenage girls
• Seventeen (novel), a 1916 novel by Booth Tarkington
• Seventeen (Serafin novel), a 2004 novel by Shan Serafin
• Seventeen (Japanese magazine), a magazine for teenage girls
• Seventeen, a magazine, later retitled Club Seventeen, and video brand by Video Art Holland
• Seventeen (Sebuntiin), a novel by Kenzaburō Ōe

Film and television[link]

• Seventeen (1985 film), a documentary
• 17 Again (film), a 2009 film whose working title was 17
• Number Seventeen, a 1932 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Seventeen (TV drama), a 1994 UK dramatic short starring Christien Anholt

Music[link]

Albums[link]

• Seventeen (Keisha White album), or the title song
• 17 (Motel album), or the title song
• 17 (Ricky Martin album)

Songs[link]

• "Seventeen" (Boyd Bennett song), a 1955 popular song
• "Seventeen" (Jet song)
• "Seventeen" (Ladytron song)
• "Seventeen" (Simon Webbe song)
• "Seventeen" (Winger song)
• "17" (Yourcodenameis:Milo song)
• "Seventeen", by The Elders from American Wake
• "Seventeen", by ¡Forward, Russia! from Give Me a Wall
• "Seventeen", by Jimmy Eat World from Static Prevails
• "Seventeen", by Marina and the Diamonds from Mermaid Vs. Sailor EP
• "Seventeen", by the Sex Pistols from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
• "Seventeen", by X Marks the Pedwalk
• "Seventeen", from Repo! The Genetic Opera
• "17", by Cross Canadian Ragweed from Cross Canadian Ragweed
• "17", by Kings of Leon from Only by the Night
• "17", by Mandy Moore from Mandy Moore
• "17", by Milburn from Well Well Well
• "17", by Rick James from Reflections
• "17", by Smashing Pumpkins from Adore

Performers[link]

• The17, a UK choir
• Seventeen, a UK band that later became The Alarm

Other uses[link]

• Seventeen, Ohio
• SEVENTEEN, an art gallery in London
• USS Carnelian, a converted yacht originally named Seventeen
• Seventeen (musical), a 1951 Broadway musical based on Booth Tarkington's novel

See also[link]

• "At Seventeen", a 1975 song by Janis Ian
• at17, a Hong Kong cantopop band
• "I'm Seventeen", a song by Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers
• Just Seventeen, a defunct British magazine for teenage girls

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The Dutchess is the debut studio album by American recording artist Fergie, who is a member of The Black Eyed Peas. The album was released on September 19, 2006. As of 2008, the album has sold more than six million copies worldwide. The song, "All That I Got (The Make Up Song)" has been remixed slightly and used as one of the two main music themes for Tyra Banks' talk show, Tyra. Edited and Parental Advisory versions of the album were available. In Japan, the United States and Australia, deluxe versions of the album were released. For sales in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, the Parental Advisory version is the only Universal album edited in Peru.

The album produced 5 top five singles in the U.S., including three number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, "London Bridge", "Big Girls Don't Cry", and "Glamorous", as well as the number two single "Fergalicious" and the number five single "Clumsy". All five of the aforementioned singles have sold over two million digital downloads each in the U.S., thus setting a new record in the digital era for the most multi-platinum singles from one album.^[1]

Background[link]

The title is a derivation and misspelling of the title "The Duchess of York", as Fergie (a derivative of her last name "Ferguson") and Sarah Ferguson, the real Duchess of York, share a surname and nickname. will.i.am was an executive producer for the album. Ludacris, B-Real from Cypress Hill and Rita Marley all make guest appearances.^[2] Fergie has made it clear in interviews that she will still be an active member of the Black Eyed Peas.

In Australia, with the success of her first number-one single "Big Girls Don't Cry", the album peaked at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart on July 23, 45 weeks after it was released. The album has shifted over 210,000 copies and is certified triple platinum by ARIA. It has spent an impressive 62 weeks inside the nation's top 50, and 21 weeks inside the top 10.^[3] It spent four consecutive weeks at number one.^[4] Fergie has also had five consecutive top 4 hits from a debut album, the first artist to do so was Delta Goodrem with her 2003 album, Innocent Eyes, which had five consecutive number ones. Due to the re-release of The Dutchess in the U.S, the original album bounced back from #104 to #28, because of the 11,000 copies of the deluxe edition sold in its first week.

On December 21, 2007, Fergie performed "Finally" on the 9th Annual A Home for the Holidays special on CBS and on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2008 on ABC, where Ryan Seacrest announced that it would be a single in 2008. It was released to radio on February 26, 2008.^[5] The music video for "Finally" was filmed by Marc Webb, but has yet to be released.^[6] Some songs were written with Fergie's old band, Wild Orchid members Renee Sands, and Stefanie Ridel.

Singles[link]

"London Bridge" was released as the lead single from the album on July 18, 2006, and was Fergie's first single as a solo artist. As of January 1, 2008, the single has sold 1,792,912 copies in the U.S. "Fergalicious" is the second single from the album, The Dutchess. It features Black Eyed Peas member will.i.am, who also produced the track. "Fergalicious" was not officially released as the second single in the UK, where "Glamorous" was officially made the second single instead. However, "Fergalicious" still managed to chart at number 26 on the UK Official Download Chart and will be released as the fourth single there, over a year after the song's initial release, as a double A-side with "Clumsy". This is possibly due to the huge success of "Big Girls Don't Cry" in the UK which reached #2, saved the album, and even made it reach a new peak position at #18. As of August 2008, the single has sold over 2,700,000 copies.

"Glamorous" is the third single of The Dutchess; the song features Ludacris. The beat was originally presented to Gwen Stefani as a remix for her single "Luxurious", but the singer ultimately decided not to use it. Ludacris' verse is leftover from that version. In March 2007, the song became Fergie's second number-one single in the United States. The single was released on March 19, 2007 in the UK and was the second single taken from the album. The single was not as successful in Latin America (excluding Mexico, where it proved to be a hit) as "London Bridge" and "Fergalicious". "Glamorous" is the fourth single from the album in Brazil, where "Big Girls Don't Cry" was released as the third single. Fergie sang this song along with "Big Girls Don't Cry" at the Concert for Diana. As of March 2008, the single has sold 2,300,000 copies. "Big Girls Don't Cry", also known as "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)", is a song written by Fergie and Toby Gad for Fergie's debut solo album The Dutchess (2006). The song was released as the album's fourth single in 2007 (see 2007 in music) and topped the charts in several countries, most notably in Australia (for nine consecutive weeks - also becoming the number-one single in the ARIA's Year End Charts for 2007), and in the United States. It was the most played song of 2007 in Brazil (the success of the song there is due to Big Brother Brasil, which chose the song as the theme of the most popular couple of the show) and the most downloaded track in the U.S., with astonishing sales of more than 2,750,000 copies sold. In July 2007, Fergie performed the song at the Concert for Diana and Live Earth. By the end of August 2007, the song became Fergie's third number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was nominated in the 'Best Female Pop Vocal Performance' category at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, which was held February 10, 2008.

"Clumsy" was written by Fergie and will.i.am, sampling Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It", Deee-Lite's "Who Was That", and a small part of MC Lyte's "Poor Georgie". The song was released as the album's fifth single. The song peaked at number five in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the fifth consecutive top-five single from The Dutchess. Fergie has also had five consecutive top 5 hits from a debut album on the ARIA Charts in Australia making her the first artist to do so since Delta Goodrem in 2003 with Innocent Eyes who had five consecutive number ones. Initially "Clumsy" was Fergie's least successful single, but later it was replaced by "Finally". "Here I Come" is a song produced and featured will.i.am. The track was released as a single in Australia in January 2008. It reached 22 on Australia Singles Chart and 122 on Billboard Hot 100. It was used on the commercials that advertised the debut of the new channel CW and in a Motorola Rockr commercial for Brazil and Portugal featuring Fergie. "Finally" is the sixth single from The Dutchess. It was sent to U.S. radio on February 26, 2008. It is the album's least successful single. It featured John Legend on piano.

Promotional singles[link]

"Party People" was released as the first single from Nelly's fifth studio album Brass Knuckles. The song is also a single from the Deluxe Edition of The Dutchess. It reached 40 in the USA and 14 in the UK.

"Labels or Love" is the second single from the Deluxe Edition of The Dutchess, and eighth overall. The song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but in UK it reached 56. This is the last single from the album and a music video was filmed.

Critical reception[link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
About.com	[7]
Allmusic	[8]
Robert Christgau	[9]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[10]
Now Magazine	(C)[11]
Prefix Magazine	[12]
Rolling Stone	[13]
Slant Magazine	[14]
Yahoo! Music	(B)[15]

Initial critical response to The Dutchess was mixed. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 58, based on 15 reviews, which indicates "average reviews". Andy Kellman from Allmusic gave to the album a rating of 2/5 stars and claimed that: "The Dutchess has all the characteristics of a release fronted by someone who has been itching to go solo and prove herself, once and for all, as a versatile force all her own". But that "The whole process, produced mostly by fellow Pea will.i.am, is mildly entertaining but tremendously taxing".^[16] A positive review came from Bill Lamb of About.com, who gave to the album a rating of 4/5 stars. He stated that "Fergie proves herself a skilled entertainer that can make you dance, laugh, nearly cry, and just have a really good time." He finished the review, saying that "The Dutchess is one of the top debuts of the year. Similar to Gwen Stefani's experience, this album is good enough to pull into question the wisdom of Fergie sticking with The Black Eyed Peas or considering striking out on her own.^[17] Another favorable review came from Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt' who say that "The Dutchess reaches further than most albums by contemporary divas."^[18] The Uncut review of The Dutchess was also positive, considering the album "One of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006". Dan Gennoe from Dot Music was also favorable to the album, naming The Dutchess as an "exceptionally random R&B mixtape".^[19] Kathryn Perry from The Phoenix described The Dutchess as "An eclectic, danceable collection of hip-hop, R&B, and pop confections".^[20]

Chart performance[link]

The Dutchess debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 in the United States with sales of more than 150,000 in its first week.^[21] 51 weeks after its release, The Dutchess climbed to a new peak of number two in the U.S.^[22] In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 27 with 9,110 copies sold.^{[citation needed]} The song "Losing My Ground" was the upcoming single, though it was replaced for "Glamorous" for unknown reasons. In a matter of weeks it dropped out of the chart altogether until the success of "Glamorous" when the album shot up from 77 to 28. Again, after the success of "Big Girls Don't Cry", the album climbed to 19 and after dropping a few places, went back up to its number 18 peak. To date, the album has produced three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits, including "London Bridge", "Glamorous", and "Big Girls Don't Cry", with "Fergalicious" peaking at number two. Fifth single "Clumsy" peaked at the number five on the chart. A remix of "Big Girls Don't Cry", which features Sean Kingston, became an iTunes-only single and the new song "Pick It Up" (which appears on the Japanese re-released edition of the album) will become a single in Japan.^{[citation needed]}

Track listing[link]

(*) Denotes vocal producer

Charts and certifications[link]

Awards[link]

MTV Australia Video Music Awards

• Sexiest Video – "Fergalicious" (2007)

MuchMusic Video Awards

• Best International Video – "Fergalicious" (2007)
• Best International Video – Artist (2008)

Juno Awards

• Best International Album – The Dutchess (2008)

ASCAP Awards

• Song of the Year – "Big Girls Don't Cry" (2008)

MTV Japan Video Music Awards

• Best Female Video – "Big Girls Don't Cry" (2008)

Teen Choice Awards

• Best (2008)

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Dutchess at Metacritic

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2010)

Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Born	c.1659–1661
Died	24 April 1731
Occupation	Writer, Journalist, Merchant
Genres	Adventure
Influenced Johann Wyss, Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf

Daniel Defoe ( /ˌdænjəl dɨˈfoʊ/; ca. 1659–1661 to 24 April 1731),^[1] born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson, is among the founders of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than 500 books, pamphlets and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer of economic journalism.^[2]

Early life[link]

Daniel Foe (his original name) was probably born in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate London. Defoe later added the aristocratic-sounding "De" to his name and on occasion claimed descent from the family of De Beau Faux. The date and the place of his birth are uncertain, with sources often giving dates of 1659 to 1661. His father James Foe, though a member of the Butchers' Company, was a tallow chandler. In Defoe's early life he experienced first-hand some of the most unusual occurrences in English history: in 1665, 70,000 were killed by the Great Plague of London. The Great Fire of London (1666) hit Defoe's neighbourhood hard, leaving only his and two other homes standing.^[3] In 1667, when Defoe was probably about seven years old, a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway via the River Thames and attacked Chatham. By the time he was about 10, Defoe's mother Annie had died.^[4][5]

His parents were Presbyterian dissenters; he was educated in a dissenting academy at Newington Green run by Charles Morton and is believed to have attended the church there.^[6] During this time period, England was not tolerant in religion. Controversy of religion was a political issue. Roman Catholics were feared and hated. Dissenters refused to conform to the services of the Church of England; they were despised and oppressed.

James Foe wanted his son to enter in ministry, but Daniel Defoe preferred other things. When he was about 18, he left school. After some years of preparations, he went into the hosiery business.

Business career[link]

Although Defoe was a Christian, he decided not to become a dissenting minister and entered the world of business as a general merchant, dealing at different times in hosiery, general woollen goods and wine. Though his ambitions were great and he bought both a country estate and a ship (as well as civet cats to make perfume), he was rarely out of debt. In 1684, Defoe married Mary Tuffley, the daughter of a London merchant, and received a dowry of £3,700. With his debts and political trouble, their marriage was most likely a difficult one. It lasted 50 years, however, and together they had eight children, six of whom survived.^[4]

In 1685, he joined the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion but gained a pardon by which he escaped the Bloody Assizes of Judge George Jeffreys. William III was crowned in 1688, and Foe immediately became one of his close allies and a secret agent.^[4] Some of the new king's policies, however, led to conflict with France, thus damaging prosperous trade relationships for Defoe, who had established himself as a merchant.^[4] In 1692, Defoe was arrested for payments of £700 (and his civets were seized), though his total debts may have amounted to £17,000 His laments were loud and he always defended unfortunate debtors but there is evidence that his financial dealings were not always honest.

Following his release, he probably travelled in Europe and Scotland^{[citation needed]} and it may have been at this time that he traded wine to Cadiz, Porto and Lisbon. By 1695 he was back in England, using the name "Defoe", and serving as a "commissioner of the glass duty", responsible for collecting the tax on bottles. In 1696 he was operating a tile and brick factory in what is now Tilbury, Essex and living in the parish of Chadwell St Mary.

Writing[link]

Pamphleteering and prison[link]

Daniel Defoe in the pillory, 1862 line engraving by James Charles Armytage after Eyre Crowe

Defoe's first notable publication was An Essay upon Projects, a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. From 1697 to 1698 he defended the right of King William III to a standing army during disarmament after the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had ended the Nine Years' War (1688–97). His most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended the king against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies, satirising the English claim to racial purity. In 1701 Defoe, flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality, presented the Legion's Memorial to the Speaker of the House of Commons, later his employer, Robert Harley. It demanded the release of the Kentish petitioners, who had asked Parliament to support the king in an imminent war against France.

The death of William III in 1702 once again created a political upheaval as the king was replaced by Queen Anne, who immediately began her offensive against Nonconformists.^[4] A natural target, Defoe's pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of a pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church,^[7] purporting to argue for their extermination. In it he ruthlessly satirised both the High church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called "occasional conformity", such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney. Though it was published anonymously, the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested.^[4] He was charged with seditious libel. After a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell, Defoe was found guilty.^[2] Lovell sentenced him to a punitive fine, to public humiliation in a pillory, and to an indeterminate length of imprisonment which would only end upon the discharge of the punitive fine.^[2] According to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his health. The historicity of this story is questioned by most scholars, although John Robert Moore later said that "no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men".^[5] (Thomas Cochrane, the 10th Earl of Dundonald and famous Royal Navy officer, was sentenced to the pillory but was excused for fear his popularity would cause a riot.)

After his three days in the pillory, Defoe went into Newgate Prison. Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's co-operation as an intelligence agent for the Tories. In exchange for his cooperation with the rival political side, Harley paid some of Defoe's outstanding debts, improving his financial situation considerably.^[4] Within a week of his release from prison, Defoe witnessed the Great Storm of 1703 which raged from 26 to 27 November. It caused severe damage to London and Bristol and uprooted millions of trees and killed over 8,000 people, mostly at sea. The event became the subject of Defoe's The Storm (1704), a collection of witness accounts of the tempest.^[8] Many regard it as one of the world's first examples of modern journalism.^[9] In the same year he set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France which supported the Harley Ministry, chronicling the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1714). The Review ran three times a week without interruption until 1713. Defoe was amazed that a man as gifted as Harley left vital state papers lying in the open, and warned that he was almost inviting an unscrupulous clerk to commit treason; his warnings were fully justified by the William Gregg affair. When Harley was ousted from the ministry in 1708 Defoe continued writing it to support Godolphin, then again to support Harley and the Tories in the Tory ministry of 1710 to 1714. After the Tories fell from power with the death of Queen Anne, Defoe continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government, writing "Tory" pamphlets that actually undermined the Tory point of view.^[4]

Not all of Defoe's pamphlet writing was political. One pamphlet (originally published anonymously) entitled A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of September, 1705, deals with interaction between the spiritual realm and the physical realm. It was most likely written in support of Charles Drelincourt's The Christian Defense against the Fears of Death (1651). It describes Mrs. Bargrave's encounter with an old friend Mrs. Veal, after she had died. It is clear from this piece and other writings, that while the political portion of Defoe's life was fairly dominant, it was by no means the only aspect.

Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707[link]

No fewer than 545 titles, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets and volumes have been ascribed to Defoe (note: in their Critical Bibliography (1998), Furbank and Owens argue for the much smaller number of 276 published items). His ambitious business ventures saw him bankrupt by 1692, with a wife and seven children to support. In 1703, he published a satirical pamphlet against the High Tories and in favour of religious tolerance entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. As has happened with ironic writings before and since, this pamphlet was widely misunderstood but eventually its author was prosecuted for seditious libel and was sentenced to be pilloried, fined 200 marks and detained at the Queen's pleasure.

Title page from Daniel Defoe's: The History Of The Union Of Great Britain dated 1709 and printed in Edinburgh by the Heirs of Anderson

In despair, he wrote to William Paterson the London Scot and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme, who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, leading minister and spymaster in the English Government. Harley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published The Review, which appeared weekly, then three times a week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the English Government promoting the Act of Union 1707.

In 1709 Defoe authored a rather lengthy book entitled, The History Of The Union Of Great Britain; an Edinburgh publication printed by the Heirs of Anderson.^[10]

The book was not authored anonymously and cites Defoe as twice^[11][12] taking credit for being its author. An evolution expounded in the book which attempts to explain the facts leading up to the Act of Union 1707 dates all the way back to the 6 December 1604^[13] when King James was presented with a proposed embellishment for unification. This so-called "first draft" for unification took place a full one-hundred years before the signing of the 1707 accord, which respectively preceded the commencement of Robinson Crusoe' by another full ten years.

Defoe began his campaign in The Review and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming that it would end the threat from the north, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men", a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706 Harley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as a secret agent to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence in the Treaty of Union. He was conscious of the risk to himself. Thanks to books such as The Letters of Daniel Defoe (edited by G. H. Healey, Oxford 1955), which are readily available, far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents.

His first reports included vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind", he reported. Years later John Clerk of Penicuik, a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that,

He was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces.

Defoe being a Presbyterian who had suffered in England for his convictions, was accepted as an adviser to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and committees of the Parliament of Scotland. He told Harley that he was "privy to all their folly" but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England". He was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported back:

Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referrèd,
I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and
proportion of the Excise.

For Scotland he used different arguments, even the opposite of those he used in England, for example, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union but always having the last word for himself.

He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun by ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the various factions opposed to the Union, who seemingly betrayed his former colleagues when he switched to the Unionist/Government side in the decisive final stages of the debate.

Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehement for its independence from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and of course no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary".

Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town. The Gaelic Glas could mean grey or green, chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably actually means "Green Hollow". The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The "Dear Green Place" and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty, as at almost every mercat cross in Scotland.

When Defoe visited in the mid 1720s, he claimed that the hostility towards his party was, "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against".

Late writing and novels[link]

The extent and particulars of Defoe's writing in the period from the Tory fall in 1714 to the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 is widely contested. Defoe comments on the tendency to attribute tracts of uncertain authorship to him in his apologia Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), a defence of his part in Harley's Tory ministry (1710–14). Other works that are thought to anticipate his novelistic career include: The Family Instructor (1715), an immensely successful conduct manual on religious duty; Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager (1717), in which he impersonates Nicolas Mesnager, the French plenipotentiary who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and A Continuation of the Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1718), a satire on European politics and religion, professedly written by a Muslim in Paris.

Memorial to "Daniel De-Foe", Bunhill Fields, City Road, London.

From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725) and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1726) and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his greatest achievement with the novels is the magisterial A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain (1724–27), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.

Novels[link]

His novels include:

• Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world (1720)
• Captain Singleton (1720)
• A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
• Colonel Jack (1722)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
• Roxana (1724)
• Memoirs of a Cavalier

Defoe also wrote a three-volume travel book, Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–27) that provided a vivid first-hand account of the state of the country. Other non-fiction books include The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and London, the Most Flourishing City in the Universe (1728). Defoe published over 560 books and pamphlets and is considered to be the founder of British journalism.

[edit] Robinson Crusoe

Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man's shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures. The author based part of his narrative on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded on the island of Juan Fernandez.^[4] He may have also been inspired by the Latin or English translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail, who was known as "Abubacer" in Europe. The Latin edition of the book was entitled Philosophus Autodidactus and it was an earlier novel that is also set on a deserted island.^{[14][15][16][17]}

A house near London, England, where Defoe once resided.

Tim Severin's book Seeking Robinson Crusoe (2002) unravels a much wider range of potential sources of inspiration. Severin concludes his investigations by stating that the real Robinson Crusoe figure was Henry Pitman, a castaway who had been surgeon to the Duke of Monmouth. Pitman's short book about his desperate escape from a Caribbean penal colony for his part in the Monmouth Rebellion, his shipwrecking and subsequent desert island misadventures was published by J. Taylor of Paternoster Street, London, whose son William Taylor later published Defoe's novel. Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings above the father's publishing house and since Defoe was a mercer in the area at the time, Defoe may have met Pitman and learned of his experiences as a castaway. If he didn't meet Pitman, Severin points out that Defoe, upon submitting even a draft of a novel about a castaway to his publisher, would undoubtedly have learned about Pitman's book published by his father, especially since the interesting castaway had previously lodged with them at their former premises.

Severin also provides evidence in his book that another publicised case^[18] of a real-life marooned Miskito Central American man named only as Will may have caught Defoe's attention, inspiring the depiction of Man Friday in his novel.

The novel has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilisation, as a manifesto of economic individualism and as an expression of European colonial desires but it also shows the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's religious convictions. It is also considered by many to be the first novel written in English. Early critics, such as Robert Louis Stevenson admired it saying that the footprint scene in Crusoe was one of the four greatest in English literature and most unforgettable; more prosaically, Dr. Wesley Vernon has seen the origins of forensic podiatry in this episode.^[3] It has inspired a new genre, the Robinsonade as works like Johann David Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) adapt its premise and has provoked modern postcolonial responses, including J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) and Michel Tournier's Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique (in English, Friday) (1967). Two sequels followed, Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and his Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world (1720). Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) in part parodies Defoe's adventure novel.