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ADDRESS—ADELAIDE
  

by diet; by tonics, especially arsenic and strychnine; by attention to the hygienic conditions; and always by the administration of one of the many preparations of the suprarenal gland extract.


“ADDRESS, THE,” an English parliamentary term for the reply of the Houses of Parliament (and particularly of the House of Commons) to the speech of the sovereign at the opening of a new parliament or session. There are certain formalities which distinguish this stage of parliamentary proceedings. “The king’s speech” itself is divided into three sections: the first, addressed to “My Lords and Gentlemen,” touches on foreign affairs; the second, to the “Gentlemen of the House of Commons,” has reference to the estimates; the third, to “My Lords and Gentlemen,” outlines the proposed legislation for the session. Should the sovereign in person open parliament, he does so in the House of Lords in full state, and the speaker and members of the House of Commons are summoned there into the royal presence. The sovereign then reads his speech. If the sovereign is not present in person, the speech is read by commission. The Commons then return to their House, and an address in answer is moved in both Houses. The government of the day selects two of its supporters in each House to move and second the address, and when carrying out this honourable task they appear in levee dress. Previous to the session of 1890–1891, the royal speech was answered paragraph by paragraph, but “the address” is now moved in the form of a single resolution, thanking the sovereign for his most gracious speech. The debate on the address is used as a means of ranging over the whole government policy, amendments being introduced by the opposition. A defeat on an amendment to the address is generally regarded by the government as a vote of no-confidence. After the address is agreed to it is ordered to be presented to the sovereign. The thanks of the sovereign for the address are then conveyed to the Lords by the lord steward of the household and to the Commons by the comptroller of the household.


ADELAER, or Adeler (Norwegian for “eagle”), the surname of honour given on his ennoblement to Kurt Sivertsen (1622–1675), the famous Norwegian-Danish naval commander. He was born at Brevig in Norway, and at the age of fifteen became a cadet in the Dutch fleet under van Tromp, after a few years entering the service of the Venetian Republic, which was engaged at the time in a war with Turkey. In 1645 he had risen to the rank of captain; and after sharing in various victories as commander of a squadron, he achieved his most brilliant success at the Dardanelles, on the 13th of May 1654, when, with his own vessel alone, he broke through the line of Turkish galleys, sank fifteen of them, and burned others, causing a loss to the enemy of 5000 men. The following day he entered Tenedos, and compelled the complete surrender of the Turks. On returning to Venice he was crowned with honours, and became admiral-lieutenant in 1660. Numerous tempting offers were made to him by other naval powers, and in 1661 he left Venice to return to the Netherlands. Next year he was induced, by the offer of a title and an enormous salary, to accept the command of the Danish fleet from Frederick III. Under Christian V. he took the command of the combined Danish fleets against Sweden, but died suddenly on the 5th of November 1675 at Copenhagen, before the expedition set out. When in the Venetian service, Adelaer was known by the name of Curzio Suffrido Adelborst (i.e. Dutch for “naval cadet”).


ADELAIDE (Ger. Adelheid) (931–999), queen of Italy and empress, was the daughter of Rudolph II. of Burgundy and of Bertha, daughter of Duke Burchard of Swabia. On the death of Rudolph in 937, his widow married Hugh, king of Italy, to whose son Lothair Adelaide was at the same time betrothed. She was married to him in 947; but after an unhappy union of three years Lothair died (November 22, 950). The young widow, remarkable for her character and beauty, was seized by Lothair’s successor, Berengar II., margrave of Ivrea, who, angered probably at her refusal to marry his son Adalbert and thus secure his title to the Italian kingdom, kept her in close confinement at Como. After four months (August 951), she escaped, and took refuge at Canossa with Atto, count of Modena-Reggio (d. 981). Meanwhile Otto I., the German king, whose English wife Edgitha had died in 946, had formed the design of marrying her and claiming the Italian kingdom in her right, as a step towards the revival of the empire of Charlemagne. In September 951, accordingly, he appeared in Italy, Adelaide willingly accepted his invitation to meet him at Pavia and at the close of the year the fateful union was celebrated. From the first her part in German affairs was important. To her are ascribed the influences which led in 953 to the revolt of Ludolf, Otto’s son by his first marriage, the crushing of which in the following year established Adelaide’s power. On the 2nd of February 962 she was crowned empress at Rome by Pope John XII. immediately after her husband, and she accompanied Otto in 966 on his third expedition to Italy, where she remained with him for six years. After Otto I.’s death (May 7, 973), Adelaide exercised for some years a controlling influence over her son, the new emperor, Otto II. The causes of their subsequent estrangement are obscure, but it was possibly due to the empress’s lavish expenditure in charity and church building, which endeared her to ecclesiastics but was a serious drain on the imperial finances. In 978 she left the court and lived partly in Italy, partly with her brother Conrad, king of Burgundy, by whose mediation she was ultimately reconciled to her son. In 983, shortly before his death, she was appointed his viceroy in Italy; and was successful, in concert with the empress Theophano, widow of Otto II., and Archbishop Willigis of Mainz, in defending the right of her infant grandson, Otto III., to the German crown against the pretensions of Henry the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria. In June 984 the infant king was handed over by Henry to the care of the two empresses; but the masterful will of Theophano soon obtained the upper hand, and until the death of the Greek empress, on the 15th of June 991, Adelaide had no voice in German affairs. She now assumed the regency, in concert with Bishop Willigis and a council of princes of the Empire, and held it until in 995 Otto was declared of age. In 996 the young king went to Italy to receive the imperial crown; and from this date Adelaide ceased to concern herself with worldly affairs, but devoted herself to pious exercises, to intimate correspondence with the abbots Majolus and Odilo of Cluny, and the foundation of churches and religious houses. She died on the 17th of December 999, and was buried in the convent of SS. Peter and Paul, her favourite foundation, at Salz in Alsace. She was proclaimed a saint by the grateful German clergy; but her name has never found a place in the Roman calendar. Like her daughter-in-law Theophano and other exalted ladies of this period, Adelaide possessed considerable literary attainments (literatissima erat), and her knowledge of Latin was of use to Otto I., who only learned the language late in life and remained to the end a poor scholar.

By the emperor Otto I. she had four children: Otto II. (d. 983), Mathilda, abbess of Quedlinburg (d. 999), Adelheid (Adelaide), abbess of Essen (d. 974), and Liutgard, who married Conrad II., duke of Franconia, and died in 955.

Adelaide’s life (Vita or Epitaphium Adalheidae imperatricis) was written by St Odilo of Cluny. It is valuable only for the latter years of the empress, after she had retired from any active share in the world’s affairs. The rest of her life is merely outlined, though her adventures in escaping from Berengar are treated in more detail. The best edition is in Duchesne, Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, pp. 353-362. See Giov. Batt. Semeria, Vita politico-religiosa di s. Adeleida, &c. (Turin, 1842); Jul. Bentzinger, Das Leben der Kaiserin Adelheid . . . während der Regierung Ottos III., Inaug. Dissertation (Breslau, 1883); J. J. Dey, Hist. de s. Adelaide, &c. (Geneva, 1862); F. P. Wimmer, Kaiserin Adelheid, Gemahlin Ottos I. des Grossen (Regensb. 1889); Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1904); Further references in Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques (Paris, 1903).


ADELAIDE, the capital of South Australia. It is situated in the county to which it gives name, on the banks of the river Torrens, 7 m. from its mouth. Its site is a level plain, near the foot of the Mount Lofty range, in which Mount Lofty itself reaches 2334 ft. The broad streets of the city intersect at right angles. It is divided into North Adelaide, the residential, and South Adelaide, the business quarter. A broad strip of park