This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
720
ROS (FAMILY)—ROSA, SALVATOR

muslin. Above the town is the old convent of Mariaberg, originally built in the 15th century as a refuge for the monks of St Gall against the turbulent citizens of that town, but now a seminary for teachers. From Rorschach a cogwheel railway runs south-east in 4¼ m. up to Heiden, a village in the Canton of Appenzell well known for its goats' whey cure. (W. A. B. C.)


ROS, or De Ros, the name of a noble English family. Robert de Ros (d. 1227), a son of Everard de Ros (d. 1191) of Helmsley, or Hamlake, in Yorkshire, possessed lands in Yorkshire, including Ros, or Ross, in Holderness, and also in Normandy. He served King John in several ways, both in England and abroad, and obtained lands in Northumberland, where he built a castle at Wark, or Werke. About 1215, however, he deserted the king and became one of the leaders of the baronial party, being one of the twenty-five executors of Magna Carta and fighting against John when he repudiated this engagement. He submitted to Henry III. and became a monk before he died in 1227. His wife was Isabella, daughter of William the Lion, king of Scotland, by whom he had two sons, William and Robert. Robert de Ros the younger (d. 1274), was an itinerant justice under Henry III., but later he was one of the barons who fought against this king. He passed much of his time, however, in Scotland, where he held a barony and where he was one of the guardians of Margaret, the English bride of King Alexander III. His son Robert was summoned to parliament as Lord Ros de Werke in 1295; just afterwards he revolted against Edward I. and his lands were forfeited. William de Ros (d. 1258), the elder son of the executor of Magna Carta, had a son Robert (d. 1285), who was summoned to parliament as a baron by Simon de Montfort in 1264; he was also summoned to parliament by Edward I. His son William, 2nd baron Ros of Helmsley, or Hamlake (d. 1317), obtained Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire through his mother Isabel, daughter of William d'Albini. He was one of the minor claimants for the crown of Scotland in 1292, and soon afterwards he obtained the lands in Northumberland which had been taken from his traitorous cousin Robert de Ros. His second son, John de Ros (d. 1338), was a courtier under Edward II. Later he joined Edward's queen, Isabella, was summoned to parliament by Edward III., and distinguished himself on the sea. Another John de Ros (d. 1332), bishop of Carlisle from 1325 to 1332, was doubtless a member of this family.

The second baron's descendants retained the barony of Ros until the death of Edmund de Ros, the 11th baron, in October 1508. Edmund's nephew Sir George Manners (d. 1513), of Belvoir and Helmsley, then claimed it, and was called Lord Ros, or Roos. His son, Thomas Manners, the 13th baron (d. 1543), was created earl of Rutland in 1525, but the barony was separated from the earldom when Thomas's grandson Edward died in 1587, leaving an only child, Elizabeth (d. 1591), who, as heir general of the family, became Baroness Ros, or Roos. Elizabeth married into the Cecil family, and when her only child, William Cecil, died in 1618, the barony reverted to the Manners family, Francis Manners, 6th earl of Rutland (1578-1632), becoming the 18th baron. On his death the barony again passed to a female, his daughter Katherine, through whom it came to the family of Villiers. Then in 1806, after a long abeyance, Charlotte (1769-1831), daughter of the Hon. Robert Boyle, and a descendant of the Manners family, was declared Baroness Ros, or Roos. She married Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and their son, Henry William Fitzgerald-de-Ros (1793-1839), became the 22nd baron on his mother's death. In 1907, on her father's death, Mary Frances, wife of the Hon. Anthony Dawson, became Baroness Ros, or rather, De Ros, which is the present form of the title. For a long time after they had ceased to hold the barony the earls and dukes of Rutland continued to style themselves Lords Roos.


ROS, SIR RICHARD (b. 1429), English poet, son of Sir Thomas Ros, lord of Hamlake (Helmsley) in Yorkshire and of Belvoir in Leicestershire, was born on the 8th of March 1429. In Harl. MS. 372 the poem of "La Belle Dame sanz Mercy," first printed in W. Thynne's Chaucer (1532), has the ascription "Translatid out of Frenche by Sir Richard Ros." "La Belle Dame sanz Mercy" is a long and rather dull poem from the French of Alain Chartier, and dates from about the middle of the 15th century. It is written in the Midland dialect, and is surprisingly modern in diction. The opening lines

"Half in a dreme, not fully wel awaked,
"The golden sleep me wrapped under his wing,"

have often been quoted, but the dialogue between the very long-suffering lover and the cruel lady does not maintain this high level.

See W. W. Skeat, Chaucerian and Other Pieces (1897); and Dr. H. Grohler, Ueber Richard Ros' mittelenglische Uebersetzung... (Breslau, 1886).


ROSA, CARL AUGUST NICHOLAS (1843-1889), English musical impresario, was born at Hamburg, his family name (which he subsequently changed) being Rose. He started as a solo violinist, studying at Leipzig and Paris, and also had considerable success as a conductor both in England and America; and it was at New York in 1867 that he met and married the famous operatic soprano Madame Parepa (1836-1874), at whose death he afterwards' endowed a Parepa-Rosa scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1875 he started the Carl Rosa Opera Company, for producing the best operas in English versions, and both during his own life and after his death this company had much to do with popularizing good music in England, encouraging native composers and training a number of excellent singers. Carl Rosa married a second time in 1881, and died in Paris on the 30th of April 1889.


ROSA, MONTE, the name of a great glacier-clad mountain mass (the name comes from the Aostan patois word roëse, meaninga glacier) which rises S.E. of Zermatt, and on the frontier between Switzerland (canton of the Valais) and Italy. Ten summits in this huge mass are distinguished by name, of which four (the Nordend, 15,132 ft., the Zumsteinspitze, 15,004 ft., the Signalkuppe or Punta Gnifetti, 14,965 ft., and the Parrotspitze, 14,643 ft.) rise on the frontier. The five lower summits are on the Italian slope, but the highest of all, the Dufourspitze, 15,217 ft. (so named by the Swiss government in honour of General Dufour, the head of the great survey which first accurately fixed the position of these points), rises W. of the frontier ridge, on a buttress, and is thus entirely in Switzerland, of which it is the culminating peak (and not, as often stated, the Dom, 14,942 ft., in the Mischabel group). The loftiest point of the Dufourspitze was first attained in 1855 by a large English party, which included Messrs G. and C. Smyth, C. Hudson, Birkbeck and Stevenson. The Zumsteinspitze was first climbed in 1820, the Signalkuppe (on top of which there is now a club hut) in 1842, the Nordend in 1861 and the Parrotspitze in 1863. The ascent of all the points named is not difficult from the Swiss side, but excessively dangerous on the east or Italian side. (W. A. B. C.)


ROSA, SALVATOR (1615-1673), Italian painter of the Neapolitan school, was born in Arenella, in the outskirts of Naples, in 1615: the precise day is given as the 20th of June, and also as the 21st of July. His father, Vito Antonio de Rosa, a land surveyor, was bent upon making the youth a lawyer, or else a priest, and sent him to study in the convent of the Somaschi fathers. Here Salvator began showing a turn for art: he went in secret to his maternal uncle Paolo Greco to learn the practice of painting, but soon found that Greco had little pictorial lore to impart, so he transferred himself to his own brother-in-law Francesco Fracanzaro, a pupil of Ribera, and afterwards had some practice under Ribera himself. Above all he went to nature, frequenting the Neapolitan coast, and keeping his eyes open and his hand busy. At the age of seventeen he lost his father; the widow was left unprovided for, with at least five children, and Salvator found himself immersed in a sea of troubles and perplexities, with nothing for the while to stem them except a buoyant and adventurous temperament. He obtained some instruction under the battle-painter Aniello Falcone, but chiefly painted in solitude, haunting romantic