side which has to traverse the mountains (marsh or forest) will
always be at a disadvantage for the actual attack, but at an advantage
in regard to the secrecy with which he can fall upon the
point of his own choice, and the more secure his telegraph lines,
the greater will this advantage be. (F. N. M.)
STRATFORD, JOHN DE (d. 1348), archbishop of Canterbury,
was born at Stratford-on-Avon and educated at Merton
College, Oxford, afterwards entering the service of Edward II.
He served as archdeacon of Lincoln, canon of York and dean of
the court of arches before 1323, when he became bishop of
Winchester, an appointment which was made during his visit
to Pope John XXII. at Avignon and which was very much
disliked by Edward II. In 1327 the bishop joined Queen
Isabella’s partisans; he drew up the six articles against Edward II.,
and was one of those who visited the captive king at Kenilworth
to urge him to abdicate in favour of his son. Under
Edward III. he became a member of the royal council, but his
high political importance dates from the autumn of 1330, the
time when Roger Mortimer lost his power. In November of this
year Stratford became chancellor, and for the next ten years he
was actively engaged in public business, being the king’s most
prominent adviser and being politically, says Stubbs, the “head
of the Lancastrian or constitutional party.” In 1333 he was
appointed archbishop of Canterbury and he resigned the chancellorship
in the following year; however, he held this office
again from 1335 to 1337 and for about two months in 1340.
In November 1340 Edward III., humiliated, impecunious and
angry, returned suddenly to England from Flanders and vented
his wrath upon the archbishop’s brother, the chancellor, Robert
de Stratford. Fearing arrest John de Stratford fled to Canterbury,
and entered upon a violent war of words with the king,
and by his firm conduct led to the establishment of the principle
that peers were only to be tried in full parliament before their
own order (en pleyn parlement et devant les piers). But good
relations were soon restored between the two, and the archbishop
acted as president of the council during Edward’s absence from
England in 1345 and 1346, although he never regained his former
position of influence. His concluding years were mainly spent
in the discharge of his spiritual duties, and he died at Mayfield in Sussex on the 23rd of August 1348.
John’s brother, Robert de Stratford, was also one of Edward III.’s principal ministers. He served for a time as deputy to his brother, and in 1337 became chancellor and bishop of Chichester; he lost the former office in 1340 and died on the 9th of April 1362.
Ralph de Stratford, bishop of London from 1340 until his death at Stepney on the 7th of April 1354, was a member of the same family. All three prelates were benefactors to Stratford-on-Avon.
STRATFORD, a city and port of entry of Ontario, Canada, and capital of Perth county, situated 83 m. W.S.W. of Toronto by the Grand Trunk railway, on the Avon river. Pop. (1901), 9959. The repair and engineering shops of the railway, flour-, saw- and woollen-mills, engine and agricultural implement works are the principal industries. A large export trade in cheese and other dairy and farm produce is carried on.
STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, STRATFORD CANNING, Viscount (1786–1880), British diplomatist, was born in Clement’s Lane in the city of London, on the 4th of November 1786. His father, Stratford Canning, uncle of George Canning (q.v.), had been disinherited for his marriage with Mehetabel Patrick. He settled in London as a merchant. On his death, six months after the birth of his son, his widow took a house at Wanstead near Epping Forest. Stratford Canning was educated first at a dame’s school at Wanstead, then at Hackney, and after 1794 at Eton. In 1805 he was elected a scholar of King’s College, Cambridge, but he only kept two terms, and in 1807 was appointed precis writer to the foreign office by his cousin George Canning. He received his degree in 1812, residence having been dispensed with on the ground that he was absent on the king’s service. In 1807 he went as secretary to Mr Merry on a diplomatic mission to Copenhagen. In 1808 he was appointed first secretary to Mr (afterwards Sir Robert) Adair, who was sent as ambassador to Constantinople. When Mr Adair was transferred to Vienna in 1810, Canning remained at Constantinople as chargé d’affaires. The British government was then in the very crisis of its struggle with Napoleon, and it left Canning entirely to his own discretion. His principal task was to persuade the Turkish government not to show undue favour to the French privateers which swarmed in the Levant. In May 1812 he was able to play the part of
“honest broker” in arranging the peace of Bucharest between
Turkey and Russia, which left a powerful Russian army free to
take part in repelling Napoleon’s invasion. Canning was able
to hasten the decision of the Turks, by making judicious use of
Napoleon’s plan for the partition of their empire. A copy of it
had been left in his hands by Mr Adair to be used at the proper
moment. In July he left Constantinople with the sincere desire
never to return, for he was tired of the corrupt and stiff-necked
Turkish officials. His ambition was to lead an active career at
home. But his success in arranging the treaty of Bucharest
had marked him out for diplomatic employment. His absence
from home in early youth and the independent position he had
held much before the usual age, had in fact disqualified him
for the career of a parliamentary party man. By the friendly
intervention of Castlereagh, his cousin’s old opponent, he
received a pension, or rather a retaining fee, of £1200 a year, on the “usual conditions”—which were that he should bind himself to accept the next diplomatic post offered, and should not
attempt to enter parliament. Canning spent his leisure in travelling
about England, and he wrote some poetry which gained him
the praise of Byron, whom he had known in boyhood, and had
met in Constantinople. In 1814 he was appointed minister
plenipotentiary to Switzerland. In this capacity he had a share
in reorganizing the confederacy after the fall of the Napoleonic
settlement, and he attended the congress at Vienna. He was an
eye-witness of the dramatic change produced at Vienna by Napoleon’s return
from Elba. Canning retained his post in Switzerland
till 1818. In 1816 he married Miss Harriet Raikes, daughter
of a governor of the Bank of England. Her death in child-birth in
1818, had a strong influence in inducing him to resign his post, of which he was thoroughly tired. The British minister to Switzerland
had merely formal duties to perform in normal times, and
the place was wearisome to a man of Canning’s capacity and
desire for work. In 1819 he was appointed minister at Washington,
a station of great difficulty owing to the ill-feeling created
by the war of 1812 and the many delicate questions outstanding
between the British and the American governments. Canning,
whose naturally quick temper had been developed by early
independence, came into occasional collision with John Quincy
Adams, the American secretary of state, who was, on his. own
showing, by no means of a patient disposition. Yet the American
statesman recognized that the “arrogance” of the British
minister was combined with absolute candour and that he was
above all petty diplomatic trickery. They parted with mutual
respect. Canning returned to England in 1823 on leave and
did not go back to Washington. The general treaty he had
arranged with Mr Adams was rejected by the United States
Senate.
In 1824 Canning was selected as ambassador to Turkey, and proceeded to Constantinople after a preliminary visit to Vienna and St Petersburg. In the Russian capital he was engaged in discussing the arrangement of the Alaska boundary, and partly in sounding the Russian government as to the course to be taken with the Greek revolt against Turkey. He left for Constantinople in October 1825, accompanied by his second wife, the daughter of Mr Alexander of Somerhill near Tonbridge. At Constantinople he was engaged with the ambassadors of France and Russia in an enterprise which he afterwards recognized as having been hopeless from the beginning—namely in endeavouring to induce Sultan Mahmud II. to make concessions to the Greeks, without applying to him the pressure of armed force. After the battle of Navarino (q.v.) on the 20th of October 1827, the ambassadors were compelled to retire to Corfu. Here Canning learned that his conduct so far had been approved, but as he desired to know what view was taken of the final rupture with the Porte he came home. He was sent out again on the 8th of July 1828. Canning did not agree on all points with his superior, Lord Aberdeen, and in 1829 he, for the time being, turned from diplomatic to
