WINGFIELD, EDWARD MARIA (c. 1560–c. 1614), English colonist in America, was born at Stoneley, Huntingdonshire, about 1560. He served as a soldier both in Ireland and in the Low Countries, was one of the patentees of Virginia in 1606, and in 1607 accompanied the first colonists to Jamestown. He was elected president of the Council (15th May 1607), but his arbitrary manners, the fact that he was a Roman Catholic, and the suspicion that he was friendly towards Spain led to his deposition in September. He returned to England in April 1608, and died after 1613.
His amplified diary, entitled “A Discourse of Virginia,” was published in Archaeologia Americana, vol. iv. (Worcester, 1860), with introduction and notes by Charles Deane.
WINGFIELD, SIR RICHARD (c. 1469–1525), English diplomatist, was one of the twelve or thirteen sons of Sir John Wingfield (d. 1481) of Letheringham, Suffolk He became a courtier during the reign of Henry VII. and was made marshal of Calais in 1511. With Sir Edward Poynings and others he was sent in 1512 to arrange a holy league between the pope, the English king and other sovereigns, and in 1514 he went to the Netherlands to try and arrange a marriage between the archduke Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles V, and Henry VIII's daughter Mary. In the intervals between these and similar errands Wingfield was occupied in discharging his duties at Calais, but in 1519 he resigned his post there and returned to England. In 1520 Sir Richard was appointed ambassador to the French court, and he helped to make the arrangements for the meeting between Henry VIII. and Francis I. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Twice during 1521 he visited Charles V., his object being to deter him from making war on France, and he was on an errand to Spain when he died at Toledo on the 22nd of July 1525. In 1524 he had been made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. For his services Wingfield received lands in various parts of England, including Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire, where he enlarged the castle.
Sir Richard had two brothers who attained some celebrity-Sir Robert (c. 1464–1539), a diplomatist, and Sir Humphrey (d. 1545), speaker of the House of Commons from 1533 to 1536. An elder brother, Sir John, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1483, had a son Sir Anthony (c. 1458–1552), who was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and became a member of the privy council and captain of the guard. One of his grandsons, Anthony Wingfield (c. 1550–c. 1615), was public orator in the university of Cambridge, and another was Sir John Wingfield (d. 1596), a soldier who was governor of Gertruydenberg from 1587 and 1589. Another of Sir Anthony's descendants, Sir Anthony Wingfield (d. 1638), was created a baronet in 1627. Another brother of Sir Richard, Ludovic, had a son, Sir Richard Wingfield, who was governor of Portsmouth under Queen Elizabeth. He was the father of another Sir Richard Wingfield (d. 1634), who served in Ireland and was created Viscount Powerscourt in 1618. He died without issue, and his Irish estates passed to a cousin, Sir Edward Wingfield (d. 1638), whose grandson, Folliott Wingfield (d. 1717), was created Viscount Powerscourt in 1665, but the title again became extinct when he died. In 1744 his cousin, Richard Wingfield (1697–1751), was created Viscount Powerscourt, and his descendants have held this title until the present day. Mervyn Wingfield (1836–1904), the 7th viscount, was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Powerscourt in 1885.
See Lord Powerscourt, Muniments of the Ancient Family of Wingfield (1894).
WINKELMANN, EDUARD (1838–1896), German historian, was born at Danzig on the 25th of June 1838. He studied at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, worked at the Monumenta Germaniae historica, and in 1869 became professor of history at the university of Bern, and four years later at Heidelberg. He also spent some time in Russia, teaching at Reval and at the university of Dorpat. He died at Heidelberg on the 10th of February 1896.
Winkelmann wrote a Geschichte der Angelsachsen bis zum Tode König Ælfreds (Berlin, 1883); and his residence in Russia induced him to compile a Bibliotheca Livoniae historica (St Petersburg, 1869–1870, and Berlin, 1878); but his chief works deal with the history of the Empire during the later middle ages. The most important of these are: Philipp von Schwaben und Otto IV. von Braunschweig (Leipzig, 1873–1878), Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs II. und seiner Reiche 1212–1235 (Berlin, 1863) and 1235–1250 (Reval, 1865), Kaiser Friedrich II. (Leipzig, 1889–1898) and other writings on Frederick in the Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1862 fol.). He edited the Acta imperii inedita (Innsbruck, 1880–1885), and with J. Ficker, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Wilhelm, Alfons X. und Richard (Innsbruck, 1882, 1901). Among Winkelmann's other works are Allgemeine Verfassungsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1901) and the Urkundenbuch der Universität Heidelberg (Heidelberg, 1886).
WINKELRIED, ARNOLD VON. The incident with which this name is connected is, after the feat of William Tell, the best known and most popular in the early history of the Swiss Confederation. We are told how, at a critical moment in the great battle of Sempach, when the Swiss had failed to break the serried ranks of the Austrian knights, a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winkelried by name, came to the rescue. Commending his wife and children to the care of his comrades, he rushed towards the Austrians, gathered a number of their spears together against his breast, and fell pierced through and through, having opened a way into the hostile ranks for his fellow-countrymen, though at the price of his own life. But the Tell and Winkelried stories stand in a very different position when looked at in the dry light of history, for, while in the former case imaginary and impossible men (bearing now and then a real historical name) do imaginary and impossible deeds at a very uncertain period, in the latter we have some solid ground to rest on, and Winkelried's act might very well have been performed, though, as yet, the amount of genuine and early evidence in support of it is very far from being sufficient.
The history of the Winkelrieds of Stans from 1248 to 1534 has been minutely worked out from the original documents by Hermann von Liebenau, in a paper published in 1854, and reprinted at Aarau in 1862, with much other matter, in his book, Arnold von Winkelried, seine Zeit und seine That. They were a knightly family when we first hear of them about 1250, though towards the end of the 14th century they seem to have been but simple men without the honours of knighthood, and not always using their prefix "von." Among its members we find an Erni Winkelried acting as a witness to a contract of sale on the 1st of May 1367, while the same man, or perhaps another member of the family, Erni von Winkelried, is plaintiff in a suit at Stans on the 29th of September 1389, and in 1417 is the landamman (or head man) of Unterwalden, being then called Arnold Winkelriet. We have, therefore, a real man named Arnold Winkelried living at Stans about the time of the battle of Sempach. The question is thus narrowed to the points, Was he present at the battle, and did he then perform the deed commonly attributed to him? This involves a minute investigation of the history of that battle, to ascertain if there are any authentic traces of this incident, or any opportunity for it to have taken place.
1. Evidence of Chronicles.—The earliest known mention of the incident is found in a Zurich chronicle (discovered in 1862 by G. von Wyss), which is a copy, made in 1476, of a chronicle written in or at any rate not earlier than 1438, though it is wanting in the 16th-century transcript of another chronicle written in 1466, which up to 1389 closely agrees with the former It appears in the well known form, but the hero is stated to be ein getrüwer man under den Eidgenozen, no name being given, and it seems clear that his death did not take place at that time. No other mention has been found in any of the numerous Swiss or Austrian chronicles till we come to the book De Helvetiae origine, written in 1538 by Rudolph Gwalther (Zwingli's son-in-law), when the hero is still nameless, being compared to Decius or Codrus, but is said to have been killed by his brave act. Finally, we read the full story in the original draft of Giles Tschudi's chronicle, where the hero is described as "a man of Unterwalden, of the Winkelried family," this being expanded in the final recension of the chronicle (1564) into "a man of Unterwalden, Arnold von Winckelried by name, a brave knight," while he is entered (in the same book, on the authority of the "Anniversary Book" of Stans, now lost) on the list of those who fell at Sempach at the head of the Nidwalden (or Stans) men as "Herr Arnold von Winckelriet, Ritter," this being in the first draft "Arnold Winckelriet."
2. Ballads.—There are several war songs on the battle of Sempach which have come down to us, but in one only is there mention of
