act of a Scottish council, held at Scone, in June, 1398, when the title of Duke of Albany was conferred on the brother of King Robert III., then acting as regent of the kingdom. The title, being forfeited in the grandson of the first holder, was afterward conferred on Alexander, second son of King James II., in the person of whose son, John, it became extinct in 1536. Subsequently it was conferred on a number of princes of the royal family. Prince Charles Stuart assumed the appellation of Count of Albany as an incognito title, and gave the title of Duchess of Albany to his legitimated daughter. The title was restored in 1881 and conferred upon Prince Leopold, and after his death upon his son.
ALBANY, Duke of. See Leopold, George Duncan Albert.
ALBANY, Duke of. In Shakespeare's King Lear (q.v.), the husband of Lear's daughter Goneril (q.v.).
ALBANY, Louisa Maria Caroline, also
Aloysia, Countess of (1753-1824). The wife
of Charles Edward Stuart (q.v.), grandson of James II. of England. She was the daughter of Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg-Gedern, who fell in the battle of Leuthen in 1757. During her married life she bore the name of the Countess of Albany. She had no children, her marriage proved an unhappy one, and in order to escape from the ill-usage of her husband, who lived in a state of continual drunkenness, she sought refuge in a nunnery, 1780. At the death of the Prince, in 1788, the court of France allowed her an annual pension of 60,000 livres. She outlived the house of the Stuarts, which became extinct at the death of her brother-in-law, Cardinal York, in 1807. At Florence, where she lived for a long time, her palace was a notable resort for men famous in political and literary circles. Her name and her misfortunes have been transmitted to posterity through the works and autobiography of Alfieri (q.v.), whose mistress she was after the death of the Prince, and through the treasures of the Musée Fabre, founded by another of her lovers. Her body and that of Alfieri repose in the same tomb in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, between the tombs of Machiavelli and Michelangelo. Consult: Lee, The Countess of Albany (London, 1884); Reumont, Die Gräfin von Albany (Berlin, 1860).
ALBANY CONVENTION OF 1754. In 1754, when hostilities were about to begin between the French and English in America, the lords of trade recommended that an intercolonial convention be called to “confirm and establish the ancient friendship of the Five Nations” and consider plans for a permanent union among the colonies. On June 19, commissioners from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York
assembled at Albany, and, after arranging for
the participation of the Indians in the war,
adopted, with some modifications (July 11), a
plan of intercolonial union proposed by Franklin. This plan provided for the appointment by the crown of a president-general, who was to nominate military officers, commission all officers, and have veto power over the acts of the Grand Council; and for a Grand Council, to be made up of representatives chosen by each colony every three years, no colony to have more than seven members nor less than two. This council was not to be prorogued, dissolved, or kept in session longer than six weeks against its consent, and, with the approval of the president-general, was to manage Indian affairs, authorize new settlements, nominate all civil officers, impose taxes, enlist and pay troops, and construct forts, all of its acts to be valid unless vetoed by the crown within three years. The plan was everywhere rejected—by the court and the royal governors, because it gave too much power to the colonies; by the colonies, because it gave too much power to the king. It is notable as being the first comprehensive scheme of union formally proposed to the various colonial governments in America. Consult: New York Colonial Documents, Volume VI.; and R. Frothingham, Rise of the Republic (Boston, 1872).
ALBANY RE'GENCY, The. A name popularly given to a group of New York Democrats living at Albany, who, from 1820 to about 1850, controlled the nominating conventions and patronage of their party within the State, and by dictating its general policy, exerted a powerful influence in national as well as State politics. They derived their power largely from their great personal influence and remarkable political sagacity, and were, for the most part, earnest opponents of political corruption, though they uniformly acted upon the principle, first formulated in 1833 by one of their number (Marcy), that “to the victors belong the spoils.” Among those who at various times were members of this unofficial body were: Martin Van Buren, William L. Marcy, Silas Wright, John A. Dix, Edwin Croswell, Benjamin F. Butler, A. C. Flagg, Dean Richmond, and Samuel A. Talcott, several of whom “graduated” from it into high offices under the national government. The Regency's loss of prestige dated from about 1848, when their opponents adopted methods similar to their own, and the Democratic party in the State split into irreconcilable factions. (See Barnburners.) Consult: J. D. Hammond, History of Political Parties in the State of New York (Cooperstown, 1846); Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John A. Dix (New York, 1883).
AL'BATEG'NIUS. See Al-Battani, Mohammed ibn Jabir ibn Sinan.
AL′BATROSS (Corrupted from Portug.
alcatraz, the cormorant, from Ar. al, the + qādus,
bucket, referring to its water-carrying pouch).
A popular name for the large marine birds of the
family Diomedea, closely related to the petrels
(q.v.). Albatrosses are among the most
exclusively pelagic birds known. They occur on
nearly all parts of the ocean, excepting only the north Atlantic, and even there, owing to their extraordinary powers of flight, they are
occasionally seen.
BEAK OF AN ALBATROSS.
Like the petrels, albatrosses have the hind toe, or hallux, reduced to a mere claw,
