Chapter Bryce's Day to Bull of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Bryce's Day to Bull

Bryce’s Day (St), November 13. On St. Bryce’s Day, 1002, Ethelred caused all the Danes in the kingdom to be secretly murdered in one night.

In one night the throats of all the Danish cut.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xii. (1613).

Brydone (Elspeth) or Glendinning, widow of Simon Glendinning, of the Tower of Glendearg.—Sir W. Scott: The Monastery (time, Elizabeth).

Bubastis, the Diana of Egyptian mythology. She was the daughter of Isis and sister of Horus.

Bubenburg (Sir Adrian de), a veteran knight of Berne.—Sir W. Scott: Anne of Geierstein (time, Edward IV.).

Bucca, goblin of the wind in Celtic mythology, and supposed by the ancient inhabitants of Cornwall to foretell shipwrecks.

Bucentaur, the Venetian State galley used by the doge when he went “to wed the Adriatic.” In classic mythology the bucentaur was half man and half ox.

Bucephalos [“bull-headed”], the name of Alexander’s horse, which cost £3500. It knelt down when Alexander mounted, and was 30 years old at its death. Alexander built a city called Bucephala in its memory.

The Persian Bucephalos, Shibdiz, the famous charger of Chosroes Parviz.

Bucket (Mr.), a shrewd detective officer, who cleverly discovers that Hortense, the French maidservant of lady Dedlock, was the murderer of Mr. Tulkinghorn, and not lady Dedlock who was charged with the deed by Hortense.—Dickens: Bleak House (1853).

BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, first duke of), the profligate favourite of James I., who called him “Steenie” from his beauty, a pet corruption of Stephen, whose face at martyrdom was “as the face of an angel.” This was the duke who was assassinated by Fenton (1592–1628). He is introduced by sir W. Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel. (See Dumas, The Three Musketeers.)

Buckingham (George Villiers, second duke of), son of the preceding, and favourite of Charles II. He made the “whole body of vice his study.” His name furnishes the third letter of the famous anagram “Cabal.” This was the duke who wrote The Rehearsal. He is introduced by sir W. Scott in Peveril of the Peak, and by Dryden in his Absalom and Achitophel, who called him zimri (q.v.). He died in very reduced circumstances in the house of one of his tenants in Yorkshire (1627–1688). Pope says the house was a sordid inn.

In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floor of plaister, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw…
Great Villiers lies—alas! how changed from him,—
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
   —Pope: Moral Essays, iii.

Buckingham (Henry duke of) was Henry Stafford, son and heir of Humphrey Stafford duke of Buckingham. He was made hereditary lord high constable in 1483. Shakespeare says (inRichard III.) that Buckingham, alarmed at the execution of Hastings, fled to Brecknock, in Wales, where he had a castle. Here he collected together a levy, which was easily dispersed; and Buckingham, being taken prisoner, was brought to Salisbury, and beheaded in 1521 (Richard III. act v. sc. 1).

Sackville, in A Mirrour for Magistraytes (1587), gives a slightly different account—

Then first came Henry, duke of Buckingham,
His cloke of blacke al pilde and quite forworn.
   —Mirrour for Magistraytes.