pelled Vasily, Nevsky marched on the city and reinstalled
him. Working with the Mongols, Nevsky took a cen-
sus of the people in Russia in 1257. However, five years
later, when a rebellion broke out against Muslims taking
farmland, Nevsky went to the Mongol leaders to negoti-
ate an end to the crisis. Successful, he returned home
but became ill and died on 14 November 1263 in the
village of Gorodets. Although Russia remained leader-
less for a time thereafter, his nephew Daniel brought the
peoples of northern Russia together in a confederation
that would later become modern Russia.
Although many considered Nevsky a traitor for col-
laborating with the Mongols, he realized that opposition
to a power that ruled the whole of Asia was impossible
and deliberately chose submission. With the support of
the Russian Orthodox Church, whom he in turn sup-
ported by encouraging the foundation of schools and
monasteries, he was able to alleviate the tax burden im-
posed by the Mongols. Nevsky was canonized in 1547.
As a military leader, he defeated the Swedes and Teu-
tonic Knights, but he had the sense not to involve his
people in a hopeless struggle against a Mongol empire
that stretched to the Pacific Ocean. It was therefore his
role as a diplomat that provided his greatest legacy.
References: Alexander Nevsky (Moscow, USSR: Foreign
Languages Publishing House, 1943); Presniakov, A. E.,
The Formation of the Great Russian State: A Study of Rus-
sian History in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries (Chi-
cago: Triangle Books, 1970); The Life of St. Alexander
Nevsky,... (St. Petersburg, Russia: Aurora Art Publishers,
1992); Waszink, Paul M., Life, Courage, Ice: A Semiologi-
cal Study Essay on the old Russian Biography of Aleksandr
Nezskij (München, Germany: Sagner, 1990).
Newcastle, William Cavendish, duke of
(1592–1676) English military commander
William Cavendish was born in 1592, the son of Sir
Charles Cavendish and his wife Catherine, the daugh-
ter of Cuthbert, Lord Ogle. William attended St. John’s
College, Cambridge University, and was made a Knight
of the Order of Bath (KB) in 1610, when Prince Henry
became the Prince of Wales. He served as an aide to Sir
Henry Wotton, the ambassador to the duke of Savoy,
and when he returned to England, he married Elizabeth
Basset, daughter of William Basset of Blore. Cavendish
became a close friend of Kings James I and Charles I, and
he was ennobled as Viscount Mansfield in 1620 and as
earl of Newcastle in 1628. In 1638, he was named as a
governor (guardian) of Charles’s son, the Prince of Wales,
and the following year he was made a privy councillor.
With the outbreak of the English Civil War be-
tween King Charles I and Parliament, Newcastle offered
his services to the Crown. Charles sent him to take the
city of Hull in January 1642, but the city fathers refused
him admittance and he was forced to withdraw. He then
led raids into the Northern cities and took York in late- His actions were noted in a letter to the House of
Commons: “The House of Commons having received
a report, concerning the Earle of Newcastle, that the
said Earle hath put in about 500 Men in Garrison, and
that the said Earle is about to raise a Troope of Horse,
and beats the Drum for Volunteers, the Trained Bands
refuse to come in, foure pieces of Ordnance is gone to-
wards South Sheels, Tinmouth, and there are 300 men
in worke making a Sconce, to command all Ships, that
in or goe out, the Towne is in greater perplexity then
they were the last yeare, Ship-masters refuse to goe in,
least their Ships be Staid.”
Starting in early 1643, a series of lightning-quick
attacks by Newcastle’s forces captured the cities of Wake-
field, Rotherham, and Sheffield. He defeated Lord fair-
fax, a Parliamentarian general, at Adwalton Moor on 30
June 1643 and was able to march unmolested into parts
of Lincolnshire, including the city of Lincoln. However,
a part of his force was defeated by Oliver cromWell at
Winceby (11 October 1643), and Newcastle retreated to
York. Surrounded by Fairfax and Lord Manchester, he
was saved by Prince ruPert, who fought the battle of
Marston Moor (2 July 1644) against Newcastle’s advice.
Rupert’s army was devastated in the clash, and Newcastle
was so distraught at the loss that he resigned his commis-
sion and sailed to Hamburg, Germany, eventually mov-
ing to Paris in April 1645. Three years later, he moved
to Rotterdam, where he joined a group of those opposed
to Parliament’s takeover of the English government. He
then settled in Antwerp.
In 1650, Newcastle became a member of the Privy
Council of Charles II, son of the executed Charles I.
When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660,
Newcastle returned to England and was given back some
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