his tutor at Wykeham House, St Giles’s, and diligently pursued his favourite studies of science, art and the modern languages. In 1876 he left the university with the honorary degree of D.C.L., and resided at Boyton House, Wiltshire, and afterwards at Claremont. On coming of age in 1874, he had been made a privy councillor and granted an annuity of £15,000. He travelled on the continent, and in 1880 visited the United States and Canada. He was a trustee of the British Museum, a bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, and continued to take an active part in the promotion of education and knowledge generally. Like his father and other members of his family he was an excellent public speaker. On the 24th of May 1881 he was created duke of Albany, earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow. On the 27th of April 1882 he married Hélène Frederica Augusta, princess of Waldeck-Pyrmont, and his income was raised by parliament to £25,000. Having gone to the south of France for his health in the spring of 1884, he was attacked by a fit, the cause or the consequence of a fall in a club-house at Cannes, on the 27th of March, and died very unexpectedly on the following morning. His death was universally regretted, from the gentleness and graciousness of his character, and the desire and ability he had shown to promote intellectual interests of every kind. He left a daughter, born in February 1883, and a posthumous son, Arthur Charles Edward, born on the 19th of July 1884, who succeeded to the dukedom of Albany, and who on the 30th of July 1900 became duke of Saxe-Coburg on the death of his uncle.
ALBANY, LOUISE MAXIMILIENNE CAROLINE, Countess of (1752–1824), eldest daughter of Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg-Gedern, was born at Mons on the 20th of September 1752. In her youth she was a canoness of Ste. Wandru at Mons, but in her twentieth year she was affianced, at the instigation of the duke of Berwick and with the secret connivance of the French Court, to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, “the Young Pretender,” self-styled count of Albany. She was wedded to the prince at Macerata, near Ancona, on Good Friday 1774, and the married pair for over two years resided in the old Stuart palace at Rome. Pretty, intelligent, charming and witty, Louise fascinated Roman society, wherein she gained the nickname of “Queen of Hearts.” The union, however, which was obviously intended to give an heir to the Stuart prince, proved childless, and Louise’s married life became far from happy. In 1774 the pair moved to Florence, where in December 1780 Louise, terrified at her husband’s violence and fearing for the safety of her life, fled to a neighbouring convent and threw herself on the protection of her brother-in-law, Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, who invited her to Rome. Louise had already in Florence formed the acquaintance of the great Italian tragic poet, Vittorio Alfieri, who had been captivated by her engaging manners, her youthful beauty and her literary powers. The poet now followed her to Rome, but the friendship between Alfieri and his sister-in-law does not seem to have aroused any suspicion in the mind of Cardinal York until 1783, when, after a visit to his brother in Florence, he suddenly requested Pope Pius VI. to banish Alfieri from papal territory. In 1784, however, a legal separation between the count and countess of Albany was arranged, and by Charles’s death in 1788 Louise found herself freed from matrimonial bonds. In company with Alfieri (to whom rumour said she had been secretly married) she now visited Paris and London, and was cordially received at the English court, George III. granting her an annual pension of £1600 from the privy purse. Returning to Italy, Alfieri and the countess settled at Florence, where the poet died on the 9th of October 1803, and was buried in the church of Santa Croce beneath Canova’s vast monument erected at Louise’s expense. The countess continued to reside in the house on the Lung’ Arno at Florence, patronising men of science and letters and holding nightly receptions, at which all visitors were expected to treat their hostess with the etiquette due to reigning royalty. She died on the 29th of January 1824 and was buried in Santa Croce, where in the south transept a marble monument by Giovannozzi and Santarelli commemorates her. By her will the countess bequeathed all her property, including many historic objects of art and documents, to the companion of her old age, the French painter, François Xavier Fabre, who ultimately gave the greater part of his legacy to the museum of his native town of Montpellier. Two excellent portraits of the countess of Albany and of Alfieri, painted by this artist, now hang in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.
See Vernon Lee, The Countess of Albany (1884); Marchesa Vitelleschi, A Court in Exile. (H. M. V.)
ALBANY, a river of Canada, forming part of the boundary between the province of Ontario and the district of Keewatin. It rises in Lake St Joseph in 91° 25′ W. and 50° 55′ N., and flows E.N.E. into James Bay, its total length being over 400 m. It is navigable for nearly half its length, to Martin’s Falls. There are four Hudson’s Bay Company’s posts on its banks, including Fort Albany at its mouth. The Ogoki and Kenogami rivers are the principal tributaries.
ALBANY, a city and the county-seat of Dougherty county, Georgia, U.S.A., at the mouth of the Kinchafoona Creek, and at the head of navigation on the Flint river, about 100 m. S.S.W. of Macon, about 200 m. S.W. of Savannah and about 203 m. N.E. of Pensacola. Pop. (1890) 4008; (1900) 4606 (2903 of negro descent); (1910) 8190. It is served by the Central of Georgia, the Georgia Northern, the Seaboard Air Line, the Albany & Northern and the Atlantic Coast Line railways, and by steamboats connecting it with Apalachicola at the mouth of the Apalachicola river. Its importance is largely due to these transportation facilities and to the resources of the surrounding country, which produces timber, lime, cotton, Indian corn, sugar-cane, wheat, oats, fruit, melons, hay and vegetables. Albany ships much cotton, and has a cotton compress, a cotton mill, cotton-seed oil and guano factories, brick yards, lumber mills and ice factories. It is a summer and winter resort and is the home of the Georgia Chautauqua. The city owns and operates the electric-lighting plant and artesian water-works. It was settled in 1836, was incorporated in 1838 and received its present city charter in 1907.
ALBANY, a city and the county-seat of Albany county, New York, U.S.A., and the capital of the state. It is situated on the W. bank of the Hudson river, just below the mouth of the Mohawk, 145 m. N. of New York City and 165 m. W. of Boston. Pop. (1880) 90,758; (1890) 94,923; (1900) 94,151, of whom 17,718 were foreign-born (6612 being Irish, 5903 German, 1361 English and 740 Russian) and 1178 were negroes; (1910) 100,253. Albany is a terminus of the New York Central & Hudson River, the Delaware & Hudson and the West Shore railways, and is also served by the Boston & Maine railway, by the Erie and Champlain canals (being a terminus of each), by steamboat lines on the Hudson river and by several inter-urban electric railways connecting with neighbouring cities.
Albany is attractively situated on a series of hills rising sharply from the river. The older portions of the city are reminiscent of Dutch colonial days, and some fine specimens of the Dutch and later colonial architecture are still standing. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Schuyler mansion (now St Francis de Sales Orphan Asylum), built in 1760–1761. The Van Rensselaer manor-house, built in 1765, was pulled down in 1893 and was reconstructed on the campus of Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, where it is used as a fraternity club-house. Among the public buildings, the finest is the new State Capitol, one of the largest and most imposing in America. It occupies a commanding position in Capitol Square (7·84 acres), one of the highest points in the city. It is built of white Maine granite, and cost about $25,000,000. Its dimensions are 300 × 400 ft. The corner-stone was laid in 1871, and the building was completed, with the exception of the central tower and dome, in 1904. The legislature first met in it in 1879. The original designs were by Thomas Fuller, who also designed the parliamentary buildings at Ottawa; but the plans underwent many changes, Isaac Gale Perry, Leopold Eidlitz and H. H. Richardson being associated with the work before its completion.
