[Pius], the name of nine Popes, of which only six call for particular mention: P. II., Pope from 1458 to 1464, was of the family of the Piccolomini, and is known to history as Æneas Sylvius, and under which name he did diplomatic work in Britain and Germany; as Pope he succeeded Callistus III.; he was a wily potentate, and is distinguished for organising a crusade against the Turks as well as his scholarship; the works which survive him are of a historical character, and his letters are of great value. P. IV., from 1559 to 1563, was of humble birth; during his popehood the deliberations of the Council of Trent were brought to a close, and the Tridentine Creed was named after him. P. V., Pope 1566 to 1572, also of humble birth, was severe in his civil and ecclesiastical capacity, both in his internal administration and foreign relationships, and thought to browbeat the world back into the bosom of Mother Church; issued a bull releasing Queen Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance; but the great event of his reign, and to which he contributed, was the naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in 1571. P. VI., Pope from 1775 to 1799; the commencement of his popehood was signalised by beneficent measures for the benefit of the Roman city, but he was soon in trouble in consequence of encroachments on Church privileges in Austria and the confiscation of all Church property in France, which ended, on his resisting, to still further outrages, in his capture by the French under Bonaparte and his expatriation from Rome. P. VII., Pope from 1800 to 1823, concluded a concordat with France, crowned Napoleon emperor at Paris, who thereafter annexed the papal territories to the French empire, which were in part restored to him only after Napoleon's fall; he was a meek-spirited man, and was much tossed about in his day. P. IX., or Pio Nono, from 1846 to 1878, was a "reforming" Pope, and by his concessions awoke in 1848 a spirit of revolution, under the force of which he was compelled to flee from Rome, to return again under the protection of French bayonets against his own subjects, to devote himself to purely ecclesiastical affairs; in 1854 he promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and in 1869 the Infallibility of the Pope; upon the outbreak of the Franco-German War in 1871 the French troops were withdrawn and Victor Emmanuel's troops entered the city; Pius retired into the Vatican, where he lived in seclusion till his death.
[Pix], the name of a little chest in which the consecrated host is kept in the Roman Catholic Church. See [Pyx].
[Pixies], Devonshire Robin Goodfellows, said to be the spirits of infants who died unbaptized.
[Pizarro, Francisco], the conqueror of Peru, born at Truxillo, in Spain, the son of a soldier of distinction; received no education, but was of an adventurous spirit, and entered the army; embarked with other adventurers to America, and having distinguished himself in Panama, set out by way of the Pacific on a voyage of discovery along with another soldier named Almagra; landed on the island of Gallo, on the coast of Peru, and afterwards returned with his companion to Spain for authority to conquer the country; when in 1529 he obtained the royal sanction he set sail from Spain with three ships in 1531, and on his arrival at Peru found a civil war raging between the two sons of the emperor, who had just died; Pizarro saw his opportunity; approached Atahualpa, the victorious one, now become the reigning Inca, with overtures of peace, was admitted into the interior of the country; invited him to a banquet, had him imprisoned, and commenced a wholesale butchery of his subjects, upon which he forced Atahualpa to disclose his treasures, and then put him perfidiously to death; his power, by virtue of the mere terror he inspired, was now established, and he might have continued to maintain it, but a contest having arisen between him and his old comrade Almagro, whom after defeating he put to death, the sons and friends of the latter rose against him, seized him in his palace at Lima, and took away his life (1476-1541).
[Plague, The], is a very malignant kind of highly contagious fever, marked by swellings of the lymphatic glands. From the development of purple patches due to subcutaneous hæmorrhages the European epidemic of 1348-50 was called the Black Death. A quarter of the European population perished on that occasion. Other visitations devastated London in 1665, Northern Europe 1707-14, Marseilles and Provence 1720-22, and South-East Russia 1878-79. The home of the Plague was formerly Lower Egypt, Turkey, and the shores of the Levant. From these it has been absent since 1844. Its home since then has been in India, where it has assumed epidemic form 1836-38 and 1896-99.
[Plain, The], the name given to the Girondists or Moderate party in the French National Convention, in contrast with [the Mountain] (q. v.) or [Jacobin party].
[Planché, James Robinson], antiquary and dramatist, born in London, of French descent; author of a number of burlesques; an authority on heraldry and costumes; he produced over 200 pieces for the stage, and held office in the Heralds' Court (1796-1880).
[Planetoids], the name given to a number of very small planets revolving between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, originally called Asteroids, all of recent discovery, and the list, amounting to some 400, as yet made of them understood to be incomplete. They are very difficult of discovery, many of them from the smallness of their size and their erratic movements.
[Planets], bodies resembling the earth and of different sizes, which revolve in elliptical orbits round the sun, and at different distances, the chief of them eight in number, two of them, viz., Mercury and Venus, revolving in orbits interior to that of the earth, and five of them, viz., Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, exterior, the whole with the [planetoids] (q. v.) and comets constituting the solar system.
[Plantagenets], the name attached to a dynasty of kings of England, who reigned from the extinction of the Norman line to the accession of the Tudor, that is, from the beginning of Henry II.'s reign in 1154 to the end of Richard III.'s on Bosworth Field in 1458. The name was adopted by Geoffrey of Anjou, the husband of Matilda, the daughter of Henry I., whose badge was a sprig of broom (which the name denotes), and which he wore in his bonnet as descended from the Earl of Anjou, who was by way of penance scourged with twigs of it at Jerusalem.