[Holy Wars], name given to the [Crusades] (q. v.).
[Holy Week], the week before Easter, so called as consecrated to the commemoration of the Passion of Christ in view of His death on the Cross.
[Holyhead] (9), an important little seaport of Anglesey, North Wales, on the N. side of an island of the same name, 25 m. W. of Bangor; is the chief mail-packet station for Ireland, and has excellent harbourage, &c.
[Holyhead Island] (9), a rocky islet forming a part of Anglesey, from which it is separated by a narrow strait, dry at low water, and crossed by an arched causeway.
[Holyoake, George Jacob], an active propagandist of advanced social theories, born at Birmingham; has lived a busy life as an agitator, lecturing and writing; he espoused the cause of Garibaldi, edited the Reasoner; was the last man to be imprisoned in England on a charge of atheism (1841); was a zealous supporter of co-operation and all movements making for the betterment of the social condition of the working-classes; his numerous works embrace a valuable "History of Co-operation in England," "The Limits of Atheism," "Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life," &c.; b. 1817.
[Holyoke] (45), a city of Massachusetts, 8 m. N. of Springfield, on the Connecticut, whose rapid current supplies the water-power for the many large paper-mills, cotton and woollen factories.
[Holyrood], an abbey founded at Edinburgh in 1128 by David I., and dedicated in honour of the Holy Cross, a casket of gold shaped like a cross brought to the country by St. Margaret in 1070; a palace was afterwards attached, which became the chief seat of the Scottish sovereigns of the Stuart dynasty; the parks around were at one time a sanctuary for debtors.
[Holywell] (3), a market-town of Flintshire, has an elevated situation, 15 m. NW. of Chester; the principal industry is the smelting of lead, iron, copper, and zinc ores obtained from the surrounding mines; the famous well of St. Winifred (whence the name of the town) is over-built by a fine Perpendicular chapel.
[Homburg] (9), a fashionable watering-place in Hesse-Nassau, Prussia, beautifully situated at the base of the Taunus Mountains, 8 m. NW. of Frankfort-on-the-Main; has fine chalybeate and saline springs.