In the Roman Catholic Church, Bishops holding imaginary sees, in countries where there is no Catholic community, were formerly so called. Since 1882 they have been styled Titular Bishops. Bismarck of Asia. Li Hung Chang, the Chinese statesman, was so called. Black Act. An Act passed in 1722 to put a stop to the depredations of certain persons who frequented Epping Forest in disguise and killed the deer. The Act was repealed in 1827. Black Agnes. Agnes, wife of the Earl of March, who was distinguished for her gallant defence of Dunbar against the English in 1339. Black Assize. The assize held at Oxford in July, 1577, when an outbreak of typhus fever carried off three hundred persons, including many of the officials and jurors attending the court. Black Bands. A body of German soldiers enlisted by Louis XII of France, and employed in the Italian wars of the sixteenth century. Black Bartholomew. St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1662, is so called. On this day all beneficed clergy had to declare their assent to the Book of Common Prayer, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Uniformity, and those who refused were deprived of their livings. Over two thousand Presbyterians were ejected from their parishes on this day. Black Book. The name given to the report of the committee appointed by Henry VIII in 1535 to investigate the condition of the monasteries. Black Box. A box said to have contained the marriage certificate of Charles II and Lucy Waters, the mother of the Duke of Monmouth, and to have been stolen from her. Had the documents it purported to contain been forthcoming, they would, of course, have established the Duke’s right to the throne in the place of James II. Black Brunswickers. A regiment of horse raised by the Duke of Brunswick in 1809, to avenge the death of his father who was killed at Auerstadt. They wore black uniforms, and their badge was the skull and crossbones. Black Circuit. A circuit held in Cape Colony in 1812 to investigate the charges brought by the London Missionary Society against the Dutch settlers of ill-treating their native slaves. The results showed that the charges were grossly exaggerated, but a great deal of illfeeling was engendered amongst the Dutch by the thoroughness with which the English Government went into the matter. Black Clergy. The members of the regular monastic orders in Russia. They alone take any part in the ecclesiastical administration. Black Death. A pestilence which passed over Europe, and finally reached England in 1349. Its ravages were terrible, amounting, according to some chroniclers, to a third of the population. It probably had its origin in the East, and is thought by some to have been the disease now known as the Bubonic Plague. Black Eagle, Order of the.