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Usurper

noun
1.
One who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another.  Synonym: supplanter.






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"Usurper" Quotes from Famous Books



... his thoughts in his own way, and "the style is the man" never more truly than with him. One of his family letters mentions the execution of Charles I. as a "horrid murther," and another speaks of Cromwell as a usurper; but nowhere in anything intended for the public eye is there an indication that he lived in the most tumultuous and heroic period of English history. Not a word shows that Shakespeare was of the generation just preceding his, nor that Milton and George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, numerous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... Nymphs, of the number of the goddesses, of the company of the Muses, or of the mistery of the Graces? To whom the bird answered, Madam I know not what shee is, but this I know that she is called Psyches. Then Venus with indignation cried out, What is it she? the usurper of my beauty, the Vicar of my name? What did he think that I was a bawd, by whose shew he fell acquainted with the maid? And immediately she departed and went to her chamber, where she found her son wounded as it was told unto her, whom when ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... argument that he who for a long time has not made use of his rights is presumed to have abandoned them; a presumption which is at best doubtful, and cannot destroy the right and established property of a monarch. Besides, even this presumption altogether vanishes when the superior strength of a usurper has prevented the lawful proprietor from claiming his rights, which has been the case in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... came to the worst, a marriage with some princess would soon legitimise, if not the usurper himself, at least his descendants, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Wang Mang the usurper was certainly a capable administrator, but in seizing the throne he had attempted a task to which he was unequal. As long as he was minister or regent, respect and regard for the Han family prevented many ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... been long engaged in this capacity, when the usurper died; and Marvell's occupation being gone, the goodly burgesses of the town of Hull, who loved him well, elected him as their representative in parliament, for which service, in accordance with a custom of the time, he was paid. The salary, it is true, was not large, amounting to two ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... And now this revolutionary usurper is in full authority, his acts imitating his master, Armijo, like him in secret league with the savages, even consorting with the red pirates of the plains, taking part in their murderous ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... were adverse to their present prince, and remained in their houses, while those of the opposite faction had withdrawn. Cortes sent for those chiefs next morning, from whom he learnt, that they considered their present prince, Coanacotzin, as an usurper, he having murdered his elder brother, Cuicutzcatzin, who had been placed on the throne by Montezuma and Cortes, and that Coanacotzin owed his elevation to the favour of Guatimotzin, the present sovereign of Mexico. They pointed out a youth named Ixtlilxochitl as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Purna-puriyas, Kara-khar-das, the issue of this marriage, ascended the throne; but he had not reigned long before his subjects rebelled against his authority. A struggle ensued, in which he was slain, whereupon a certain Nazi-bugas, an usurper, became king, the line of Purna-puriyas being set aside. Asshur-upallit, upon this, interposed. Marching an army into Babylonia, he defeated and slew the usurper, after which he placed on the throne another son of Purna-puriyas, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... the only thing that can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. I have no idea that the Hungarians are fit for it. See what France has done with her free constitution! Oh! was there ever such a solemn farce, before Heaven, as that voting,—those congratulations to the Usurper-President, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... ingratiating himself into the favour of the Regent, and in convincing him that the interests of France and England were identical. One of the reasons—the main one—which he brought forward to show this, was that King George was an usurper; and that if anything happened to our King, M. le Duc d'Orleans would become, in mounting the throne of France, an usurper also, the King of Spain being the real heir to the French monarchy; that, in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... inauguration of the President. Within one short month, however, this President was expelled from the capital by a rebellion in the army, and the supreme power of the Republic was assigned to General Zuloaga. This usurper was in his turn soon compelled to retire and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... these pretended gifts." His successor, however, found means to levy "a benevolence;" but when Henry VIII. demanded one, the citizens of London appealed to the act of Richard III. Cardinal Wolsey insisted that the law of a murderous usurper should not be enforced. One of the common council courageously replied, that "King Richard, conjointly with parliament, had enacted many good statutes." Even then the citizen seems to have comprehended the spirit ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... perpetuity, in its morality, in its conduct, in its doctrine, in its effects. The frightful darkness of the Jews was foretold: Eris palpans in meridie.[276] Dabitur liber scienti literas, et dicet: Non possum legere.[277] While the sceptre was still in the hands of the first foreign usurper, there is the report of the ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... estait de l'Itaile. Et s'il etait question d'estimer la vertu d'un peuple, qui s'est longtemps maintenu libre sans ployer la gantelet, ni rien perdu de sa reputation, on peut, a bon droit, faire cas de ceste cite. Et certes de tout temps ceste brave cite a este enviee des tyrans, pour en usurper la domination. Et il n'y a ni eu ni menaces, ni allechement qui ayent sceu esbranler les nobles et libres coeurs besanconnais, pour quicter aucune chose de leurs libertez, quelques couleurs de grandeur et de richesses qu'on leur ayt mis audevant ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... died by the agency of a gang of witches, who inflicted torments upon an image made in his name, for the sake of compassing his death. In the tale of Macbeth, which is another early instance of Demonology in Scottish history, the weird-sisters, who were the original prophetesses, appeared to the usurper in a dream, and are described as volae, or sibyls, rather than as witches, though Shakspeare has stamped the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... was in part redeemed by qualities in the usurper worthy of a king. Though the bigotry of Al-masur led him to order the destruction of those volumes in the library of Al-hakem which treated of philosophy and the abstruse sciences, on the ground that such studies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... however that James ever meant to take a course so insane. He must have known that England would never bear for a single day the yoke of an usurper who was also a Papist, and that any attempt to set aside the Lady Mary would have been withstood to the death, both by all those who had supported the Exclusion Bill, and by all those who had opposed it. There is however no doubt that the King was an accomplice in a plot less absurd, but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... against a mild and lawful monarch with more fury, outrage, and insult than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper or the most sanguinary tyrant. Their resistance was made to concession; their revolt was from protection; their blow was aimed at a hand holding out graces, favours, and immunities. They have found their ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... restored to his own family. The circumstances shall be made known hereafter; In the meantime, I have taken him under my care and protection, and will use all my power and interest to see him restored to his fortune, which is enjoyed by the usurper who was the cause of his expulsion, and the death of his parents. Receive him as my relation, and friend; Zadisky, do you embrace him first. Edmund, you and this gentleman must love each other for my sake; hereafter you will do it for your own.["] They all rose; each embraced ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... usurpation. In the second group, accordingly, comes the Nemesis, in the civil wars of the Roses, reaching their catastrophe in the downfall of both Lancaster and York, and the tyranny of Gloucester. The happy conclusion is finally reached in the last play of the series, when this new usurper is overthrown in turn, and Henry {112} VII., the first Tudor sovereign, ascends the throne, and restores the Lancastrian inheritance, purified, by bloody atonement, from the stain of Richard II.'s murder. These eight plays are, as it were, the eight acts of one great ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... the chair of the Consul. Yet in that time, which now seemed so full of peaceful glories, he had never at heart been loyal to the great king; in his view, as in that of the nobles generally, Theodoric was but a usurper, who had abused the mandate intrusted to him by the Emperor Zeno, to deliver Italy from the barbarians. When his own kinsmen, Boethius and Symmachus, were put to death on a charge of treachery, Maximus burned with hatred of the Goth. He regarded with disdain ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... prophet, he knew his sinfulness, but thought that he ought to take any help to build up an army to preserve his people from the fearful persecutions. Bennet got hold of the worst side of the worst men we had in the Church, among which was the new usurper." He paused here with ire in his eye. "I would be understood to mean Mr. Brigham Young, who has falsely usurped the prophet's place; but there are many of us who will not follow him, no, not one step. The Lord will requite him and his confederates, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... seems a joke against THEM. Why continue it?—If there be anything sacred in the name and idea of loyalty, why renew this fete? It only shows how a rightful monarch was hurled from his throne, and a dexterous usurper stole his precious diadem. If there be anything noble in the memory of a day, when citizens, unused to war, rose against practised veterans, and, armed with the strength of their cause, overthrew them, why speak of it ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... would expect from the most accomplished and fascinating woman of her times. The narrative is neither very copious nor very regular; but all that is told is of the deepest interest. It abounds in domestic anecdotes of the great usurper, and reports conversations between him and his wife, in which, by the way, her speeches rival, in prolixity, those given us by Livy. Many of her views of Bonaparte and herself are novel and striking, and calculated, if relied upon, to change opinions ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... in France, near Bordeaux, and reads as pleasantly as any story in "Astree," no mean compliment. Probability, geography and chronology, are not Lodge's strong points; we are in fact again in the country of nowhere, in an imaginary kingdom of France over which the usurper Torismond reigns. The true king has been deposed and leads a forester's life, untroubled, unknown, in the thick woods of Arden. Rosalind, a daughter of the deposed king, has been kept as a sort of hostage at the court of the tyrant in Bordeaux, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... accusations, his resentment never extended farther than fatherly correction. She would have found it impossible to accomplish his ruin, had not her efforts been reinforced by a new auxiliary, who was no other than his uncle, the present usurper of his title and estate; yet even this confederacy was overawed, in some measure, by the fear of alarming the unfortunate mother, until her distemper increased to a most deplorable degree of the dead palsy, and the death of her father had reduced her to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... greatness of the dead monarch, bursts forth in eloquent praise of this so-called "usurper" of other days. He was not only an Emperor and a King, but the legitimate sovereign of his country. No ordinary sepulture is to be his—it is to be an august sepulture, a silent sacred spot which those who respect glory, genius, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... had learnt of that agreement which was to be signed on the morrow and which would despoil her. That enemy who was in her home and worked against her, a revolt of her whole being urged her to exterminate him, and thrust him out like some usurper, all craft and falsehood. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... man and his times having been hitherto written from the point of view either of the Royalists or of the revolutionary Whigs. To neither of these was an understanding of Puritanism at all possible. Moreover, to the Cavaliers, Cromwell was a regicide; to the Whigs he was a military usurper who dissolved parliaments. To both he was a Puritan who applied Biblical phraseology to practical affairs—therefore, a canting hypocrite, though undoubtedly a man of great capacity and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian principality which brought five thousand men into the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the House of Bourbon, so far from stimulating assassins to take off the usurper of their throne, never failed, when such schemes were suggested, to denounce them as atrocities hateful in the sight of God and man. As to this part of their conduct, the proofs are abundant, clear, and irrefragable. But it is very possible that Buonaparte ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... subsisting the said forces under your command, and to give recepts for the same, which we hereby promise to pay. By this our Commission, we likeways here empower you to make warr upon our enemies, and upon all such as shall adhere to the present government and usurper of our dominions. Leaving entirely to your prudence and conduct to begin the necessary acts of hostility when and where you think most advantageous conducing to our restoration; and we doe hereby command all, and require all officers and souldiers, both by sea and land, and all our subjects, to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... and of his mother. It has been said that "the reader of old newspaper files and pamphlet collections of the Adamsite persuasion, in the absence of other knowledge, would gather that Jackson was a usurper, an adulterer, a gambler, a cock-fighter, a brawler, a drunkard, and withal a murderer of the most cruel and blood-thirsty description." Issues—tariff, internal improvements, foreign policy, slavery—receded into the background; the campaign became for all practical ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... much nearer, at least, that the Imperial decree will return me the lordships of Mondolfo and Carmina, dispossessing the usurper. Thus I shall have something to offer ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... right; that is to say, they became inspired by the Shinto sanctions for a national life. They thus discovered the defect of the disjointed feudal system sanctioned by feudal Confucianism. The second cause of its undoing grew out of the first. The scholarship which led the patriots against the usurper in political life led them also against all foreign innovations such as Buddhism and Confucianism, which they scorned as modern and anti-imperial. The Shinto cultus thus received a powerful revival. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... full height, his eyes blazing, he answered in low tones, 'Dare you apply those epithets to me, usurper that you are? You are a liar and a thief, and if you had your deserts you would be in a felon's cell to-night, or transported to the wilds of Australia! I an impostor? See and judge for yourself!' and with a sudden, swift movement the black curling hair and mustache ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... and thrown into the Tiber. The cradle was caught by the roots of a fig-tree: a she-wolf came out, and suckled them, and Faustulus, a shepherd, brought them up as his own children. Romulus grew up, and slew the usurper, Amulius. The two brothers founded a city on the banks of the Tiber where they had been rescued (753 B.C.). In a quarrel, the elder killed the younger, and called the city after himself, Roma. Romulus, to increase the number ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Fort Shakie had been the nearest neighbor in those days, and it remained the nearest neighbor still, with the exception of one usurper and outcast homesteader, Alan Macdonald by name, who had invaded the land over which Chadron laid his extensive claim. Fifteen miles up the river from the grand white house Macdonald had strung his barbed wire and carried in the irrigation ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... their shores, well-equipped and plentifully supplied with money, sailed many who were desirous of gaining the great stake,—obdurate Chouans and fanatical royalists who regarded as an act of piety the crime that would rid France of the usurper. What gave most cause for alarm in these reports, usually unworthy of much attention, was the fact that all of them were agreed on one point—Georges Cadoudal had disappeared. Since this man, formidable by reason of his courage and ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... ordained by God and for a land which cannot flourish under the usurper. My loyalty to throne, Church, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... bright eye of Mittie actually sunk before the calm, rebuking glance, which gave emphasis to every cool, deliberate word. Here was the woman she had dared to treat with disdain, as undeserving her respect, as the usurper of a place to which she had no right, whom she had predetermined to hate because she was her step-mother, and whom she continued to dislike because she had predetermined to do so, all at once assuming an attitude of ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... of the service of such a miserable usurper. If it were not for the terrible upset to Lady Gowan, I should be ready ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... natural and moral order of things. Orestes, as a prince, was, it is true, called upon to exercise justice, even on the members of his own family; but we behold him here under the necessity of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of the tyrannical usurper of his throne, and of going to work like an assassin. The memory of his father pleads his excuse; but however much Clytemnestra may have deserved her death, the voice of blood cries from within. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... varying fortunes. He was, in addition, what very few great soldiers or commanders have ever been, a great constitutional statesman, able to lead a people along the paths of free government without undertaking himself to play the part of the strong man, the usurper, or the savior ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... of Henri IV of France. It is probable that the son mentioned in our text was Cristoval, his second son (born in 1564); he assumed the title of king of Portugal, and with this pretension might easily undertake to fight against Spain (as usurper of that crown), in aid of the Dutch. Cristoval died at ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... does my aunt say? Surprising, aunt? Not at all for a young couple to make a match in winter: not at all. It's a plot to undermine cold weather, and destroy that usurper of a bed called ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... lost?" he said in a low, bleak voice. "Has he, this precious royal master of yours, this usurper—has he parted with ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... had not been drawn onward in the current with her own. They remained stupefied, stranded, as it were, in the midst of a torrent which deafened them by its roaring, but might not move them by its violence. The clergyman, who could not hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit otherwise than by bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of just indignation and ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... second place, being so young and inexperienced, I was frightened at the idea of having a houseful of servants to manage, and dinners to order, and parties to entertain, and all the rest of it, and I thought she might assist me with her experience; never dreaming she would prove a usurper, a tyrant, an incubus, a spy, and everything else that's detestable. I wish she ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... that the pen with them is indeed mightier than the sword. Caesar's case has been reviewed, and the current of opinion is now setting strongly in his favor. Instead of being looked upon as a mere vulgar usurper, who differed from other usurpers only in having a greater stage, and talents proportioned to that stage, he is held up as the man of his times, and as the only man who could fulfil the demands of the crisis that existed after the death ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... of you in the Tower Rooms. You always belonged there, and I felt like a usurper when I came and discovered that all of your rosy belongings had been moved down-stairs and my staid and stiff things were in their place. It is queer, isn't it, the difference in the atmosphere made by a man and ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... such a standpoint the pure and sacred striving after light and truth, to say the least, would seem quixotic and criminal if it should venture in its feeling of justice to denounce the authoritative belief as a usurper who has taken possession of the throne of truth and maintained it by ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... Gain but the tyrant's leave, and seek thy father; Pour thy complaints before him; let thy wrongs Kindle his indignation to pursue This vile usurper, till unceasing ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... seen. A question however occurring, not of art but of morals, he was at once on the alert. It arose when they reached that portion of the tale in which the true heir to an earldom and its wealth offers to leave all in the possession of the usurper, on the one condition of his ceasing to annoy a certain lady, whom, by villainy of the worst, he had gained the power of rendering unspeakably miserable. Naturally enough, at this point Malcolm's personal interest was suddenly excited: here were elements strangely correspondent with the circumstances ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper, when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... offered what he had without hope of reward, because he had considered it his duty. And, after all, what had the Osian done that he should be driven to this ignominious end? His motives never could be questioned; each act had been in some way for the country's good. Every king is a usurper ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... once he met his master, and was pitched with terrific violence across the sand, striking on his head, to his evident stupefaction. When he recovered he gave up his property without demur, and started for another venture. Then I, the deus ex machina, stepped into the epic, pitched the usurper three times as far as he had thrown my friend, then rolled the "apple of discord" directly in the path of its rightful owner, and saw him commencing his task anew, with unabated energy. A little declivity stood in his way, and it was a Sysiphus-labor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... had twin sons, whose father was said, in the old superstitious fashion, to be Mars, the God of War. The usurper, fearing that these sons of Mars might grow up and deprive him of his throne, ordered that they and their mother should be flung into the Tiber, then swollen with recent rains. The mother was drowned, but destiny, or Mars, preserved the sons. Borne onward in their basket cradle, ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... probability a bigot? and have you more regard for a foreign sovereign than your own fellow-subjects, who are not fools, for they know your interest better than you know your own; who are not bigots, for they return you good for evil; but who are in worse durance than the prison of an usurper, inasmuch as the fetters of the mind are more galling than those of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... respectful amity with the Indian government, though his little principality was a notorious focus of native disaffection. In that year he died, and his child, after being acknowledged by the Indian government as his successor, was forcibly ousted by a usurper. Sir David Ochterlony, the hero of the Nepalese war, then resident in Malwa and Rajputana, undertook to support the legitimate heir, but was overruled by orders from Amherst. On his resignation he was succeeded by Metcalfe, who had become Sir Charles Metcalfe by his brother's death in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... of being avenged upon you. This, joined to the other emotions of sorrow and anger, which ferment in the savage bosom of this man of bloodshed, tended to urge him on to the rash enterprise, which is the consequence and the punishment of his idolatry for a miserable usurper." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... more could be seen with the successful side, and that the indications pointed to the defeat of the French. My choice evidently pleased him greatly, as he had the utmost contempt for Louis Napoleon, and had always denounced him as a usurper and a charlatan. Before we separated, the President gave me the following letter to the representatives of our Government abroad, and with it I not only had no trouble in obtaining permission to go ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... great excuses, and his course has many palliations, still it would seem a mockery of all moral distinctions not to condemn in him what we would condemn in another, or what Cromwell himself condemned in the murdered king. It is true he did not, at once, turn usurper, not until circumstances seemed to warrant the usurpation—the utter impossibility of governing England, except by exercising the rights and privileges of an absolute monarch. On the principles of expediency, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... distant city, where none recognized in the sable clad widow, the former brilliant belle and heiress. I once visited my old home and saw them together; and he, the false one, smiled fondly upon the usurper of my rights. Then I crept away, weary of life, to this secluded spot, to pass the remainder of my days, where there was nothing to remind me of what I ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... Pau was the seat of a chateau of the princes of Bearn as early as the tenth century. Its great splendour and importance only came with the establishment here of the residence of Gaston IV., Comte de Foix, the usurper of the throne of Navarre in 1464. In his train came a parliament, a university, an academy, and a mint. Finally came the birth of Henri Quatre, and one may yet see the great turtle-shell used by the afterwards gay monarch for a cradle. These were gay times for ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... placed itself in the possession of the territories of nearly all of the remaining states, Ts'in made war against the last shadow emperor, Nan-wang who had attempted to form an alliance against the powerful usurper, with the result that the western part of the Chou dominion was lost ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... suffering?—nay! more than he—for HE, at any rate, would not be buried alive! I should take care of that! HE would not have to endure the agony of breaking loose from the cold grasp of the grave to come back to life and find his name slandered, and his vacant place filled up by a usurper. Do what I would, I could not torture him as much as I myself had been tortured. That was a pity—death, sudden and almost painless, seemed too good for him. I held up my hand in the half light and watched it closely to see if it trembled ever so slightly. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... heir of the throne, he married the young prince to his own daughter, and confined them in the castle of Osaka, under the charge of such persons only as had been brought up from their childhood under the roof of the usurper, so that by their means he has regular intelligence ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... serves to give the lie to all the pompous titles showered upon me by the people's admiration, and this one word rings out clearer in my ears than all the flattery of courtiers, all the songs of poets, all the orations of the crowd:—I am an usurper!" ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... in rebellion against his rightful king, and taking the royal forces by surprise, defeated them and seized the kingdom. The dethroned King, who had been severely wounded in battle, was cast in prison, where he soon died; but his widow, the Queen, managed to escape from the palace before the usurper could lay ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston

... Voltaire, and herself translated French masterpieces into Russian. The French language has been the language of diplomacy and society. Readers of "War and Peace" will remember how the noblemen of the Petersburg salons denounced the French usurper ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... Continent, living chiefly in France and Switzerland, and showing hospitality to Royalist exiles. Returning by permission in 1652 he addressed some laudatory verses, among the best he wrote, to Cromwell, on whose death nevertheless he wrote a new poem entitled, On the Death of the late Usurper, O.C. On the Restoration the accommodating poet was ready with a congratulatory address to Charles II., who, pointing out its inferiority as a poem to that addressed to Cromwell, elicited the famous reply, "Poets, Sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth." ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... gentle is in estate above, *because She shall be call'd his lady and his love; And, for that other is a poor woman, She shall be call'd his wench and his leman: And God it wot, mine owen deare brother, Men lay the one as low as lies the other. Right so betwixt a *titleless tyrant* *usurper* And an outlaw, or else a thief errant, *wandering The same I say, there is no difference (To Alexander told was this sentence), But, for the tyrant is of greater might By force of meinie* for to slay downright, *followers And burn both house and home, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... because he had not been heard from on the subject, and so started for Washington. This was how it happened that he abandoned his project of leading his friends and fellow-citizens in their determined assault upon the serried ranks of capital, backed though they were by "the bristling bayonets of a usurper." For several days his deluded disciples looked for him in vain. The telegraphic despatches of the Associated Press told briefly of another crank demanding audience at the White House, claiming to represent the people of Chicago and persisting in his demand until, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... young Golightly; "it is my father's. Since he became a tyrant and usurper, and forced me to join a corsair's band, I've began by dividing ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... a usurper," he said pleasantly to Mr. Stevens of Boston. "I was expected at Meadow Brook, and they were to send a conveyance for me. As this was the only conveyance in sight I naturally supposed it to be mine. I very much ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... renouncing all claim upon the youth, and signing over whatever rights she may have had to Estella. She sighed a little over Madeline's case, for they had been old school-mates, and Elizabeth felt keenly her position as usurper. Nevertheless, she was happier now than she had been since she left The Dale as Mrs. Jarvis's companion. She believed that her pen had found for her a purpose in life. Under all Elizabeth's gay exterior, unquenched by the idle life of fashion, there lay a strong desire to ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... Connected with this Admonition of Cardinal Allen, there is another question of some interest. In Bohn's Guinea Catalogue, No. 16,568., was a broadside, there said to be unknown and unique, and entitled A Declaration of the Sentence and Deposition of Elizabeth, the Usurper and pretended Queen of England. This was drawn up by Cardinal Allen, and printed at Antwerp; and copies were intended to be distributed in England upon the landing of the Spanish Armada. Can any of your readers inform me who is the ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various

... have connected with this part of the world, than from me. But, as far as I can learn, this appears to be it: Shah Shooja is the rightful heir to the throne of Cabool, and Dost Mahomed is what Mr. C. Dickens calls the "wrongful one," alias the usurper. Dost Mahomed had possession of the country, and the Indian government, from what motives I know not, determined to unseat him and replace Shah Shooja. In this matter they are assisted by old Runjet Sing, King of Lahore, or, as his oriental ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... took the reins of government into his own hands and finally abolished feudalism and with it the authority of the Daimios. Many persons even now believe that the Shogun, or Tycoon as he was usually called in Europe, was a usurper. As a matter of fact he received investiture from the Mikado, and his authority was, nominally at any rate, a derived one. At the same time there is no doubt that the real power of the State was in his hands while the de jure ruler lived in the capital in complete seclusion ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... stirring of a deep clear stream Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the dream, The mystical Usurper of the mind— O'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem Good to the soul which we no more can bind; Strange state of being! (for 't is still to be) Senseless to feel, and with sealed eyes ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... plundered brother—such royal promises being a cheap form of propitiation in Siam—to hold the reins of government only until Chowfa Mongkut should be of years and strength and skill to manage them. But, once firmly seated on the throne, the usurper saw in his patient but proud and astute kinsman only a hindrance and a peril in the path of his own cruder and fiercer aspirations. Hence the forewarning and the flight, the cloister and the yellow robes. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... uncles of Mohammed. The Akil here alluded to is apparently a son of the Khalif Ali, who deserted his father and joined the usurper Muawiyeh, the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... done the army of King Arthur had raised the siege of Sir Lancelot's town and were quickly marching to the sea, there to take their boats across to Britain to punish the usurper and traitor, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... diabolical one, with the theory which supposed an infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit to attend as a matter of course on that position. Some of the boldest of them did not hesitate to declare that the Holy City had suffered a foul invasion, and that a false usurper reigned in her sacred palaces in place of the Father of Christendom. The greater part did as people now do with the mysteries and discrepancies of a faith which on the whole they revere: they turned their attention ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... necessity of taking Colonel Cummins place, which Lady Dolly accepted with admirable spirit; assuring the usurper, with the most engaging candour, that she simply ought never to be seen without turquoises. "Believe it or not as you like, but I love you better every time I see you in that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Democracy went wild—not looking into future years to see what they were going wild about. Jethro Bass Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, in the honored place of Deacon Moses Hatch! Bourbon royalists never looked with greater abhorrence on the Corsican adventurer and usurper of the throne than did the orthodox in Coniston on this tanner, who had earned no right to aspire to any distinction, and who by his wiles had acquired the highest office in the town government. Fletcher Bartlett in, as a leader of the irresponsible ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... who knew how unpopular a general taxation was, fell back on the system of benevolences (see p. 335), excusing his conduct on the plea that the statute of Richard III. abolishing benevolences (see p. 342) was invalid, because Richard himself was a usurper. In gathering the benevolence the Chancellor, Cardinal Morton, who had been helpful to Henry in the days of his exile (see p. 341), invented a new mode of putting pressure on the wealthy, which became ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... nineteenth of August and probably still there when Randolph's letter of the fourteenth of July, much delayed, arrived.[511] If angry before, he was now incensed; for he knew for a certainty at last that Hindman had been a sort of usurper in the Trans-Mississippi District and, with power emanating from no one higher than Beauregard, had never legally possessed a flicker of authority for doing the many insulting things that he had arrogantly done to him.[512] Next, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... no trace or tradition; all is buried under the sand." [Forsyth (J. R. G. S. XLVII. 1877, p. 5) says that he thinks that this Kank is probably the Katak mentioned by Mirza Haidar.—H. C.] In another place the same history says that a boy heir of the house of Chaghatai, to save him from a usurper, was sent away to Sarigh Uighur and Lob-Kank, far in the East. Again, in the short notices of the cities of Turkestan which Mr. Wathen collected at Bombay from pilgrims of those regions on their way to Mecca, we find the following: "Lopp.—Lopp is situated at a great distance ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... to have been in existence seventy years after the imputed massacre?14 Why was the massacre, instead of being limited to the legitimate members of the royal stock, who could show a better title to the crown than the usurper, extended to all, however remotely, or in whatever way, connected with the race? Why were aged women and young maidens involved in the proscription, and why were they subjected to such refined and superfluous tortures, when it is obvious that beings ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... "Take no thought for your body." The dyspeptic thinks of his stomach, and the more he has it in mind the more abnormally sensitive it becomes. The sound man has no knowledge of such an organ, except as a matter of theory. The body, when watched, petted, and idolized, soon assumes the character of a usurper and tyrant. Retribution is sure ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... memories, that yet Break in upon the golden dream I knew, While she—she lived: and I have said adieu To that fair one, and to her sister Peace, That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou cease To feed upon my quiet!—thou Despair! That art the mad usurper, and the heir, Of this heart's heritage! Go, go—return, And bring me back oblivion, and an urn! And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find, The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the wind Count o'er its blighted boughs; for such ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... middle course,[114] but he was continually vacillating from one to the other extreme; always too confident or too dejected; incorrigibly vain of success, yet meanly panegyrizing the government of an usurper. His foresight, sagacity, practical good sense, and singular tact, were lost for want of that strength of mind which points them steadily to one object. He was never decided, never (as has sometimes been observed) took an ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... fallen into the hands of the usurper, he sent his spies in every direction for the purpose of getting possession of Jemshid wherever he might be found, but their labor was not crowned with success. The unfortunate wanderer, after experiencing numberless misfortunes, at length ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... wants. Custom and habit would give them a power which it would not be easy to destroy; and even supposing such a design were entertained, it could not be accomplished. I have heard you say it is wished you should act the part of Monk; but you well know the difference between a general opposing the usurper of a crown, and one whom victory and peace have raised above the ruins of a subverted throne, and who restores it voluntarily to those who have long occupied it. You are well aware what you call ideology will not again be ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... name on the title-page. The moment we learn that Louis Napoleon wrote that Life of Caesar, the mind is intent upon discovering allusions to recent history, which the author has an interest in misrepresenting. The common conscience of mankind condemns him as a perjured usurper, and the murderer of many of his unoffending fellow-citizens. No man, whatever the power and splendor of his position, can rest content under the scorn of mankind, unless his own conscience gives him a clear acquittal, and assures him that one day the verdict of his fellow-men ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it be for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your tongue, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil—with their hands, if need be—until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done,—with time, patience, and industry to aid them ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... hunger, or a loathsome marriage. And what availed it that she was called Morning-Star of Amen, she the only child of Pharaoh and of his royal wife, and that when she was dead they would grant her a state funeral, and inscribe her name among the lists of kings, while Abi, the foul usurper, sat upon her throne. Here on the bed lay what she was, there at the foot of it stood what she should be if the gods had ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... Glad to see you! Has Violet been showing you our little goddess? I tell you what, Cora: everything has changed since that usurper came. This place is no longer 'Violet Banks' It is the Holy Hill. This house is the temple; that nursery is the sanctuary; that cradle is the altar; and that babe is the idol of the community. Now go along with Violet. Oh! she is high priestess to the idol. Go along. I'm going to wash my face ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... slope, and on emerging the yellow is distinctly first; the green not far behind. Where are the others? have they broken their necks? No! there they come, in the rear. They were a little thrown out at the last leap, but two are making ground upon the green usurper; and now they are once more all in full sight and full speed, while the Roman welkin rings to strange sounds! "Guardi il Verde;" "Per me guadagna il Giallo." "I'll take you two to one on the Maid of the Mill." "Done." "Who's riding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... captain though he said little, did not seem inclined, for he was but a young pirate, though an old commander of a merchantman. Those who pushed for boarding, then desired Captain Boreman, already mentioned, to take the command; but he said he would not be a usurper; that nobody was more fit for it than he who had it; that for his part he would stand by his fuzil, and went forward to the forecastle with such as would have him take the command, to be ready to board; on which the captain's quarter-master said, if they were resolved to ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... could give it) over the persons and freedom of posterity for ever was of the same tyrannical unfounded kind which James attempted to set up over the Parliament and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is (for in principle they differ not) that the one was an usurper over living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally null and void, and of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... son of France, take your place on that bed; Philippe, sole king of France, resume the blazonry that is yours! Philippe, sole heir presumptive to Louis XIII., your father, show yourself without pity or mercy for the usurper who, at this moment, has not even to suffer the agony of the remorse of all that you have had ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... security has he for retaining that power, but the sword? His hold upon France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prejudices of the country? He is a stranger, a foreigner, and an usurper; he unites in his own person everything that a pure Republican must detest; everything that an enraged Jacobin has abjured; everything that a sincere and faithful Royalist must feel as an insult. If he ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... the nobles, headed by the Earls of Athol, Buchan, and March, were bitterly jealous of the ascendancy of a low-born usurper—for so they called Scotland's deliverer—and conspired to restore the sovereignty of Edward. Their chance of treachery came when Wallace faced the English host at Falkirk. When the battle was joined, Athol, Buchan, and all the Cummins, crying, "Long live King Edward!" joined ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... Captive Usurper, Hurl'd down | from the throne. Lay buried in torpor, Forgotten and lone; I broke through his slumbers, I shiv |-er'd his chain, I leagued him with numbers— He's Ty |-rant again! With the blood | of a mill |-ion he'll an |-swer my ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... that when Cromwell had repeatedly offered to release the Bishop, he refused to accept of the proffered boon, saying, "that he scorned to receive his liberty from a tyrant and usurper." His life was kindly prolonged by Providence, that as he had seen the destruction, so he might also see the ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... which he was accustomed to refresh himself on these journeys, was gone. Automatically he swept his hand across the under surface of his chair. It was not there. He searched the drawer in which his treasures had been bestowed. Nor there. He glanced at the usurper in his rightful place, and saw that the jaws of Isaac moved rhythmically and placidly. Hot anger seized Patrick. He rose deliberately upon his sturdy legs and slapped the face of that sweet dude so exactly and with such force that ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... reached Derne, Eaton found himself at the head of quite an army. Here he was met by two American ships, and with their help he bombarded the town, and took it by assault, driving the wild Arabs who were defending it back to the mountains. Now Eaton was in a situation to dictate his own terms to the usurper Yusef Bey, since he had brought Hamet Caramelli triumphantly into his own city of Derne, and had driven all enemies before him. He had laid his plans to march on Tripoli, drive off the usurper, and deliver his poor captive countrymen at the edge of the sword, when suddenly his successful career ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... setting themselves up in authority over the home, aye, even alienating the affections of the children, making the home of none effect. Where does the truth lie? Has the home been so negligent of its duty, or has the school forgotten that it is the creature of the home? Which is the usurper? That is an interesting question. We can not go into it in detail, but let me suggest that it has all come about not so much from the unwarranted assumption of the school, nor the conscious and wilful neglect of the home ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... he had got off, as usual, early; but the afternoon light, his pilgrimage drawing to its aim, could still show him, at long range, the rare case of an established usurper. His impulse was then, as by custom, to deviate a little and wait, all the more that the occupant of the bench was a lady, and that ladies, when alone, were—at that austere end of the varied frontal stretch—markedly discontinuous; ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... this isle we drifted with the morn, Of which Alcina keeps a mighty share; By that usurper from a sister torn, Who was her father's universal heir: For that she only was in wedlock born, And for those other two false sisters were (So well-instructed in the story, said One who rehearsed ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... citizen," continued the president, "the pledge of this union, so dear to us, you could not fail to be received with the liveliest emotions. Five years ago, a usurper of the sovereignty of the people would have received you with the pride which belongs to vice, thinking it much to have given to the minister of a free people some token of an insolent protection. But to-day, the sovereign people themselves, by the organ of their faithful representatives, receive ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... look at the presents they had brought, their offended lord turned upon them, reproached them bitterly for their treachery in rebelling against him before the usurper, Lodovico, had even approached their walls. What fate was too terrible for such cowards and traitors? The kneeling citizens trembled and thought their last hour had come, when the captain, Louis d'Ars, pleaded for mercy as a special favour to himself, promising that henceforth they would prove ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare

... part, entered into negotiations with the famous usurper of Mysore, Tippu Sultan, who was the hereditary opponent of the British, and who soon after lost his kingdom and his life before the Mahrattas could decide upon an open espousal of ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... naught was denounced against the usurper; who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island for many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville



Words linked to "Usurper" :   supplanter, claim jumper, wrongdoer, offender, usurp



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