"Vassal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with its three gates and its lofty Corinthian columns, stands outside of the city walls: a structure which has no other use or meaning than the expression of Imperial pride: thus the Roman conquerors adorn and approach their vassal-town. ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... be the outcome of this war what it may, I do not believe the Belgians can ever be molded, either by kindness or by sternness, into a tractable vassal race. German civilization I concede to be a magnificent thing—for a German; but it seems to press on an alien neck as a galling yoke. Belgium under Berlin rule would be, I am sure, Alsace and Lorraine all over again on ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... burned men alive if they offended him, and had no compunction in ordering the guilty to be tarred and blinded. He was of such a temper that the Pope had not the courage to demand from him the homage of a vassal. It was Frederick II, Henry's son, who came into conflict with the Papacy so violently that all his ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by numbers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last; and out of her fall grew revolutions whose influence to this hour is felt through every nation of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... obligations away. Napoleon's code knew nothing of them. Yet private individuals, when they were clever men like Urbain de la Mariniere, were sure by hook or by crook to arrange the vintage at the time that suited their private arrangements. The ancient connection, once of lord and vassal, now of landlord and tenant, between La Mariniere and La Joubardiere, had been hardly at all disturbed by the Revolution. Joubard was not the man to turn against the old friends of his family. Besides, he believed ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... her chains, this fairest one Of all the realms that greatly found Rich largess on the barrens dun Pleads from her fetters, vassal-bound; And still the Star before her swings: What think ye, ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... enterprise, conducting it in person; Morga describes this naval campaign in detail. Ternate is captured by the Spaniards without bombardment, and with little loss to themselves. The fugitive king of the island is persuaded to surrender to the Spaniards and become a vassal of Felipe. Several other petty rulers follow his example and promise not to allow the Dutch to engage in the clove trade. Acuna builds a new fort there, and another in Tidore, leaving Juan de Esquivel as governor of the Moluccas, with a garrison and several vessels far their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... power, the tempest is vassal to the sun and dew. He may spread his sad trophies around in brief, blind rage; but they soon obliterate all traces of his path, and make beautiful what he has scarred with wounds or disfigured by the tramp ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... humble vassal of Bute," he continued, "Kenric by name, and son of your Majesty's loyal subject, the late Earl Hamish, do now come to pay your Majesty dutiful homage for the lands I hold of the Scottish crown; and on your royal hand I swear to maintain fidelity to your Majesty as my ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... of the Cats waited on the branch of the tree until the moon was in the sky like a roast duck on a dish of gold, and still neither retainer, vassal nor subject came to do him service. He was vexed, I tell you, at the want ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... perpetually made and spontaneously executed in his own bosom, the instant flowering of his own soul,—he commands his own obedience, and he obeys his own commanding. Though throned above all nations, a king of kings, yet the faithful humble vassal of his own heart; though he serve, yet regal, doing imperial service; he escapes outward constraint by inward anticipation; and all that could he rightly named as his duty to others, he has, ere demand, already discovered, and engaged in, as part of his duty to himself. Now ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the family would take a piece of the log and throw it on the fire, which was believed to guard the family against lightning. In the Middle Ages, we are told, several fiefs were granted on condition that the vassal should bring in person a Yule log every year for the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... nearer and nearer, till all personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous arcs-en-ciel that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with the subsiding waves that slept like ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... cavaliers to the rescue, and Taric was parted from his prey by the tumult of the fight. The prince sank to the earth, covered with wounds, and exhausted by the loss of blood. A faithful page drew him from under the hoofs of the horses, and, aided by a veteran soldier, an ancient vassal of Ataulpho, conveyed him to a short distance from the field of battle, by the side of a small stream that gushed out from among rocks. They staunched the blood that flowed from his wounds, and washed the dust from ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... conditions; they had fought for relief against oppression; but they had fought for these only as the gaining of a boon and a privilege from powers that were; and everywhere it was conceded that there was upon earth a class of men ordained by Providence to rule, and that the vassal's obedience was the inheritance of the many. And when men rose up in their might to fight upon the plains of Runnymede, in earnest contest, for ancient rights, for ancient privileges, it was after ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,—her pure, steadfast, loving soul, quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... possessions—let it go! 15 Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope Had sent his architect to view the ground, Meaning to build a villa on my vines The next time I compounded with his uncle: I little thought he should outwit me so! 20 Henceforth no witness—not the lamp—shall see That which the vassal threatened to divulge Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward. The deed he saw could not have rated higher Than his most worthless life:—it angers me! 25 Respited me from Hell! So may the Devil ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... existence of the man, both as an individual and as a social being? It is an exact parallel to the feeling of a hereditary king that he is excellent above others by being born a king, or a noble by being born a noble. The relation between husband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that the wife is held to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was. However the vassal's character may have been affected, for better and for worse, by his subordination, who can help seeing that the lord's was ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... Canton, for that he neither received provisions for his garrison, nor any other necessaries, but by permission from the Chinese Government; and as they took care only to furnish him from day to day, he was indeed no other than their vassal, whom they could at all times compel to submit to their own terms, only by laying an embargo ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... ruler of the state of Las Beila, is about fifty years of age, and is a firm ally of England. The Djam is a vassal of the Khan of Kelat, but, like most independent Baluch chiefs, only nominally so. So far as I could glean, the court of Kelat has no influence whatsoever beyond a radius of twenty miles or so from that city. The provinces of Sarawan, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... profligate, careless king, nominally absolute—the heads of great houses paying court to, but in reality governing, that king, whilst revelling with him on the plunder of a nation, and a set of crouching, grovelling vassals (the literal meaning of vassal is a wretch), who, after allowing themselves to be horsewhipped, would take a bone if flung to them, and be grateful; so that in love with mummery, though he knew what Christianity was, no wonder he admired such a church as that of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Boabdil, to show his prowess to the people, marched over the border to attack the city of Lucena. As a result he was himself assailed, his army put to the rout, and himself taken prisoner by the forces of Ferdinand of Aragon. To regain his liberty he acknowledged himself a vassal of the Spanish monarch, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. On his release he made his way to the city of Granada, but his adherents were so violently assailed by those of his father that the streets of the city ran blood, and Boabdil the Unlucky, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Cleves might have two minds in sending to France an envoy. On the one hand, he might be minded to abandon Henry and make submission to the Emperor and to Rome. For, in the end, was not the Duke of Cleves a vassal of the Emperor? It might be that. Or it might be that he was sending merely to ask the King of France to intercede betwixt him and his offended lord. The Emperor was preparing to wage war upon Cleves. That was known. And doubtless Cleves, desiring to retain his friendship with Henry, ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... "Landlord, I think I could eat a morsel of a poor man;" which, with the extreme ugliness of his lordship's countenance, so terrified the landlord, that he fled from the room and tumbled down stairs, supposing the earl, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a vassal, or tenant when ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... and drilling of soldiers; of ships in hundreds collecting at Lisbon; of a crusade preached by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who had bestowed the kingdom of England on the Spaniard, to be enjoyed by him as vassal tributary to Rome; of a million of gold to be paid by the pope, one-half down at once, the other half when London was taken; of Cardinal Allen writing and printing busily in the Netherlands, calling on all good Englishmen to carry out, by rebelling against Elizabeth, the bull of Sixtus the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed Was prowled round by the Injun's cracklin' tread, An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane,— Thou, skilled by Freedom an' by gret events To pitch new States ez Old-World men pitch tents,— Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan Thet only manhood ever makes a man, An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in Aginst the poorest child ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... the assurance in regard to territory, but on the point of sovereignty said he must continue to believe that our coercion of Serbia would result in her becoming our vassal, and that this would upset equilibrium in the Balkans, and so involve Russian interests. Russia recognized our legitimate interest there, but its assertion must be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... One of the stipulations of the Treaty of Barcelona, it will be remembered, had been that the Emperor should restore Emilia—that is to say, the cities and territories of Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera—to the Papacy. Clement regarded Alfonso as a contumacious vassal, although his own right to that province only rested on the force of arms by which Julius II. had detached it from the Duchy of Ferrara. It was therefore somewhat difficult for Charles to accept the duke's hospitality. But when ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... forth thunder Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges! Small things make base men proud; this villain here, Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more Than Bargulus the strong Illyrian pirate.— Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob bee-hives. It is impossible that I should die By such a lowly vassal as thyself. Thy words move rage and not remorse in me. I go of message from the queen to France; I charge thee waft me ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... miller was tenant and vassal to the Sieur de Poissy, he seemed to me to be much more in league with the people of M. de la Tourelle. He was evidently aware, in part, of the life which Lefebvre and the others led; although, again, I do not suppose he knew or imagined one-half ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... indeed, devoid of a certain imaginative wonder at the marvels of the East; not without his moments of ardour and excitement; deeply impressed with the feeling of feudal loyalty, the sense of the bond between the suzerain and his vassal; deeply conscious of the need of discipline in great adventures; keeping in general a cool head, which could calculate the sum ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... your pow'r; and though I trust not To ev'ry breath of fame, I'm not to learn That Hastings is profess'd your loving vassal. But fair befall your beauty: use it wisely, And it may stand your fortunes much in stead, Give back your forfeit land with large increase, And place you high in safety and in honour. Nay, I could point a way, the which pursuing, You shall ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... subject for the present, when I have told one story.[19] "There was a great king in Scythia, whose dominions were bounded to the north, by the poor, mountainous territories of a petty lord, who paid homage as the king's vassal. The Scythian prime minister being largely bribed, indirectly obtained his master's consent to suffer this lord to build forts, and provide himself with arms, under pretence of preventing the inroads of the Tartars. This little depending ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... first established in England, there was no distinction of freehold and copyhold; the latter, according to Blackstone, was a possession acquired by a vassal subsequent to the Norman feudal system. Copyholders being thus considered as slaves, were, notwithstanding their possessions, deemed unworthy of the franchise; and from this refinement, on the arbitrary principles of the Normans, every copyholder was deprived ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... and Poverty Pass heedless and unheeded by, For Courtesy and Pity died With Hassan on the mountain side. His roof, that refuge unto men, Is Desolation's hungry den. The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour, 350 Since his turban was cleft by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... bounded o'er the plain, And raised the heart-inspiring song (Loud echoed by the warlike throng) Of Roland and of Charlemagne, Of Oliver, brave peer of old, Untaught to fly, unknown to yield, And many a Knight and Vassal bold, Whose hallowed blood, in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... one tale, Xenophon another. The first, at least, had ample means of information. Astyages is the old shah of the Median Empire, then at the height of its seeming might and splendour and effeminacy. He has married his daughter, the princess Mandane, to Cambyses, seemingly a vassal-king or prince of the pure Persian blood. One night the old man is troubled with a dream. He sees a vine spring from his daughter, which overshadows all Asia. He sends for the Magi to interpret; and they tell him that Mandane will ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... life on one condition only,' said the victor, 'and that is that you shall swear fealty on my sword to king Ermyn, and acknowledge yourself to be his vassal.' ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... A vassal bound in peace and war To Richard I. was Vidomar,— A noble as proud and needy As ever before that monarch bowed, But not so needy and not so proud As the monarch himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... without the participation of the bourgeoisie in the government. In this way, the natural bloc of Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki was created, which gave simultaneous expression to the political lukewarmness of the middle-class intellectuals and its relation of vassal ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... he was usually away fighting elsewhere, but his widow Theresa refused to acknowledge her sister Urraca, now queen of Castile, Leon and Galicia, as her superior, called herself Infanta and behaved as if she was no one's vassal. Fortunately for her and her aims, Urraca was far too busy fighting with her second husband, the king of Aragon, to pay much attention to what was happening in the west, so that she had time to consolidate her power and to accustom her people to think of themselves ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... that had originally no connection at all with those on which the romances of the Heroic Age were built. The whole government of the country is essentially different in the two cycles; in the Etain cycle the idea is that of a land practically governed by one king, the vassal kings being of quite small importance; in the tales of the Heroic Age proper, the picture we get is of two, if not of four, practically independent kingdoms, the allusions to any over-king being very few, and in great part late. But when the stories of Etain and of Conary ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... to dash himself against Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever of England.[2341]—This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and on vassal[2342] countries the same uniform arrangements, his own administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub-divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that foaming Strength Whose rebel forces wrestle still Thro' all his boundaried breadth and length Become a vassal to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he replied in the tone of daily intercourse. "It is undoubtedly absurd to perish here, like some unreasonable adversary of the Borgias. Your device is rather outrageously horrific, Horace, like a bit out of your own romance—yes, egad, it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of The Vassal of Spalatro. Still I can understand that it is preferable to having fat and greasy fellows squander a shilling for the privilege of perching upon a box while I am being hanged. And I think I shall accept ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Duke Naimes arose: his beard and hair As white as drifted snow. In all the court No better vassal stood; and to the King: "Have you marked well the words Count Ganelon In answer spoke but now? His plan is wise; Follow it then. This King Marsile in war Is overcome, his strongholds all pulled down; By warlike engines are his walls destroyed, His cities burned, his men ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... little aid would go far. The last dealings in rice notes were not favourable. Besides, account is soon to be rendered to Tamiya Dono. But though wicked of temper and ugly, O'Mino San is rich. Even for the demon in time a good match will be found. She will be the wife of an honoured kenin (vassal), and the husband will buy geisha and joro[u] with the money. Such is the expectation of Tamiya Dono. Don't allow any trifling there. Remember that she is the daughter of a go-kenin. They talk of Densuke in the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... too submissively low, and therefore was not permitted, but in exchange he was most cordially embraced. He offered his presents; they were not received, because they were too excessive: he yielded himself voluntarily a servant and vassal, and was content his whole posterity should be liable to the same bondage; this was not accepted of, because it seemed not equitable: he surrendered, by virtue of the decree of his great parliamentary council, his whole countries and kingdoms to him, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... this man, taking his stand at the hearth, as a king might take his stand in the hall of his vassal, "and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... second nature, but it is the Gurth, the thrall of the first,—the vassal of inherent impulses; and even the most ossified natures contain some soft palpitating spot that will throb against the hand that is sufficiently dexterous to find it. In every man and woman there lurks a vein of sentiment, which, no matter how heavily crushed by the super-incumbent mass of utilitarian, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... hereditary possessions. The vitaxoe, or eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper Asia, [31] within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under other names, a lively image of the feudal system [32] which has since prevailed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... not yield Jeroboam a very willing obedience. We may trace the march of Sheshonk by Megiddo, Taanach, and Shunem, to Beth-shan, and thence across the Jordan to Mahanaim and Aroer; after which, having satisfied his vassal, Jeroboam, he proceeded to make war on his own account with the Arab tribes adjoining on Trans-Jordanic Israel, and subdued the Temanites, the Edomites, and various tribes of the Hagarenes. His dominion was thus established from the borders of ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... The Cornish king. In either hand he bore What dazzled all, and shone far-off as shines A field of charlock in the sudden sun Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt, Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king, Was even upon his way to Camelot; For having heard that Arthur of his grace Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, knight, And, for himself was of the greater state, Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord Would yield him this large honour all ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... winked at and excused, to be two accursed hells yawning for the young and innocent and unsuspicious as well as for the wicked and evil-minded. Ungrateful country, here wuz one of thy sons who sung the praises of thy institutions under every sky! Ungrateful indeed, to pierce thy most devoted vassal with this sharp thorn, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... spirit were made by the mother of Boabdil, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, with the concurrence of the party which still remained faithful to him. It was thereby proposed that Mahomet Abdallah, otherwise called Boabdil, should hold his crown as vassal to the Castilian sovereigns, paying an annual tribute and releasing seventy Christian captives annually for five years; that he should, moreover, pay a large sum upon the spot for his ransom, and at the same ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... a proud day for the viceroy when the Turkish ships sailed into the harbor of Alexandria. This defection of the fleet so discouraged Abdul Medjid that he offered his vassal terms of peace, by which he consented to Mehemet's hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha's hereditary possession of the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... counsels are far harder to follow than that very love which thou desirest to flee? Hast thou reflected on the dire and unendurable torments which compliance with them will entail on thee? O most insensate one! dost thou then, who only a few hours ago wert my willing vassal, now wish to break away from my gentle rule, because, forsooth, of the words of an old woman, who is no longer vassal of mine, as if, like her, thou art now unwitting of what delights I am the source? O most witless ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... on him kindly, as on a vassal true; Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due, "O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside The liege lord of Castile himself, ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... dumb friend, low lying there, A willing vassal at my feet, Glad partner of my home and fare, My shadow in ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride! Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shap'd and vermeil dyed? Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest After so many hours of toil and quest, A famish'd pilgrim,—saved by miracle. Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest 340 Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the very ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however, had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed, through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas' if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish Council, that the troops who ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... whereon the knight had ridden. He forgat not his courtesy, but gave it into the hand of the maiden, and drew forth his good sword. Therewith was the knight come to himself, and had taken his sword, and stood up as best he might. Evil was his thought, and he cried: "Vassal, how were ye so bold as to do me this hurt and this shame? My father is lord of this land, and after him shall it be mine. Think not to escape, 'tis folly that which ye do. Even to day shall ye be repaid by those who follow me, and chastised in ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... kinds of furniture; and the dishes they might have for dinner and supper respectively were definitely and rigidly prescribed. The wages of the laborer were fixed by law to the great advantage of the lordly employer: this, however, was a very natural sequence to the abolition of villanage or vassal servitude. The law made service at particular trades compulsory; and decided where certain kinds of manufacturing should be carried on; and how an article should be made, and how sold when made. This interference affected every ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the wrong was to be wrought. As soon as they were all seated, the Emperor spoke and told them afresh what the messengers had said. 'But Marsile makes one condition,' continued Charles, 'which is that I must return to France, where he will come to me as my vassal. Now, does he swear falsely, or can I trust his oath?' 'Let us be very careful how we answer him,' cried the ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... here, precisely here," advancing and placing his finger upon the clasp, "the poor mechanic will be most happy once more to give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewell till then, illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal's stroke." ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... region, conquered any territory; it had only supported successfully a claimant to the native throne. The native government, in theory, continued as before; the company, in theory, was its subject and vassal. But in practice these great and rich provinces lay at its mercy, and if it did not yet choose to undertake their government, this was only because it preferred to devote itself to its original ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... aggression, and would doubtless have been glad to scare away these undesired strangers. Owing to this, a collision between the two forces occurred; but so crushing was the defeat of the Indians that they resigned themselves submissively to the Spaniards, and henceforth became a vassal tribe, lending assistance to their white masters in ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... and imperial River, flushed with the tribute of these vassal streams! thou art thyself a tributary, and hastenest even in the pride of conquest to confess thine own vassalage! But no superior stream exults in the homage of thy servile waters; the Ocean, the eternal Ocean, alone comes forward ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... to Anywhere, when each day had its story; When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale; When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory, Along the road to Anywhere we watched the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... ambrosia, so immerse My fine existence in a golden clime. She took me like a child of suckling-time, And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd, The current of my former life was stemm'd, And to this arbitrary queen of sense I bow'd a tranced vassal."—KEATS, Endymion. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Edward VI. lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them worthily. More than once, when some great dignitary, some gilded vassal of the crown, made argument against his leniency, and urged that some law which he was bent upon amending was gentle enough for its purpose, and wrought no suffering or oppression which any one need mightily mind, the young King turned the mournful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... so spoke to her, and rose from her chair, looking at him with a haughtiness and indignation that he had never before known her to display. She was quite an altered being for that moment; and looked an angry princess insulted by a vassal. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a long experience with foreigners, saddening and enriching, and cynicism is the outgrowth of such experience. China has suffered at the hands of the great powers, has suffered at the hands of England, Russia, France, and Germany alike. She is virtually in the position of a vassal state, not to any one of these nations but to all of them, and they have pillaged and despoiled her for a century and a half. To one of them she owes the curse of opium, which was forced upon her for commercial reasons—a curse which she is about ready to throw off. She is weak and corrupt, but ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... an offer to Cayero, if he would receive himself, his family, and treasures, into the four ships which he commanded; that he would give half the treasure to the king of Portugal, to whom he would become vassal, paying such tribute as might be agreed on, being satisfied that he could recover his kingdom with the assistance of 2000 Portuguese troops, whom he proposed to take into his pay. Cayero consulted with his principal officers on this proposition, and asked Seixas, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... for which he was responsible in the sight of God, and never to have any other wife, any other child than the happiness and fortune of his brother. Therefore, he attached himself more closely than ever to the clerical profession. His merits, his learning, his quality of immediate vassal of the Bishop of Paris, threw the doors of the church wide open to him. At the age of twenty, by special dispensation of the Holy See, he was a priest, and served as the youngest of the chaplains of Notre-Dame the altar ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... mirrors, all this combined, which the eye conveys to the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every step a new language falls upon it, and every tongue with different intonation, for the high and the low, the prince, peer, vassal, and tradesman, the proud beauty, the decrepit crone, some fresh budding into the world, some standing near the grave, the gentle and the stern, the sombre and the gay, in short, every possible antithesis that the eye, ear, heart can perceive, hear, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... comfort is there in all things; for the good priest who had often administered consolation to his unhappy mistress over her brother's tomb, and who knelt by the side of her dying couch, assured many a sorrowful vassal, and many a sympathising pilgrim who loved to listen to the mournful tale, that her death was indeed a beatitude; for he did not doubt, from the distracted expressions that occasionally caught his ear, that the Holy Spirit, in that material form he ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... Jerusalem captured, and the poor creature on the throne bound in chains to be carried to Babylon, but, as would appear, discovered by Nebuchadnezzar to be pliable enough to make it safe to leave him behind, as his vassal. His capture took place but a few months after the incident with which I am dealing now. It would appear probable that the confusion and alarm of the Babylonian assault on Egypt had led to a solemn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... should be the conclusion of the argument I have just addressed to you? It is not. It is in fact the inevitable logic of what I have said. Austria-Hungary is for the time being not her own mistress but simply the vassal ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... military service was rendered in return. The lord lived in his castle, and the peasantry worked his land and supported him, fighting his battles if the need arose. This condition of society was known as feudalism, and the feudal relations of lord and vassal came to be the prevailing governmental organization of the period. Feudalism was at best an organized anarchy, suited to rude and barbarous times, but so well was it adapted to existing conditions that it became the prevailing form of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... which may operate with the legislature, which either prevents it from speaking or addresses itself to its wisdom, to induce delay, its assent is to be implied. This iron rule is to give way to no circumstances; it is unbending and inflexible. It is the language of the master to the vassal; an unconditional answer is claimed forthwith, and delay, postponement, or incapacity to answer produces an implied assent which is ever after irrevocable. Many of the State elections have already taken place without any knowledge on the part of the people that such a question was ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... Thrandheim, where Harald dwelt, and said he: 'Here is a sword which the King of England sendeth thee, bidding thee take it withal.' So the king took the grip of it. Then said the messenger: 'Thou hast taken the sword even as our king wished, and thou art therefore his sword taker and vassal.' ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... their own possessions, and kept high courts of judicature over life and limb in the whole extent of their hereditary fiefs. In the long English wars, from Crecy to Agincourt, the great body of them disappeared, and only here and there a great vassal was to be seen, distinguished in nothing from the other nobles, except in the loftiness of his titles and the reverence that still clung to the sound of his historic name. The second aristocracy arose among the descendants of the survivors of the English and Italian ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... beasts robbed of their prey. But he did not care enough about a single half- crazy Jewish peasant to imperil his standing well with his awkward subjects, for the sake of righteousness. The one good which Rome could give to its vassal nations was inflexible justice and a sovereign law; but in Pilate's action there was not even the pretence of legality. Tricks and expedients run through it all, and never once does he say, This is the law, this is justice, and by it I stand ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Burgos, April 10, 1524, and addressed to the licentiates Acuna, Pedro Manuel, and Hernando de Barrientos, states that the King of Portugal has requested the removal of "one of our deputies, the astrologer Simon de Alcazaba, as he was formerly a vassal and is a native of that kingdom (Portugal)," as he is suspicious of him; and that another be appointed in his stead. Accordingly Carlos appoints one master Alcarez, although declaring that Alcazaba entered his service with the knowledge and consent of the Portuguese monarch. This change ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... younger, brisker, cleverer man than Blaise, and besides being a vassal of the young Lady, was a sort of agent to whom the Abbess instructed many of the matters of husbandry regarding the convent lands. He stood, like Blaise, bareheaded as he talked to little Lady, and heard her somewhat peremptorily demand why they had not brought the horses ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at Holland—-Russia, Sweden, and Prussia would hunt her to the death; look at Austria—her two-headed eagle seizes Venice and Milan, as an indemnification for the loss of Spain; cast your eyes on France—no longer France, but Philip the Fifth's vassal; look, finally, at Louis the Fifteenth, the last descendant of the greatest monarch that ever gave light to the world, and the child whom by watchfulness and care we have saved from the fate of his father, his mother, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... to disclaim. And, as one mode of effecting this, it was proposed that the king should become an emperor. Some, indeed, alleged that an emperor, but its very idea, as received in the Chancery of Europe, presupposes a king paramount over vassal or tributary kings. But it is a sufficient answer to say that an emperor is a prince, united in his own person the thrones of several distinct kingdoms; and in effect we adopt that view of the case in giving the title ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in the ducal chair, his right to which is still disputed. At the end of it, if he is not yet the Conqueror and the Great, he has shown all the gifts that were needed to win him either name. He is the greatest vassal of the French crown, a vassal more powerful than the overlord whose invasions of his duchy he ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Friends, and a young Lady, to whom he said Abundance of fine Things, with no other Design but the innocent Pleasure of saying them. Their Conversation turn'd on a War that the King had happily put an End to, between him and his Vassal, the Prince of Hyrcania. Zadig having signaliz'd himself in that short War, commended his Majesty very highly, but was more lavish of his Compliments on the Lady. He took out his Pocket Book, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... story," said he: "say that Gunther is the king, and that I am his faithful vassal. The success of our undertaking depends on this." And his three comrades promised to do as ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... without now being intimidated by the religious atmosphere. They sat with the look of lords, surrounding their master, while in the opposite gallery walked Silver Stick like a black phantom, reading his book of hours, and casting now and then an uneasy glance on the group. Even his ancient vassal, the chaplain of the nuns, had dared to leave him to ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Dankwart Siegfried begged them to let him be spokesman to the Queen, for he knew her wayward moods. 'And King Gunther shall be my King,' said the Prince, 'and I but his vassal ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... times a haramoto called Fuji-eda Geki, a vassal of the Shogun. He had an income of five thousand koku of rice—a great income in those days. But he fell in love with an inmate of the Yoshiwara, named Ayaginu, and wished to marry her. When his master bade ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... abrupt: 'Farewell to thee, Pattern of old fidelity!' The Minstrel's hand he kindly pressed,— 'O, could I point a place of rest! My sovereign holds in ward my land, My uncle leads my vassal band; To tame his foes, his friends to aid, Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade. Yet, if there be one faithful Graeme Who loves the chieftain of his name, Not long shall honored Douglas dwell Like hunted stag in mountain cell; Nor, ere yon pride-swollen robber dare,— I may not give the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... little doll in the whole city, and that is not saying a little, but the most elegant, charming—a perfect sylph! It was now about eleven months since I had first become acquainted with the bewitching creature; and, from the very first day, I had been her vassal, her slave, bound by chains as adamantine as those of Armida. She had just left the French boarding-school at St John's. That, by the by, is one of the means by which our mushroom aristocracy pushes itself upwards. A couple of pretty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to repeat the sentiments which I expressed in the verbal instructions which I gave you at your departure, that there can be no medium in the relation between the Resident and the minister, but either the Resident must be the slave and vassal of the minister, or the minister at the absolute disposal of the Resident." And he, the said Hastings, did state, in the same article of the instructions aforesaid, that, though the conduct of the said Hyder Beg Khan had ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... may a' rin masterless, My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, My lord may grip my vassal lands, For there ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... with this most humble petition, that you will deign to permit me to throw my unworthy self before the throne of your mercy, there to receive the sentence of my life or death; a happiness, though incomparably too great for so mean a vassal, yet with that reverence and awe I shall receive it, as I would the sentence of the gods, and which I will no more resist than I would the thunderbolts of Jove, or the revenge of angry Juno: for, madam, my immense passion knows no medium between life ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the first to proclaim that Christ was God, and who left all for His sake? Or the early Christians who, with one accord, sold their possessions, and gave the price to the poor?" Claude had before this displeased the knight, who now grew red with anger at the insolence of his vassal in thus answering him, and replied: "If they were not preachers for gain, they were at least stupid fellows." Hereupon a great murmur arose in the hall, but the aforesaid Zastrow is not silenced, and answered: "It is surprising, then, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... foot. To southward the meadow rose, rolling away to the distant hills, whither the German host was already gone. The great lords, with their men-at-arms and squires, riding each in the midst of his vassal knights, went out thither to see such a sight as none had seen before, and ranged themselves by ranks around the field, so that there was room for all. And thither Gilbert went also with his man Dunstan, in the King's train, for ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... insists on its abandonment by England, as an article of the treaty of Amiens; but the answer of England is perfectly intelligible,—You have not adhered to that treaty in any instance whatever, but have gone on annexing Italian provinces to France. You have just now made a vassal of Switzerland, and to all our remonstrances on the subject you have answered with utter scorn. While you violate your stipulations, how can you expect that we shall perform ours? But another obstruction to the surrender of Malta has been produced by the conduct of France herself. She has seized ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... cities and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the treasures piled up ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... beware! of the Black Friar, He still retains his sway, For he is yet the Church's heir, Whoever may be the lay. Amundeville is Lord by day, But the monk is Lord by night; Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal To question that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... of mine memorial fair on Hrones Headland high uplifted, that ocean-wanderers oft may hail Beowulf's Barrow, as back from far they drive their keels o'er the darkling wave." From his neck he unclasped the collar of gold, valorous king, to his vassal gave it with bright-gold helmet, breastplate, and ring, to the youthful thane: bade him use them in joy. "Thou art end and remnant of all our race the Waegmunding name. For Wyrd hath swept them, all my line, to the land of doom, earls ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... before setting out for London, to announce to the king the day fixed for the espousal, and to beg from the monarch the fulfilment of the promise he had made, to be present in person with his court, at the wedding of his gallant and faithful vassal. The knight was therefore forced to depart ere the gloom advanced; for though his journey lay in a friendly and peaceful country, it was not the habit in those days to be abroad much after dusk, without an ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... been declared that Germany intends to claim a fourth of France, making this dismembered country a vassal State, bound to the triumphal car of the conqueror by the very heaviest chains. It is incredible, but true, that such a statement has been made in the press by a Frenchman, formerly President of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various |
