"Primogeniture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Edinburgh in 1783, in connexion with the sale of the family heritage, he knew so little English that he had to be initiated a Freemason in Latin. To this day there is a family in Warsaw which, ignoring our principle of primogeniture, calls itself ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... their colonization at maturity, and their replacement in Virginia by white immigrants.[15] But a knowledge that such a project would raise a storm caused even its framers to lay it aside. The abolition of primogeniture and the severance of church from state absorbed reformers' energies at the expense ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... institutions. This means that they had the right to choose their own portion of land, subject, of course, to the will of the existing community, and to utilize it according to their own needs and interests. This meant that no undemocratic and feudalistic practices, such as primogeniture and entail, could exist. Granted that this is self-determination rather broadly interpreted in an economic context, the question is whether or not these people had the right to choose their own plot of ground and work it as they saw fit, unhampered ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... pities," agreed Derrick; "but there you are! It's our system of primogeniture, eldest ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... nation: He was not a vassal of the Empire, and, as Philip of Leyden observes, he was Emperor in his County. He was not so absolute as a Monarch, and though the Dutch in chusing their Counts generally followed the order of primogeniture, they never set up a Prince without first requiring of him an oath, to conform to the laws: so that he reigned rather by the consent of the people, than by right of succession. The power of the Counts was limited ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... royal presence—reckon off the petty discount for privileges so purely ceremonial, and absolute nothing remains to distinguish the nobility. For as to the practice of entails, the legal benefit of primogeniture, &c., these have no more essential connexion with the nobility, than the possession of land or manorial rights. They are privileges attached to a known situation, which is open equally to every ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... and etiquette, which even the European monarchs had of late found it necessary in a great measure to discard, he dispatched these ministers to Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chili without exacting from those Republics, as by the ancient principles of political primogeniture he might have done, that the compliment of a plenipotentiary mission should have been paid first by them to the United States. The instructions, prepared under his direction, to Mr. Anderson, the first of our ministers to the southern continent, contain at much length ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... to Adam and his male descendants. In all this chapter the begetting of the oldest son is made prominent, his name only is given, and the begetting of more "sons and daughters" is cursorily mentioned. Here is the first suggestion of the law of primogeniture responsible for so many of the evils that perplexed our ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... evidence might have been woven into our argument. As, for example, the significant fact, that if we trace back our still existing law of primogeniture—if we consider it as displayed by Scottish clans, in which not only ownership but government devolved from the beginning on the eldest son of the eldest—if we look further back, and observe that the old titles of lordship, Signor, Seigneur, Sennor, Sire, Sieur, all originally ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... have known intimately and I know intimately just such people as these, Irish peasants, some of whom spoiled their children, thinking the boy they loved must not be "crossed," and some of whom preferred one child to another even to the extent of reversing the custom of primogeniture that is as fixed a rule among them as if their property was entailed, and so I can vouch for the absolute fidelity of Mr. Murray's art. It is a realism little relieved by humor; unrelieved either ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... secure the royal acceptance of these resolutions by some previous votes which asserted that, of those laws which were the very foundation of the Constitution, the first was that which assured the "crown to the reigning house and to its descendants in the male line, in the order of primogeniture.[13]" ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... arbitrarily trampled under foot on a pretence of consulting for the service of religion; on the next day, with the same unprincipled levity, another party might have trampled on the patrimonial rights of hereditary descent, on primogeniture, or any institution whatever, opposed to the democratic fanaticism of our age. No patron can now thrust an incompetent or a vicious person upon the religious ministrations of the land. It must be through their own defect of energy, if any parish is henceforth burdened with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... exhumation. I entreat him likewise to forward my certificate of baptism, the seal with the armorial bearings of my family, and a legal certificate of my birth to the French ambassador in Venice, who will send the whole to the duke, my father, my rights of primogeniture belonging, after my demise, to the prince, my brother. In faith of which I have signed and sealed these presents: Francois VI. Charles Philippe Louis Foucaud, Prince ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... or two. "Well, according to our laws of primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title," ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... began to moralize about the corrupt morals of the Italian race, and went on to speak of tyranny, priestcraft, slavery, aristocracy, monarchy, primogeniture, brigandage, and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... sovereign had died out through distance and neglect, and the influence of the aristocracy and the church was altogether unknown. Even in Virginia, where, in consequence of the existence of domestic slavery on a large scale, and the laws of primogeniture and entail, a certain aristocratical feeling had sprung up, a jealousy of the British crown and parliament showed itself from first to last, at least as strongly as elsewhere; and the ink of the Declaration of Independence was scarcely ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Church and State are severed, primogeniture will follow; then he will get a slice of the estate of the pater," ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... services." Property qualifications and other restrictions on officeholding and the exercise of the suffrage were lessened. Four States declared in their constitutions against the entailment of estates, and primogeniture was abolished in aristocratic Virginia. There was a fairly complete abolition of all vestiges of feudal tenure in the holding of land, so that it may be said that in this period full ownership of property was established. ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... to cultivate the richer soils, in bringing about the division of land and the union of man is then shown, and illustrated by examples drawn from the history of the principal nations of the world, ancient and modern; and here the European system of primogeniture is examined, with a view to show that it is purely artificial, and tends to disappear with the growth of wealth and population. This leads to the discussion of the relations of man to his fellow-men, which are shown to tend to the establishment of equality ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... fire side and ours was the cool; He got the ease of our ancestors' acres, We had to haggle with butchers and bakers, We had their bills to pay—his all the money; Ours was but gall to drink—his tipple honey; He was the "Purbeck" and we were the "Lias." So we against Primogeniture's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... be sure, Pope had only five acres to experiment with, and that parklike scenery which distinguishes the English landscape garden requires a good deal of room. The art is the natural growth of a country where primogeniture has kept large estates in the hands of the nobility and landed gentry, and in which a passion for sport has kept the nobility and gentry in the country a great share of the year. Even Shenstone—whose place is commended by Mason—Shenstone at the Leasowes, with his three ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... longer than it, and the liver longer than that; they will endure a siege; but an unnatural heat, a rebellious heat, will blow up the heart, like a mine, in a minute. But howsoever, since the heart hath the birthright and primogeniture, and that it is nature's eldest son in us, the part which is first born to life in man, and that the other parts, as younger brethren, and servants in his family, have a dependance upon it, it is reason that the ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... jutting brick in the arched entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and never more than a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once the children of a man employed about the place oologized the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated, all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence concerning the wonderful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... two great elements in the nation's institutions, to sustain in its pride and efficiency this peculiar advantage, to wit, the entailment of estates, and the right of primogeniture. Those landed estates soon began to be subdivided, and in proportion as they dwindled into insignificance, so began to perish the prestige of their proprietors. The institution of African slavery served for a long time to aid in continuing the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... near; anecdote not lightly to be printed in human types, nor repeated where not necessary. The Mother is now dead; Father still up to the eyes in puddle and trouble: but as for the young Lady herself, she is Niece to the now Czarina Anne; by law of primogeniture Heiress of all the Russias; something of a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... across to Abbotstoke and dine at the Grange; and Tom, who, reasoning from analogy, had sent on his black tie and agate studs, was so dismally disconcerted on finding that Norman treated his own going as a matter of course, that Richard, whose chief use of his right of primogeniture was to set himself aside, discovered that he was wanted at home, and that Tom would be much better at the Grange, offering, at the same time, to send Norman's dressing things ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... But when our young Sultan is born from the sister of the Sultan, then we know he is of the same blood as the Sultan." There is besides another anomaly of the social system in the town of Ghat. Women here are the hereditary possessors and not men. The law of primogeniture is on the female side. The greater part of the houses of the town of Ghat, although the population is chiefly Moorish, belong to women, bequeathed to them or given them on the day of their marriage by friends or relatives. These two cases of anomaly are ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... His first public measure was the appropriation of a million francs to indemnify the French Royalists, whose lands had been confiscated during the French Revolution. Next came the proposal of a law on sacrilege, and one for primogeniture. Both bills were strenuously opposed by the Liberals. Broglie exclaimed: "What you are now preparing is a social and political revolution, a revolution against the revolution which changed France nearly forty years ago." Old Lafayette was glad to ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... to do with yourself to-day? If you be disengaged, I vote we dine together at White's, and then we will go down to the House. I will take you to the smoking-room and introduce you to Bright, and we will trot him out on primogeniture." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... worthy old Sir John, and he was forced to take to his bed, where he lay sadly meditating on his children's future, and wondering how to divide his possessions justly among the three. There was no difficulty of inheritance or primogeniture, for all the knight's lands were held in fee-simple, and not in entail, so that he might bequeath them as he would. Sir John of the Marches, fearing lest he should commit an injustice, sent throughout the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... portion of land, of which he can always point out the exact boundaries. These properties are subdivided by a father among his sons during his own lifetime, and descend in almost hereditary succession. A man can dispose of or barter his land to others; but a female never inherits, nor has primogeniture among the sons any peculiar rights or advantages. Tribes can only come into each other's districts by permission, or invitation, in which case, strangers or visitors are always well treated. The following extract from Captain Grey's work gives the result of that gentlemen's ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... nobles—and of real grandees of Spain there were but forty-nine, although the number of titled families was much larger—owned all the country, except that vast portion of it which had reposed for ages in the dead-hand of the Church. The law of primogeniture, strictly enforced, tended with every generation to narrow the basis of society. Nearly every great estate was an entail, passing from eldest son to eldest son, until these were exhausted, in which case a daughter transferred the family possessions to a new ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... majority of the people, where universal suffrage exists, will submit long to a state of toil and mendicity. The majority would soon learn to exercise its political rights, and command its representatives to carry the laws abolishing primogeniture and entails one step further, and stop all devises of land and prohibit it from being an article of sale. (In a foot-note of the editorial:) We actually heard these and several such propositions discussed by a number ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... you may imagine, perhaps. My fortune does not come under the law of primogeniture. There is no fidei commissum. I can dispose of it as ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... criticism. In the realm of contemporary English prose he has left no adequate successor; [Footnote: The nearest being the now foremost prose writers of our time, Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Froude.] the throne that does not pass by primogeniture is vacant, and the bleak northern skies seem colder and grayer since that venerable head was laid to rest by the village churchyard, far from the smoke and din of the great city on whose streets his figure was long familiar and his name was at last ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... budget and an administration friendly to sound regulations and actual services, obtained for M. de Villele the esteem of enlightened men and the general approbation of all public functionaries. The bill on the system of inheritance and the right of primogeniture afforded hope to those who were prepossessed with aristocratic regrets. The bill on sacrilege fostered the passions of the fanatics, and the views of their theorists. Parallel with the spirit of reaction which predominated in these legislative deliberations, as in the enactments ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... body he inaugurated the measures relating to a thorough revision of the old statutes, and supported the bills introduced by the revisors, Jefferson, Wyth, and Pendleton, on the subject of entails, primogeniture (exclusive heirship belonging to the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... and to vest the crown in a member of some house other than the Hanoverian, there is, of course, no occasion for such an act, and the throne may be expected to continue to pass from one member of the present royal family to another in strict accordance with the principles of heredity and primogeniture. The rules of descent are essentially identical with those governing the inheritance of real property at common law.[61] Regularly, the sovereign's eldest son, the Prince of Wales,[62] inherits. If he be not alive, the inheritance passes to ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... important Discovery; Jennie Collins; Greek Philosophy; Symposiums; Literature of the Past; The Concord School; New Books; Solar Biology; Dr. Franz Hartmann; Progress of Chemistry; Astronomy; Geology Illustrated; A Mathematical Prodigy; Astrology in England; Primogeniture Abolished; Medical Intolerance and Cunning; Negro Turning White; The Cure of Hydrophobia; John Swinton's Paper; Women's Rights and Progress; Spirit writing; Progress of the Marvellous Chapter VII.—Practical Utility of Anthropology (Concluded) Chapter VIII.—The Origin and Foundation ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... brothers, the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the rights of primogeniture and king's bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac foetus in foetu and aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in consequence ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of private property, but the law does not treat it as such. The right of bequest, or of gift at death, is limited in various ways in different countries. In countries where hereditary aristocracies exist, primogeniture is in some cases required by law, in others so strongly favored by public opinion that it is practically always followed. Custom limits bequests in England to members of the family, and wills given outside the family are rare, and are almost always broken in the courts. John ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... him clearly the outflow of a vital class-consciousness. For instance, he would have restored the trade corporations to their medieval status; inhibited the free disposal of farming land, and governed the German aristocracy under the English law of primogeniture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... while that of a mind sophisticated and fanatical, would have great pathos and keenness. To reach sublimity, however, that moment would have to epitomise ideals which we deeply respected. We should have to believe in the sanctity of canon law and in the divine right of primogeniture. That a woman may have been very unhappy or that a state may have been held together by personal allegiance does not raise the fate of either to the tragic plane, unless "laws that are not of to-day nor yesterday," aspirations native to the heart, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not to a few, but to all. But before 1783 you had founded, under the name of an English Colony, a community emancipated from feudalism; you had abolished here and doomed to general abolition hereditary aristocracy, and that which is the essential basis of hereditary aristocracy, primogeniture in the inheritance of land. You had established, though under the semblance of dependence on the English crown, a virtual sovereignty of the people. You had created the system of common schools, in which the sovereignty of the people has its only safe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... sharing landed property among all the sons tended to prevent the growth of Welsh unity. Socially it appears far more just and reasonable than the custom of primogeniture. It is with the growth of feudalism (already apparent in the Welsh laws of the tenth century) that its political dangers become evident. The essence of feudalism is the confusion of political power and landed property; the ruler is lord of the land, the landlord is the ruler. If landed property ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... valid unless there were two witnesses. If a man dies intestate, his personal property generally goes according to the statute of distributions; but there are local customs which modify that statute. Now which of all these systems is conformed to the eternal standard of right? Is it primogeniture, or gavelkind, or borough English? Are wills jure divino? Are the two witnesses jure divino? Might not the pars rationabilis of our old law have a fair claim to be regarded as of celestial institution? Was the statute of distributions enacted in Heaven long before it was ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the kind, which arise naturally out of the deeply-seated desire which men have to preserve property—especially landed estates—in their own families, are of ancient date; but the system as understood now, involving the principle of primogeniture, owes its origin to the feudal system. Sometimes the succession was limited to the male issue, but this was by no means an invariable practice; in modern times the system has been, by a succession of Acts of Parliaments (notably the Cairns Act of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his conduct was natural enough, although it was too precipitate, because he would legitimately succeed his father in due course, as his eldest surviving son. But this was not so. The law of primogeniture was not law for Israel. The invisible King expressly reserved to Himself the right of appointing the ruler of His people, as is evident from Deut. xvii. 14 and 15. The government was theocratic, not monarchical nor democratic. ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... give some Account of the second Royal House of Scots, the oldest of the Milesian Race, and the Posterity of Eber." This Race then being avowed the oldest, in Respect of Primogeniture, must, of Course, have been prior in Point of Dignity and Sway, or at least, equally entitled to the Election of the People to such Ranks; were not those by violent Measures annexed to the Heremonian Line: Yet, however ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... generally a low rambling attic, occupied by servants, and sometimes by the chaplain, the librarian and the steward, in better rooms. When there were more than two married sons, which hardly ever happened under the old system of primogeniture, they divided the apartments between them as best they could. The unmarried younger children had to put up with what was left. Moreover, in the greatest houses, where there was usually a cardinal of the name, one wing of the first floor was entirely given ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... India, where the holders of estates of villages have a feeling of permanent interest in them, an assurance of an hereditary right of property which is liable only to the payment of a moderate Government demand, descends undivided by the law of primogeniture, and is unaffected by the common law, which prescribes the equal subdivision among children of landed as well as other private property, among the Hindoos and Muhammadans; and where the immediate cultivators hold the lands they till by no other law ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... younger sons, however superior in these respects, do not so generally marry. Nor can worthless eldest sons with entailed estates squander their wealth. But here, as elsewhere, the relations of civilised life are so complex that some compensatory checks intervene. The men who are rich through primogeniture are able to select generation after generation the more beautiful and charming women; and these must generally be healthy in body and active in mind. The evil consequences, such as they may be, of the continued preservation of the same line of descent, without any selection, are checked by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... might be your father," said the third man, "who stood before you, according to the laws of primogeniture. I dare say Rupert made love to his venerable cousin, if the truth were known, and induced her to overlook a generation, with ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... at once driven to a step so unreasonable. The young man had done nothing which ought to offend him,—had, indeed, only obeyed him in coming down to South Wales. That custom of the country was good and valid, and wise. If he believed in anything of the world worldly, he believed in primogeniture in respect of land. Though Isabel was ever so sweet, duty was duty. Who was he that he should dare to say to himself that he could break through what he believed to be a law on his conscience without a sin? If he might permit himself to make a special exemption for himself in ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... every ten years, the more satisfactory conduct of parliamentary elections and the prevention of corruption, better facilities for the administration of justice in the two provinces, the abolition of primogeniture with respect to real estate in Upper Canada, and the more equitable division of property among the children of an intestate, based on the civil law of French Canada ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... of the same kind."[22] He can traverse the country for two thousand miles unquestioned by any official. He can follow what occupation he pleases. He can quit his country and re-enter it without a passport. The law of primogeniture does not exist. The emperor appoints his heir, but a younger son quite as often as an elder one. The principle that no man is entitled by birth to rule over them is better known to the three hundred and sixty millions of China than ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... penalties of the ancient code; he set on foot the movement for the improvement of public education; he drew the bill for the establishment of courts of law in the State, and prescribing their methods and powers; he destroyed the principle of primogeniture, and brought about the removal of the capital from ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... loans made to the Gond zamindars, and had been given the zamindari status by the Marathas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of the Nandgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and the States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary manner. As a rule, the Bairagi landowners and moneylenders are not found to be particularly ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... first-born, Bernard's brother, the darling child of his father and mother, the glorious hope of the nail-maker's family. Slaves, like so many others in the Midi, to the superstition of the rights of primogeniture, they had made every possible sacrifice to send to Paris their fine, ambitious lad, who set out assured of success, the admiration of all the young women of the town; and Paris, after having for six years, beaten, twisted, and squeezed ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... statistics have shown that the very wealthy inhabitants of Fifth Avenue, New York, have in one year but one eighteenth as many children as the same number of families in the poorer neighborhood of Cherry Hill. Thus poverty multiplies itself rapidly, while wealth concentrates and needs no primogeniture to hold it together, because its numbers do not increase; and a similar fact, but not so extreme, appears in the reference to our Back Bay region in our own statistics, and in the statistics of Philadelphia. Thus it seems that we are destined ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... still nobles, with the titles prince, count, and baron; but the special privileges which they formerly enjoyed are not secured to them by the constitution. The king can honor any one with the rank of nobility; but the name is the most that can be conferred. In most cases the right of primogeniture does not prevail, so that the aristocracy of Prussia is of much less consequence than that of England. The poverty which so often results from the division of the estates of nobles has led to the establishment of numerous ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... feature of colonization on that canal is that half the area is held on condition of keeping up one or more brood mares, the object being to secure a good class of remounts. Succession to these grants is governed by primogeniture. On the Lower Bari Doab Canal a very large ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... already in use in India, and that they should be at the direct disposal of the Queen's Representative, without reference to the Crown. He did not recommend that titles should be hereditary (except in very special cases), in a country where primogeniture was not established. As to the proposed Order of Knighthood, Lord Canning thought that the institution of such an Order would be both expedient and opportune. He recommended that it should include ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... heredity of such families as the Quincys, the Lowells, the Winthrops, and the Adamses, which have maintained their superior position for generations, through sheer force of ability and character, without the external buttresses of primogeniture and entail, may safely measure itself against the stained lineage of many European families of high title. The very absence of titular distinction often causes the lines to be more clearly drawn; as Mr. Charles Dudley Warner says: "Popular commingling in pleasure resorts ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... a faint recollection that there was something in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence against primogeniture. "No! the men haven't it ALL their ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... been remarked, that among the Kentish gentry who, from time to time, elected to change the nature of their tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace, who, by Act of Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... state of things which renders possible the actual fulfillment of his ideal. "America, just beginning to exist, has the science and the experience of all nations to direct her in forming plans of government." There is an equal distribution of landed property, freed from the laws of entail and primogeniture; there is no standing army, and there is freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny; education is general; there is no artificial rank in society, and from necessity Americans are not confined to single lines of industry; but various occupations will meet in ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... sincerity, hospitality, and nobility received him with demonstrations of pleasure. After talking over family matters his Lordship candidly said that Captain Murdoch ought to have been the peer in point of primogeniture." A short account of the family accompanies the pedigree and claim, which concludes in these terms - "In consequence of the death of the last peer it has been discovered in Scotland that the titles and family ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... enterprise a monarch ever planned for the welfare of the people confided to him; and the Church ought to feel proud of the part she took in his councils. But the upper classes deserted him in heart and mind, just as they had already deserted him on the great question of the law of primogeniture,—the lasting honor of the only bold statesman the Restoration has produced, namely, the Comte de Peyronnet. To reconstitute the nation through the family; to take from the press its venomous action and ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other systems of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institution anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic, dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive the legitimate prince of ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogeniture and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... idolatry of number as number which is the "freak religion" of the biometrician. Supposing that the conclusion reached by this method be a true one—which it would need more credulity than I possess to assert—we must conclude that, somehow, primogeniture, as such, affects the quality of the offspring, and, on the other hand, that to be born fifth or tenth or fifteenth involves certain personal consequences of a special kind. Evidently we here approach less sophisticated forms of number-worship, as that which ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... of gods and men. Vatea (like Oannes in the Chaldean legend) was half man, half fish. "The Very Beginning" begat other children in the same manner, and some of these became departmental gods of ocean, noon-day, and so forth. Curiously enough, the Mangaians seem to be sticklers for primogeniture. Vatea, as the first-born son, originally had his domain next above that of his mother. But she was pained by the thought that his younger brothers each took a higher place than his; so she pushed his land up, and it is now next below the solid crust on which mortals live in ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... aristocracy whose possessions were more extended than that of Europe. Wilderness much of it still was, but obviously the time was coming when the population would be fairly abundant. The laws of entail and primogeniture, then in full force, would operate to keep the estates intact and gifted with inherent influence ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... about a word,' said Alaric. 'What is good? David was a man after God's own heart, and a great man too, and yet he did things which, were I to do, I should be too base to live. Look at Jacob—how did he achieve the tremendous rights of patriarchal primogeniture? But, come, the policemen are trying to get rid of us; it is time for us to go,' and so they left the building, and passed the remainder of the evening in concord together—in concord so soon to be dissolved, and, ah! ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... given all things else a tincture according to them, utterly untrue and improper. So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the nature of the soul, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... younger than his brother Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of Bonaparte. He assumed the place of father to his little brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved. Louis ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... A right may be either general or special, natural or artificial. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the natural and inalienable rights of all men; rights of property, inheritance, etc., are individual and special, and often artificial, as the right of inheritance by primogeniture. A privilege is always special, exceptional, and artificial; it is something not enjoyed by all, or only to be enjoyed on certain special conditions, a peculiar benefit, favor, advantage, etc. A privilege may be of doing or avoiding; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... use a favorite mode of expression of his own), he is amazed at the profusion of militia titles in Virginia, which almost persuaded him that he was at the headquarters of a grand army, and at the aristocratic notions of some of the gentlemen in the same state, who make no secret of their taste for primogeniture laws ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... handsomely in their splendid palaces; indeed, the decay of Venice, so much talked of, is quite a mistake; certainly it is very different from what it was in its palmy days, but there is a good deal of activity and trade. The abolition of the law of primogeniture has injured the noble families more than anything else. We rise early, and are busy indoors all morning, except the girls, who go to the Academy of the Belle Arti, and paint from ten till three. We dine at four, and embark in our gondola at six ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... unwittingly said to the mother of Rogero, although he was the youngest born, what a fine king he would make; and the mother, in consequence, tutored her son to expect the command of the country, although the law of the land in the royal family is the primogeniture system, extending, however, only to those sons who are born after the accession of the king to ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... as much as you please, provided I am the big brother and you the little; provided society, our common mother, honors my primogeniture and my services by doubling my portion. You will provide for my wants, you say, in proportion to your resources. I intend, on the contrary, that such provision shall be in proportion to my labor; if not, I cease ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... with age. I will, indeed, shirk a wedding for a bookshop. I'll go in "just to look about a bit, to see what the fellow has," and on an occasion I pick up a volume. But I am innocent of first editions. It is a stiff courtesy, as becomes a democrat, that I bestow on this form of primogeniture. Of course, I have nosed my way with pleasure along aristocratic shelves and flipped out volumes here and there to ask their price, but for the greater part, it is the plainer shops that engage me. If a rack of books is offered cheap before the door, with a fixed price upon a card, I come at a trot. ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... is the same as in England, and that in Scotland it is even more strict. I admit it; but the evil is great in England, and in Scotland it has become intolerable, and must soon be relaxed if not abolished. Perhaps I shall be told that the laws of entail and primogeniture are necessary for the maintenance of our aristocratic institutions; but if the evils of Ireland spring from this source, I say, perish your aristocratic institutions rather than that a whole nation should be in this terrible ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... wife, who was the daughter of John Winfield, a man of high standing and large wealth. From his mother's family he acquired his baptismal name of Winfield. John Winfield survived his daughter, and dying intestate, in 1774, Winfield Mason acquired by descent as the eldest male heir (the law of primogeniture then being the law of Virginia) the whole of a landed estate and a portion of the personal property. The principal part of this large inheritance was devised to Winfield Scott, but, the devisee having married again and had issue, the ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... a guideless youth, and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the individual, in the form of enforced cooeperation, for the maintenance ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... "—"I give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver." With an equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan, inherited a remnant of his father's spirit, and served with honor against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never deigned ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... in the sun. The tiled-roofs, with their towers and slopes, looked like those in pictures of palace buildings. It was a group,—a pile; under these roofs a family of five—Americans, republicans, with no law of primogeniture to conserve the estate beyond a single lifetime—were to live like a little royal household. And the father had made all his money in fifteen years in Opal Street. This country of ours, and the ways of it, are certainly pretty nearly the queerest under the sun, when one looks ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... from esprit de corps as from moral principle, was a man of strict integrity, in all things that related to meum and tuum. He was particularly rigid in his notions concerning the transmission of real estate, and the rights of primogeniture. The world had taken little interest in the private history of a lawyer, and his sons having been born before his elevation to the bench, he passed with the public for a widower, with a family of promising boys. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... eldest son and namesake he gave his dwelling house and lot lying to the north of the alley. As the custom of primogeniture prevailed it was but natural that William Jr. fell heir to the dwelling house of his father. At the time of this gift in December 1784, William reserved to himself an "absolute right and title to take away as much earth ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... notes of 'change, And in my pockets carry I my gold; I'll bury that and curse and soul will save From poverty and death. And if ye mock, I'll curse you with a patriarchal curse— With Isaac's curse! O ye, with voices like The voice of Jacob, but with Esau's hands, Invert the law of primogeniture! Myself, my care! What care I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and, as he oddly complains in the year of the Reform Bill, not 'sufficiently represented in parliament.'[418] A 'splendid aristocracy' is, he thinks, a necessary part of the social edifice;[419] the law of primogeniture is necessary to support them; and the division of land will cause the decay of France. The aristocracy are wanted to keep up a high standard of civilisation and promote philosophy, science, and art.[420] The British aristocracy in the reign of George IV. scarcely realised this ideal, and would ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... from the last Incumbent. This, says the Eagle, can't be a good Title, for the late King had no Right to make a Deed of Gift of the Crown, since a King is only Tennant for Life, and Succession of Crowns either must descend by a Lineal Progression in the Right of Primogeniture, or else they lose the Tenure, and devolve ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... the boats containing two of the princes were lost.* Prince Itsuse had already died of his wound, so of the four brothers there now remained only the youngest, Prince Iware. It is recorded that, at the age of fifteen, he had been made heir to the throne, the principle of primogeniture not being then recognized, and thus the deaths of his brothers did not affect that question. Landing ultimately at Kumano on the southeast of Kii, the expeditionary force was stricken by a pestilence, the prince himself not escaping. But ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... hideous according to a Chinese or negro) than the middle classes, from pick of women; but oh what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying Natural Selection! I fear my letter will ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... political lessons, had recently become very wealthy through the death of Miss Russell, as already mentioned. Much of his wealth consisted of landed property. Robert was the first-born child of his parents, and, as the law of primogeniture was then in force in Upper Canada,[64] it was to be anticipated that he would succeed to large possessions, and would be independent of any income arising from his own exertions. He bore an honoured name, and it was tolerably ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... from the Chief who was willing to sell it. I told him it was impossible for him to acquire, by purchase, a right to be a different person from what he really was; for that the right of Chieftainship attached to the blood of primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being transferred. I added, that though Esau sold his birth-right, or the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the first-born of his parents; and that whatever agreement a Chief ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... were preferred in law to collateral male relatives. When a female inherited, the fief was occupied by the suzerain up to the time of her marriage. It never ceased to be under the protection of the sword. In France, the right of primogeniture was established, but with important qualifications, which varied in different portions of the country. The eldest, however, always had the largest portion. In Germany, the tendency to the division of fiefs was more prevalent. Among the Normans in England, and under their ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, in 1778, to abolish the African slave-trade, being then in little need of more slaves than she possessed. In 1779 he planned ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... political subjects were as much out of the ordinary way as my views on matters pertaining to religion. I was a republican. I would have no King, no Queen, no House of Lords, and no State Church. I would abolish the laws of entail and primogeniture, and reduce land to a level with other kinds of property. The sale of land should be as untrammelled as that of common merchandise, and it should be as liable to be taken for debt. I broached startling views with regard to the right of property in land, and urged that as it was naturally ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... called a witch, and people, even those who affected to ignore the craft of wizardry, were content to keep away from her. When the Revolution ended, Southward Howland demanded Dame Crewe's house and acre, claiming under law of entail, though primogeniture had been little enforced in America, where there was room and to spare for all. But Howland was stubborn and the woman's house had good situation, so one day he rode to her door and summoned her with a ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the usual sense of the word. Its vigor was exhausted when the powerful vassals of the empire became powerless sovereigns with the titles of king or duke, while what remained of the landed nobility became more reduced with every generation, owing to the absence of the system of primogeniture. There is no longer a clergy as a powerful body in the state. This was broken up at the time of the Reformation; and it hardly had time to recover and to constitute itself on a new basis, when the Thirty Years' War deprived it of all social influence, and left it no alternative but to become ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... believed to involve terrible calamities. The Khadras eat the flesh of animals and fish but not that of birds, and they do not drink country liquor. When an estate is to be partitioned the eldest son first takes a tenth of the whole in right of primogeniture and the remainder is then divided equally. The Khadras rank as an artisan caste of somewhat ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... sorts, Arbitrary, and Naturall. Arbitrary, is that which is agreed on by the Competitors; Naturall, is either Primogeniture, (which the Greek calls Kleronomia, which signifies, Given by Lot;) or ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... rigid and bigoted abstinence. In this belief, however, I do not concur, for I consider that a Turk is a Turk naturally, and without any further constraint than those imposed by the laws of geography and primogeniture. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... family. A few months sufficed for success in this task. In order to place an impassable abyss between himself and the world, he made a full and complete renunciation in favour of his brother Jean-Louis of his rights of primogeniture and all his titles to the seigniory of Montigny and Montbeaudry. The world is ever prone to admire a chivalrous action, and to look askance at deeds which appear to savour of fanaticism. To Laval this renunciation of worldly wealth ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... between them an exact balance of favor, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld three emperors. [10] Yet even this equal conduct served only to inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would be ruined by his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was informed that the Assembly had annulled all the rights of primogeniture—thus depriving him, as the first-born, of his exclusive right to the title and the estate—he threw his arms around his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, and said, "Now, indeed, we are brothers in every respect." ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... that Jonah was undeserving, and Jonah to abuse Solomon as greedy; Jane, the elder sister, held that Martha's children ought not to expect so much as the young Waules; and Martha, more lax on the subject of primogeniture, was sorry to think that Jane was so "having." These nearest of kin were naturally impressed with the unreasonableness of expectations in cousins and second cousins, and used their arithmetic in reckoning ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... important of these, the Settled Estates Act, passed in 1882, gives the tenant for life power to sell any portion of the estate except the family mansion, and thus thoroughly undermines the principle upon which primogeniture and entails are founded. Much land which has hitherto been so tied up that the limited owners were either unable or unwilling to develop it can now be sold and improved. New measures have been proposed to increase still further the power of limited owners and to make the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... competitors who put forward claims to the crown, only three need be here mentioned. They were each descended from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion and grandson of David I. The claimant who, according to the strict rules of primogeniture, had the best right was John Balliol, the grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of Earl David. His most formidable opponent was Robert Bruce of Annandale, the son of Earl David's second daughter, Isabella, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... emblems of gentility came to them through ancestors that were mercantile in occupation and in instinct. During the 17th century the trades were in high repute in England, and to them resorted many younger sons of the gentry. These youths, excluded from a share in the paternal estate by the law of primogeniture, were forced either into the professions or the trades. It was the custom for the country gentleman to leave to his eldest son the whole of his landed estates; the second son he sent to Oxford or to Cambridge to prepare for one of the learned professions, such as divinity, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... therefore the husband hurried off to sin while the wife closed her eyes. In this sense, in defiance of morality and health, did the capitalist bourgeoisie, which had replaced the old nobility, virtually re-establish the law of primogeniture. That law had been abolished at the Revolution for the bourgeoisie's benefit; but now, also for its own purposes, it revived it. Each family must have but ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... formed a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy." He effected the repeal of the laws of entail, and this prevented an aristocratic absorption of the soil; he effected the abolition of primogeniture, and this destroyed all chance of rebuilding feudal families; he effected a restoration of the rights of conscience, and this overthrew all hope of an Established Church; he forced on the bill for general education,—for thus, he said, would the people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... reading the book you sent me, and thinking it a very excellent abridged exposition of such subjects; I still could not understand what it had to do with the theory of laws for the division of property, or the expediency of the law of primogeniture, and the advantages of the distinctions of rank, to the societies where they exist. The question seems to me rather whether these remains of feudalism have or have not ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and getting intoxicated with the blacksmith of the place;" related to Cardinal Fleury, he is made the first Duc de Fleury.-Everything contributes to this decay, the law, habits and customs, and, above all, the right of primogeniture. Instituted for the purpose of maintaining undivided sovereignty and patronage it ruins the nobles since sovereignty and patronage have no material to work on. "In Brittany," says Chateaubriand, "the elder sons of the nobles swept away two-thirds of the property, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to the plans put forward in France during the Revolution for interfering with bequests and inheritance. He would, however, check the incentives to accumulation by abolishing the feudal system, primogeniture, titles and entail. Property is sacred—that good men may be free to give it away. Reform public opinion, and a man engaged in amassing wealth would soon hide his treasures as carefully as he now displays them. The first step is to rob wealth of its distinction. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... will illustrate the manner in which Montesquieu supported the opposite principles, that institutions are moulded by the character and circumstances of nations, not the moulders of them. It is well known that primogeniture, though neither the law of succession in the Roman empire, nor originally of the nations of Northern Europe, in whom the allodial customs at first generally prevailed, came to be universally introduced with the feudal system, and the thorough establishment of a military ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Pleas and Chancery and the giving of an enlarged jurisdiction to the Court of Queen's Bench; (10) reduction of lawyers' fees; (11) free trade and direct taxation; (12) an amended jury law; (13) the abolition or modification of the usury laws; (14) the abolition of primogeniture; (15) the secularization of the clergy reserves, and the abolition of the rectories. The movement was opposed by the Globe. No new party, it said, was required for the advocacy of reform of the suffrage, retrenchment, law reform, free ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... He is crossed in the game—look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and what does he say? In a low voice he pleads, "Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother." And this is ever the tone adopted by both parents. Theoretically, they decry partiality—no rights of primogeniture are to be allowed in that house; but Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed; they avert provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a barrel of gunpowder. "Concede, conciliate," is their motto wherever he is ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable to starvation and pauperism—these have looked to America as the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for self-government." The meeting ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... We've heard the Bluebird! Hurrah! Spring has come. We saw the Phebee on the top of the saw-mill!" Here Spring makes no sensation; takes no sudden leap into the seat of Winter, but comes in gently, like the law of primogeniture or the British Constitution. It is slow and decorous in its movements. It is conservative, treats its predecessor with much deference, and makes no sudden and radical changes in the face of things. It comes in with no Lord Mayor's Day, and blows no trumpets, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... revenue was afforded by Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, who paid heavily in bakshish for the firman of 1866, by which the succession to the khedivate was made hereditary from father to son in direct line and in order of primogeniture, as well as for the subsequent firmans of 1867, 1869 and 1872 extending the khedive's prerogatives. It is, however, only fair to add that the sultan was doubtless influenced by the desire to bring about a similar change in the succession to the Ottoman ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... government of Holland[723] is in form a constitutional, hereditary monarchy. Until 1884 the royal succession was vested exclusively in the direct male line of the house of Orange-Nassau in the order of primogeniture. The death, however, in the year mentioned, of the sole surviving male heir occasioned, as has been stated, an amendment of the constitution authorizing the succession of a female heir, in default of a male; and, upon the death of William III., November 23, 1890, the throne ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... dwelling in some other city, where the visiting cards will bear wholly different names. How idle to attempt to transport into American life the social traditions and delusions which require monarchy and primogeniture, and a standing army, to keep them up—and which cannot always hold their own in England, even with the ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the first place, aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice, due to the unnatural and iniquitous law of primogeniture. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... the arched entrance to the ice-house. Always on the same brick, and never more than a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once, the children of a man employed about the place ooelogized the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner did towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at last, and one ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... beyond that of his elder brother, who was simply waiting for a dukedom. Lord Egremont, a younger son of the Earl of Soho, controlled large amounts of railway stock, and it was said held a mortgage on the family castle. To prove to his father and mother that no law of primogeniture could disinherit him, appeared to George Eltham an ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... Aryan community (so far, at least, as the western branch of the race is concerned) everywhere presents to us the threefold element of King, Lords, and Commons. The King is supreme, he reigns by right of birth (though not according to strict primogeniture), and he not only reigns but governs. Theoretically he is absolute, but practically can do little without taking counsel with his Lords, the aristocracy of the tribe, originally an aristocracy of birth, but constantly tending to become one of wealth. The Commons ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... England is, I believe, the only European country where private enterprise has pursued sylviculture on a really great scale, though admirable examples have been set in many others. In England the law of primogeniture, and other institutions and national customs which tend to keep large estates long undivided and in the same line of inheritance, the wealth of the landholders, the special adaptation of the climate to the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... earnest to the work of legislation. In one night, the ever memorable 4th of August, it decreed the total abolition of feudalism. In one night it abolished tithes to the church, provincial privileges, feudal rights, serfdom, the law of primogeniture, seigniorial dues, and the gabelle, or tax on salt. Mirabeau was not present, being absent on his pleasures. These, however, seldom interfered with his labors, which were herculean, from seven in the morning till eleven ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... temper. Although the youngest of the king's brothers, he had always been regarded as the future King of England, and had his father survived until he reached the age of manhood, he would probably have succeeded directly to the throne. The law of primogeniture was by no means strictly observed among the Saxons, a younger brother of marked ability or of distinguished prowess in war being often chosen by a father to succeed him in place ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... no reverence for anything or anybody. One day they were in Evadne's little sitting room which overlooked the courtyard. It was an antechamber to her bedroom, and peculiarly her own by right of primogeniture. Nobody ever thought of going there without her special permission—except, of course, the twins; but even they assumed hypocritical airs of innocent apology for accidental intrusion when they wanted to make ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Friar Minor, which he received in the principal church of the town, in the presence of a numerous concourse of people, after having first fulfilled two conditions which the father had prescribed for him: The first was, to give to the poor all that he had inherited by his right of primogeniture; the second was, to renounce all the rest of his fortune. It was in the same town that he lived a most holy life, as had been foretold, honored by many miracles; now by permission of the Holy See, he ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... bitter in the extreme for the parents to lose their son, this departure from his home was, I have no doubt, most bitter also to Cain himself. For he was compelled to leave, not only the common home, his dear parents and their protection, but his hereditary right of primogeniture, the prerogative of the kingdom and of the priesthood, and the communion ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... Clovis). This feeble son of Charlemagne, known as Louis the Debonnaire, struggled under the weight of the crumbling mass until his death in 840. Then Charlemagne's three ambitious grandsons fought for the great inheritance. Lothaire, who claimed the whole by right of primogeniture, was defeated at the battle of Fontenay in Burgundy, and by the treaty of Verdun in 843 the partition of the empire was consummated; the title of emperor passing to Lothaire, the eldest, along with Italy and a strip of territory extending to the North ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... had seven children in all, some of whom were scapegraces, and rebelled against the parental system of primogeniture and non-division of property which the Elector ordained. "Gustchen," the Electress writes about her second son:—"Poor Gus is thrust out, and his father will give him no more keep. I laugh in the day, and cry all night about it; for ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lords, the king reigns, but he does not govern. This is a fundamental principle of the constitution; nay, it is more—it is the palladium of our liberties! My lords, it is an easy matter to reign in Leaphigh. It requires no more than the rights of primogeniture, sufficient discretion to understand the distinction between reigning and governing, and a political moderation that is unlikely to derange the balance of the state. But it is quite a different thing to govern. His majesty is required to govern nothing, the slight interests ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob though the younger obtained the rights of primogeniture; he also procured his father's blessing by very unjustifiable means; and then repaired to Padan-aram to take a wife out of his own family. He married Leah and Rachel, and had twelve sons, who were ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... "law-worthy" is equivalent to a declaration that they were freemen, for in the feudal ages none other were entitled to the forms of law; while the right of heirship apparently exempted them from the rule of primogeniture which prevailed among the Norman conquerors;—it is probable, however, that this exemption did not long hold good. In other respects the citizens of London continued to be governed by their own laws and usages, administered by their own magistrates ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... as with us in France, an equitable law is constantly subdividing large properties? No. The law of primogeniture is in full vigour in the kingdom of the Pope, like every other abuse of the good old times. They provide for their younger sons as they can, and for their daughters as they please. It is not parental justice ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... followers who have returned have straggled hither like this Wilfred of Ivanhoe, beggared and broken men.—And what talk ye of Richard's right of birth?" he proceeded, in answer to those who objected scruples on that head. "Is Richard's title of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's eldest son? And yet William the Red, and Henry, his second and third brothers, were successively preferred to him by the voice of the nation, Robert had every merit which can be pleaded for Richard; ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... acres of land, most of it unimproved, besides an interest in some small iron works, but he had been twice married and at his death left two broods of children to be provided for. George, a younger son—which implied a great deal in those days of entail and primogeniture—received the farm on the Rappahannock on which his father lived, amounting to two hundred and eighty acres, a share of the land lying on Deep Run, three lots in Frederick, a few negro slaves and a quarter of the residuary estate. He was also given a reversionary interest in Mount Vernon, ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the woman on the platform in hopes that some arresting gesture might summon him from this shadowy prison. But the audience sat still in a sheeplike, grazing sort of attention, and Mrs. Ormiston continued to exercise her distinguished querulousness on the subject of male primogeniture. So he remained rooted in this oppressive sense ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... and sisters. His example ought to be recorded for the benefit of those grasping children in these days, who, dead to all natural affection, and every sentiment but avarice, seize all that the law will grant, whether equity will sanction it or not. Disregarding this claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the whole inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, of which he accepted only his own. But the generous impulses of his noble nature, were not limited to the domestic circle. His heart was warm with the more enlarged sentiments of patriotism. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... description the Cuthites are alluded to, who carried on the expeditions here mentioned. They were one branch of the posterity of Ham; who is here spoken of as the eldest son of Cronus. How justly they conferred upon him this rank of primogeniture, I will not determine. By [786]Cronus we are here to understand the same person, as is also represented under the name of Soues. This would be more truly expressed [Greek: Soon], Sooen; by which is meant the Sun: ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... any in the county, for without laying claim to any title of nobility, our blood is as pure and our lineage as ancient as the most boasted in England. I had but one brother, who succeeded at our father's death to the broad lands and rich heritage of our name. The accursed law of primogeniture, to which I owe all the evil that has befallen me, of course debarred me from all share in the family estate. I had refused to enter the army, the church or the navy, though my inclinations were in favor of the latter profession; yet a stronger claim than ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various |
