"Man-at-arms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bristling spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the burghers of the free towns could not spare to military service, while the petty nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so honorable a calling. Thus it came to pass ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... thieves and pillagers; but know, They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... man-at-arms strike down a prisoner. She leaped from her horse, and laid the wounded Englishman's head on her breast, consoling him, and bade a priest come and hear his confession. From Jargeau the Maid rode back to Orleans, where the people could not ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... obligation towards the state which they served, they easily came to an understanding with one another to spare their troops as much as possible; until at length battles were fought with little more personal hazard than would be incurred in an ordinary tourney. The man-at-arms was riveted into plates of steel of sufficient thickness to turn a musket-ball. The ease of the soldier was so far consulted, that the artillery, in a siege, was not allowed to be fired on either side from sunset to sunrise, for fear of disturbing ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... for laying hands on a poor orphan—the son of a Poitevin man-at-arms—that I kept with me for love of his father, though he is fitter for a convent than the green wood!" added Adam, with the same sound of keen reproach and disappointment ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that, the King of the Hundred Knights rushed at Sir Key and overthrew him in return, and took his horse and gave it to King Lot. And when Sir Griflet saw Sir Key's mischance, he set his spear in rest, and riding at a mighty man-at-arms, he cast him down headlong and caught his horse and led ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... 406; and, like them, they are held by Badges acting as Supporters. Two well-known seals of the PERCIES are charged with banners, and in each case the banner-staff is held by a single Supporter: one of these figures is a man-at-arms, A.D. 1386; the other is a lion, A.D. 1446. At the same period, two lions appear on another Percy Seal. Another, of the same date, has the shield supported by an armed man, without any banner, but having a lance with a long pennon charged with the Crescent badge ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... personal labour under great discouragements. He lived and died a plain citizen. He had less to show for his life-work than the others, perhaps; but in those swaddling days of the colony's history his task was greater. Morel de la Durantaye, the man-at-arms, well born and bred, took his seigneurial rank as a matter of course, and his duties without much seriousness. His seigneury had his attention only when opportunities for some more exciting field of action failed to present themselves. Interesting figure though ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... and the rest you must manage for yourself. You will probably find a carriage somewhere in the neighborhood, and friends looking out for you. But I know nothing about that.—I need not remind you that there is a man-at-arms to the right of the tower. You will take care, of course, to choose a dark night, and wait till the sentinel is asleep. You must take your chance of being ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... possessed two uncles, one on each side of the house. Their father's elder brother had been a man-at-arms, having preferred a stirring life to the Forest, and had fought in the last surges of the Wars of the Roses. Having become disabled and infirm, he had taken advantage of a corrody, or right of maintenance, as being of kin to a benefactor of Hyde Abbey at Winchester, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a tableau full of instruction upon human life. The man-at-arms, the priest, and the physician, all three standing before their master, who was seated in his arm-chair, were casting pallid glances about them, each presenting one of those ideas which end by possessing the whole man on the verge ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... slain there? I mind me now, A right good man-at-arms, God pardon him! I think 'twas Geffray smote him on the brow With some spiked axe, and ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... make a hive for bees; And lovers' sonnets turned to holy psalms, A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms: But though from court to cottage he depart, His Saint is sure of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... before he had completed his fourth year, a man came slinking out of the forest to the foot of the wall, for the watch was now slack as the Outlaw had not been heard of for months, and then was far away in the direction of Mayence. The nurse was holding a most absorbing conversation with the man-at-arms, who should, instead, have been pacing up and down the terrace while she should have been watching her charge. The man outside gave a low whistle which attracted the attention of the child and then beckoned him to come further ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr |
