"Man-at-arms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commencement of these preparations, Droop and his guide appeared among other petitioners and other lookers-on around the doorways. Copernicus carried his phonographic apparatus, but the bicycle had been left in the court-yard in the care of a man-at-arms. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... steps they found a man-at-arms placed at the door of a cabin. He challenged them as they approached, but being speedily convinced that the vessel was in their hands, and that his employer and party were all conquered, he made a virtue of necessity, and ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... was 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
... and a brawny Kentish man-at-arms ranged up beside him, his cloak thrown over his left arm, and his sword in his ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... just arrived, and, as he expected, they bore a message from the King. As he approached, a knight clad in full armour rode forward, preceded by a man-at-arms, and, bending low over his horse's neck, presented to him a parchment packet, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Wynd had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword to slay it, the voice of his own sister Margaret ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... traffic or 'feates of merchandizes' were effected according to tariff; 'our dread and sovereigne lord the king mynding the wealth, increase, and enriching of his realm of England, and of this his town of Calais.' In the court of this our Calaisian Guildhall, the iron-clad man-at-arms, the gaily-decked esquire, or captain of the guard, used to mingle with the staid wool-staplers, clothiers, cutlers, or weavers, just arrived from our primitive manufacturing districts, laden with bales and hardwares for bartering ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... an old man-at-arms, whom the Duke sent with him for his honour and security; and when he arrived at the place, he lodged at the inn. He found the House of Heritage very desolate, inhabited only by the ancient maid of Mistress Alison, now grown old and infirm. So Paul purchased ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... captain varied with the number of the men he brought into the field. His title 'Condottiere' was derived from the circumstance that he was said to have received a Condotta di venti cavalli, and so forth. Each cavallo was equal to one mounted man-at-arms and two attendants, who were also called ragazzi. It was his business to provide the stipulated number of men, to keep them in good discipline, and to satisfy their just demands. Therefore an Italian army at this epoch consisted ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet into the dreadful abyss! The wild passes of the sierra, practicable for the half-naked Indian, and even for the sure and circumspect mule,—an animal that seems to have been created for the roads of the Cordilleras,—were formidable to the man-at-arms encumbered with his panoply of mail. The tremendous fissures or quebradas, so frightful in this mountain chain, yawned open, as if the Andes had been split asunder by some terrible convulsion, showing ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... protection of the Pope, and to thwart his pious designs was to incur excommunication. Even amid the terrors of invasion, the laborer was free to pursue his occupation, and his flocks and his herds were secure from molestation; for it was beneath the dignity of the man-at-arms to trample upon the person or property of the poor unarmed peasant. Such were the principles recognized even in the eleventh century; and though we witness frequent departures from these admirable provisions, we must be careful not to mistake the exception for ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... that goes on in the fortress becomes known outside in the market town, through the gossip of servants who come down for supplies. They like to know what is going on in the world outside, and in payment for such news are ready to give the little items of castle life; how Hans the man-at-arms fell asleep on guard and got a week in the prison on bread and water in consequence; how the Spanish envoy tried to kiss one of the maids when he had taken too much wine, and thus had forgotten that he was a gentleman; and what happened in consequence of his forgetfulness. Little things, of no ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... the woodland, ranging the forest with eye quick to see the beauty of earth and sky, and ear open to the thousand voices around him; or, busied at his anvil, hearkening to the wondrous tales of travel and strange adventure told by wandering knight and man-at-arms the while, with skilful hand, he mended broken mail or dented casque; and thereafter, upon the mossy sward, would make trial of their strength and valour, whereby he both took and gave right lusty knocks; or again, when ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... For in that realm of lawless turbulence, A woman weeping for her murder'd mate Was cared as much for as a summer shower: One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm, Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him: Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms, Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl; Half whistling and half singing a coarse song, He drove the dust against her veilless eyes: Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm Before an ever-fancied arrow, made The ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... higher rank. The first was a man of noble mien and lofty stature, his short dark curled hair and beard, and handsome though sunburnt countenance, displayed beneath his small blue velvet cap, his helmet being carried behind him by a man-at-arms, and his attire consisting of a close-fitting dress of chamois leather, a white mantle embroidered with the blue cross thrown over one shoulder, and his sword hanging by his side. His companion, who carried at his saddle-bow a shield blazoned with heraldic devices in ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lights rippled red and orange and yellow and green on the clean paving-stones. A cold wind off the Sierra shrilled through clattering streets. As they walked, the other man was telling how this Castilian nobleman, courtier, man-at-arms, had shut himself up when his father, the Master of Santiago, died and had written this poem, created this tremendous rhythm of death sweeping like a wind over the world. He had never written anything else. They thought of him in the court of his great dust-colored mansion at Ocana, where ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... Scotland and Wales was provided for, and the rate of wages payable to his retinue and soldiers was fixed. Every duke was to receive 13s. 4d., every earl 6s. 8d., every baron 4s., and every knight 2s., every esquire being a man-at-arms 12d., every archer 6d. each day; whilst for every thirty men-at-arms a reward was assigned of one hundred marks a quarter; together with some ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... the courtyard of the castle, to visit the stately range of stables, where fifty gallant steeds stood in rows, on each side of the ample hall. At the side of each stall hung the weapons of offence and defence of a man-at-arms, as bright as constant attention could make them, together with the buff-coat which formed the trooper's under garment. The baron, followed by one or two of the domestics, who had assembled full of astonishment at the unusual alarm, hastened up betwixt the rows of steeds. As he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... extreme danger an esquire wearing the arms of Rohan, fell upon the assailants like a thunderbolt, and killed two of them, crying, "God save the Bastarnays!" The third man-at-arms, who had already seized old Bastarnay, was so hard pressed by this squire, that he was obliged to leave the elder and turn against the younger, to whom he gave a thrust with his dagger through a ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... instant they had him down and bound and prisoner, one man against a thousand; and they fastened him behind a man-at-arms, on the crupper, to take him into Sant' Angelo alive. But a soldier, whose brother he had slain a moment earlier, followed stealthily on foot and sought the joint in the back of the armour, and ran in ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Then there is the Muntze Tower, black and white, rising out of greenery and looking down on a long wooden bridge and the broad rapid river; and there is an old schloss which has been made into a guard-house, with battlements and frescos and heraldic devices in gold and colors, and a man-at-arms carved in stone standing life-size in his niche and bearing his date 1530. A little farther on, but close at hand, is a cloister with beautiful marble columns and tombs, and a colossal wood-carved Calvary, and beside that a small and very rich chapel: ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... said Lord Dalgarno, "you will oblige us, Monsieur le Chevalier, as well as maintain your own honoured reputation, by letting your drawers receive the man-at-arms with a cudgel, in case he should venture to come ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... are told, are the blindest of all. Did not Koenigsmarck prove it? As for myself, not even in that respect can I be ranked with Koenigsmarck. I am a mere man-at-arms, whose love-making is ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... with caution, slept the next night in the fields along with the soldiers. But the casualties of the campaign were not yet exhausted. His war-horse, which was picketed beside him, like that of an ordinary man-at-arms, struck the King with his foot and hurt him in the side. A tumult arose in the camp, but Edward, regardless of pain, appeased it by mounting his horse, riding through the cantonments, and showing the soldiers that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... rather the taciturnity that invariably settles upon the face of those dwellers of the range who, perforce, live much alone with their thoughts. Sheathed in mail and armed, that face and bulky figure to some imaginations might have found its prototype in some huge, grim, war-worn "man-at-arms" of mediaeval times. Redmond judged him to be somewhere in his forties; forty-two was his exact age as he ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... this resolve that they would turn back and the army was now about to depart, there came to King Richard a certain man-at-arms, who was well acquainted with the country, for indeed, he had travelled on foot as a pilgrim from the coast to Jerusalem, and this not once only but twice or thrice. This man said, "My lord King, if you are minded ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... thrill. Close to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of great eyes, humid with tears, considered me passionately. Then a ringing voice—that commanding voice that was my father's—spoke to Falcone, the man-at-arms who attended him and who ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... learned afterward that there were more than one hundred thousand warriors engaged, and, with a host of followers and servants, the total aggregated at least eighty thousand more. And, indeed, the Spaniards mourned the death of many a brave cavalier and stout man-at-arms. In all the fighting the young Inca, in full war-gear of gold and silver, mounted on a captured horse, with a Spanish lance in his hand, had played a ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... "you must not make so much of it. It would never have sorted with my inclinations to have turned man-at-arms. This ring, Madonna, that once has served you, I beg that you will keep, for ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, where De Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a little white falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told our tale. Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway, but De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down both leather curtains over the door. It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with the horses, and only Jehan had loaded the gold. When our story was told, ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... recover from their surprise, beat them back into their admiral's ship, and following them there forced them to surrender. Messer Hammond fought by my side, and although but a lad in years, he showed himself a sturdy man-at-arms, and behaved with a coolness and bravery beyond praise. I hereby recommend him to your gracious consideration, for assuredly to him it is due that it is I, and not Fieschi, who is writing to ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... them thieves or pillagers; but know, They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvest 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 slug and snail." —FROM ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... to a man-at-arms who appeared to be on duty there, and who had for some moments been regarding Cuthbert with close scrutiny, and had now drawn slowly near them. Cuthbert was vaguely aware that the man's face was in some way familiar to him, but he had ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... The man-at-arms retired. Around the table the knights were struggling into an upright position in their seats and twirling their moustaches. Agravaine alone made no movement. He had been through this sort of thing so often. What were distressed damsels ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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
... queen? Sometimes I think that I have the story wrong; for what queen in those days would have assented to a proposition so democratic as that a man-at-arms (a "pawn" in the language of the unromantic) could rise by his own exertions to the dignity of Royalty itself? But if she were a waiting-maid in love with the king's own man-at-arms, then it would be natural that she should set no limit ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... what may cure a swain at his wit's end I know not: Simus, (true,) a mate of mine, Loved Epichalcus' daughter, and took ship And came home cured. I too will sail the seas. Worse men, it may be better, are afloat, I shall still prove an average man-at-arms. ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated dominions;—but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the throttling of a consecrated bull, is a circumstance of too little moment to be more than ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... gave the Duchy to Jean de Montfort, though under the suzerainty of the King of France, is signed by thirty Breton knights, among whom is a Geoffrey Guinemer. A Mathelin Guinemer, squire, is mentioned in an act received at Bourges in 1418; while in 1464, an Yvon Guynemer, man-at-arms, is promoted to full pay, and he already spells ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... washerwoman who, carrying her tub like a mule, attempts to leave the hotel. But at the porch she found a man-at-arms who turned a deaf ear to all the blandishments of the wash-tub. Then she resolved, from her great devotion, to take the soldier on his weak side, and she tickled him so with her fondling that he romped very well with her, although he was armour-plated ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... a tall carved box, where she was completely hidden; and the only time when she had failed to obtain warning beforehand, she stood kneading bread at a tub in Martin's cottage, while the hunt passed by, and a man-at-arms looked in and questioned the master on the last ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with simple pride, "it pleases me better to know that my homestead is nightly watched by a brave and gallant man-at-arms, who, I trust, will permit no marauding Norsemen or thieving wolf to come near ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... fifth pageant was Sir William Walworth's bower, which was hung with the shields of all lord mayors who had been Fishmongers. Upon a tomb within the bower was laid the effigy in knightly armour of Sir William, the slayer of Wat Tyler. Five mounted knights attended the car, and a mounted man-at-arms bore Wat Tyler's head upon a dagger. In attendance were six trumpeters and twenty-four halberdiers, arrayed in light blue silk, emblazoned with the Fishmongers' arms on the breast and Walworth's on the back. Then followed an angel with golden wings and crown, riding on horseback, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... if it comes to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton, John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... country. All sorts of wild dreams did the boy turn over in his mind; he was no longer gay and light hearted, but walked about moody and thoughtful. He redoubled his assiduity in the practice of arms; and sometimes when fighting with Sandy, he would think that he had an English man-at-arms before him, and would strike so hotly and fiercely that Sandy had the greatest difficulty in parrying his blows, and was forced to shout lustily to recall him from the clouds. He no longer played at ball with the village lads; but, taking the elder of them aside, he swore ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... works of art and, taking their inspiration from the famous Bayeux Tapestry, attributed to Queen Matilda, they represented the story of the Norman Conquest. They had been ordered in the fourteenth century by the descendant of a man-at-arms in William the Conqueror's train; were executed by Jehan Gosset, a famous Arras weaver; and were discovered, five hundred years later, in an old Breton manor-house. On hearing of this, the colonel had struck a bargain for fifty thousand francs. They were worth ten ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquired with comparative ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the man-at-arms to support his ponderous panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most important branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... and copper mines, wherever the stuffs of industry were to be obtained and prepared, in the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battle lines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face, and say, We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is a stout lad, and a hearty one. They say that at the castle he is ever practising with arms, and that though scarce sixteen he can wield a sword and heavy battle-axe as well as any man-at-arms there." ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... from the brazen helmet leaping, set To lead his band against the Eastern gate. There to and fro he wheels his fiery steeds, That pant in their caparisons to charge The portal, and with snorting nostrils proud Make uncouth music through their mouth-pieces. Nor lowly the device upon his shield: A man-at-arms is on a ladder seen Scaling the wall of a beleaguered town, And underneath the vaunting legend dares Ares himself to beat back the assault. Against this champion you must bid go forth One that can save our town ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... occasion, seeing that it was marked with many a battle dint and that right across the Cressi cognizance, which Hugh had painted on his shield after he was knighted—a golden star rising from an argent ocean—was a scar left by the battle-axe of a Calais man-at-arms. Moreover Hugh, or rather Dick, took with him other armour, namely, that of the knight, Sir Pierre de la Roche, whom Hugh had killed at Crecy thinking that he was Edmund Acour, whose mail ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... nankeen breeches, enormous cavalry boots, extending half-way up the thigh, and curious hats of black glazed leather, of a shape which was a cross between a fireman's helmet and the cap of a Norman man-at-arms. They were armed indiscriminately with long pikes and ancient flint-locks, and marched to the music of fife and drum. The leader of the band danced a sort of shimmy as he marched, at the same time tootling on a flute. He looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Perhaps the most curious feature ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... preferred the Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his acquaintance—that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, shikarri, athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his splendid uniform, in sandals, dhotie, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy old cotton coat and loose puggri, undistinguishable from a school-master, clerk, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... dapple-grey horse called Falcon, and was right good,) and brought him down to the said willow copse, and tied him to a tree till he had armed himself amongst the willows, whence he came forth presently as brisk-looking and likely a man-at-arms as you might see on a summer day. Then he clomb up into the saddle, and went his ways splashing across the ford, before the sun had arisen, while the throstle-cocks were ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... not become a soldier, and the dear lady died happy in the belief that she had snatched her son from the war-dragon which had bereft her of a husband. The vow lay heavy on the boy's heart daring many a year, for he was a born man-at-arms, but he had kept it, and meant to keep it, though not exactly according to the tenets of William Penn. Somehow, his mother's beautiful face, wanly exquisite in that unearthly light which foreshadows ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Mexico obtained the cordial support of England and the United States, and when in 1825 the last Spanish man-at-arms retired from the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, off Vera Cruz, all Spanish-Americans on the two continents were free to work out their own destiny. As was the case with the other Republics, inexperience in the science of government and attempts to force the pace ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... her feet, and the old man-at-arms reached out his hand to her, and she took it and came her ways up the stair, but found herself but feeble. But the priest (forsooth he was chaplain of the castle) helped her on the other side. But when she stood on the level stones by the water-gate, she turned to the old man and said: One ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris |
