"Vassal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in small Colonies at Shendi and elsewhere long before the Egyptian invasion (A.D. 1820-1822). They are still great trade carriers, and visit very distant districts. The Ababda of Egypt, numbering some 30,000, are governed by an hereditary "chief.'' Although nominally a vassal of the Khedive he pays no tribute. Indeed he is paid a subsidy, a portion of the road-dues, in return for his safeguarding travellers from Bedouin robbers. The sub-sheikhs are directly responsible to him. The Ababda of Nubia, reported by Joseph von Russegger, who visited ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... contract of marriage. I might save my library, etc., by assistance of friends, and bid my creditors defiance. But for this I would, in a court of honour, deserve to lose my spurs. No, if they permit me, I will be their vassal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself. And this from no reluctance to allow myself to be called the Insolvent, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes, and were no more free to act without her consent than were the kings the Roman Republic and Empire allowed to exist within their dominions free to act without the consent of the proconsuls. What the proconsul of Syria was to the little potentates ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, Ancient Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper Saxony—the King agreeing to adopt "the continental system," in other words, to be henceforth the vassal of the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected into a separate principality, styled "the Grand Duchy of Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of Saxony; with the exception, however, of some territories assigned ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... was rendered in return. The lord lived in his castle, and the peasantry worked his land and supported him, fighting his battles if the need arose. This condition of society was known as feudalism, and the feudal relations of lord and vassal came to be the prevailing governmental organization of the period. Feudalism was at best an organized anarchy, suited to rude and barbarous times, but so well was it adapted to existing conditions that it became the prevailing form of government, and continued as such until a better ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... scene. Helena's star paled; all her worshippers left her to worship the new sun. As she no longer possessed her former social position, and the savour of the court had vanished like the scent on a handkerchief, she was beaten in the fight. One single vassal remained faithful to her, a lecturer on ethics, who had hitherto not dared to push himself forward. His attentions were well received, for the severity of his ethics filled her with unlimited confidence. He wooed her so assiduously ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... children were beginning their conquest of the English Danelaw. The treaty of Clair-on-Epte in which France purchased peace by this cession of the coast was a close imitation of the Peace of Wedmore. Hrolf, like Guthrum, was baptized, received the king's daughter in marriage, and became his vassal for the territory which now took the name of "the Northman's land" or Normandy. But vassalage and the new faith sat lightly on the Dane. No such ties of blood and speech tended to unite the northman with the French among whom he settled along ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... compare him with his uncle, the first Bonaparte. They say: "The one accomplished the 18th Brumaire, the other the 2nd of December: they are two ambitious men." The first Bonaparte aimed to reconstruct the Empire of the West, to make Europe his vassal, to dominate the continent by his power, and to dazzle it by his grandeur; to take an arm-chair himself, and give footstools to the kings; to cause history to say: "Nimrod, Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon;" to be a ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... against the British; while at Herat, the very fons et origo mali, the sons of Shah Kamran have been expelled after their father's death, by the wily vizier Yar Mohammed, who has strengthened himself in his usurpation by becoming a voluntary vassal of Persia! Thus has the Shah acquired, without a blow, the city which became famous throughout the world by its resistance to his arms; and the preservation of which, as a bulwark against the designs of Russia, was the primary object ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... Montpensier, who was very young and self-sufficient, to present their demands to the king. Their plan was this, that the king should consent to the division of France into several large departments, over each of which, as a vassal prince, some distinguished nobleman should reign, collecting his own revenues and maintaining his own army. Each of these vassal nobles was to be bound, when required, to furnish a military contingent to their ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... at Sargyll until the baby should be delivered. King Ferdinand, then in the midst of another campaign against the Moors, could do nothing for his vassal just now. But glittering messengers came from Raymond Berenger, and from King Helmas, and from Queen Stultitia, each to discuss this and that possible alliance and aid by and by. Everybody was very friendly if rather vague. But Manuel for the present considered only Niafer ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... have had a great effect on modern discovery. His splendid account of the extent, wealth, and population of the Tartar territories filled every one with admiration. The possibility of bringing all those regions under the dominion of the church, and rendering the Grand Khan an obedient vassal to the holy chair, was for a long time a favorite topic among the enthusiastic missionaries of Christendom, and there were many saints-errant who undertook to effect the conversion of this ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... renown of the founder of Samaria had made the Assyrians consider all the kings of Israel as his descendants. One of the bas-reliefs of the same monument represents Jehu prostrating himself before Shalmaneser, as if acknowledging himself a vassal. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the Adams family still lives in the comfortable home where the three first and most famous members all celebrated their golden weddings. This broad-fronted and hospitable house, built in 1730 by Leonard Vassal, a West India planter, for his summer residence, with its library finished in panels of solid mahogany, was confiscated when its Royalist owner fled at the outbreak of the Revolution, and John Adams acquired the ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... enough to entertain any scheme, which included the humbling of his proud vassal Panglima Prang, who so lately had done him dishonour in his own capital. Moreover the Bendahara of Pahang was as astute as it is given to most men to be, and he saw that strife between the great Chiefs must, by weakening all, eventually strengthen ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... the treaty was so much parchment wasted. No Moslem prince who had procured his restoration by such means as Hasan had used, who had spilt Moslem blood with Christian weapons and ruined Moslem homes by the sacrilegious atrocities of "infidel" soldiers, and had bound himself the vassal of "idolatrous" Spain, could hope to keep his throne long. He was an object of horror and repulsion to the people upon whom he had brought this awful calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of the traitor to Islam that the story is told of a Moorish girl in the clutch of the soldiers, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... masterless, My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, My lord may grip my vassal lands, For there again maun I ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... thy master / and thou his vassal art, Some games to him I offer, / and dare he there take part, And comes he forth the victor, / so am I then his wife: And be it I that conquer, / then shall ye forfeit ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... true theory of the theocratical government; was always alive to his dependence on the Supreme King; took his own true place in the system, and aspired to no other; and conducted all his undertakings with reference to the Supreme Will. He constantly calls himself "the servant (or vassal) of Jehovah," and that, and no other, was the true place for the human king of Israel to fill. In thus limiting the description of David as "a man after God's own heart," it is not necessary for us to vindicate all his acts, or to uphold him as an immaculate character. ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... made ready for it, a few sentences may easily make or mark an era in life; and it is probable that if Miss Northrop had not in effect told young Strong he was quite good enough for her, he might have remained her contented vassal for years. Six months of being her nearest friend worked their result, to be sure; but the humility they were gnawing at was of mediaevally tough fibre, and of twice six years' growth. His depreciation of himself, however, had only meant sense of distance from her; therefore, his sense ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... meadows, the landscape, or the noble animals which are to be converted into gold for his use. He comes to the country for his health or for change of air, but goes back to town to spend the fruit of his vassal's labor. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement of the Pacha of Janina. Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal, the sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under the pretext that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices, the government of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this was not done in enmity, the province ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... 10, 1524, and addressed to the licentiates Acuna, Pedro Manuel, and Hernando de Barrientos, states that the King of Portugal has requested the removal of "one of our deputies, the astrologer Simon de Alcazaba, as he was formerly a vassal and is a native of that kingdom (Portugal)," as he is suspicious of him; and that another be appointed in his stead. Accordingly Carlos appoints one master Alcarez, although declaring that Alcazaba ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... abbot's great delight; nor had he been long at court before the Pope approved his worth, and restored him to his favour, granting him a great office, to wit, that of prior of the Hospital, whereof he made him knight. Which office he held for the rest of his life, being ever a friend and vassal of Holy Church and the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... strike against Earth, and you've buffered yourself with a jury-rigged economic trading system. But what happens when some really bright overlord decides to by-pass his local enemies? He'll drop fifty planet bombs out of your peaceful skies and collect your vassal worlds before they can rearm. You won't know about that, though. ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... her jewels. And I could see that as the new-made couple Came from the Minster, moving side by side Beneath one canopy, ever and anon She cast on him a vassal smile of love, Which Philip with a glance of some distaste, Or so methought, return'd. I may be wrong, sir. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the child or vassal of Mpende. Sandia and Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja. The country north of the mountains here in sight from the Zambesi is called Senga, and its inhabitants ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... a Guerin de Craon, qu'il avait fait foi et hommage de la Baronnie de Craon a Conan, duc de Bretange. Geoffroi fit assembler ses Barons, qui, selon l'ancienne forme observee en matiere feodale, firent le proces a Guerin, son vassal, et le condamnerent, quoiqu'il fut absent.—Et il est a remarquer a ce propos, que le Pape Innocent III., qui favourisait Jean sans-Terre, parcequ'en 1213 il avait soumis son royaume d'Angleterre au Saint Siege au devoir de mille marcs d'argent par an, ayant allegue aus Ambassadeurs ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... embracing France proper, Belgium, Holland, Northwestern Germany, Italy west of the Apennines as far south as Naples, besides large possessions about the head of the Adriatic. On all sides were allied, vassal, or dependent states. Several of the ancient thrones of Europe were occupied by Napoleon's relatives or favorite marshals. He himself was head of the kingdom of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were completely subject to his will. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the other strong fortress that was his. The king heard that Gorlois had garnished and made ready his castle, purposing to defend himself even against his lord. Partly to avenge himself upon the earl, and partly to be near his vassal's wife, the king arrayed a great host. He crossed the Severn, and coming before the castle where the earl lay, he sought to take it by storm. Finding that he might not speed, he sat down before the tower, and laid ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... such a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh? Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a Roman was to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be a Roman was to be a vassal or a slave. Change is the order of the universe, and nothing stands. We must go forward, or we must go backward. We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, or see the laurels already won turned to ashes upon our brow. We may sometimes slip; shadows may ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... these Men. They had a mind to Beef and how they got it. A passage of their Courage. Two of this Company taken into Court. The One out of favour. His End. The other out of Favour. And his lamentable Death. The King sends special Order concerning their good Usage. Mr. Vassal's prudence upon his Receit of Letters. The King bids him read his Letters. The King pleased to hear of Englands Victory over Holland. Private discourse ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... of possessing the bones of the giant Bucart, the tyrant of the Vivarias, who was slain by his vassal, Count de Cabillon. The Dominicans had the shin-bone and part of the knee-articulation, which, substantiated by the frescoes and inscriptions in their possession, showed him to be 22 1/2 feet high. They claimed to have an os frontis in the medical school ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in the country they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they halted nowhere, but hastened to reenter Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, where they might await reenforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side, after having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, who will be henceforth called Charles Martel (Hammer), that glorious name which he won by the great blow he dealt the Arabs, reentered his dominions of Aquitania and Vasconia, and applied himself ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... which he reared an immense pile, equal in size to the summit on which it stood: and there he sacrificed to the God of armies—[722][Greek: Ethue toi Stratioi Dii patrion thusian, epi orous hupselou koruphen meizona allen epititheis.] The pile was raised by his vassal princes: and the offerings, besides those customary, were wine, honey, oil, and every species of aromatics. The fire is said to have been perceived at the distance of near a thousand stadia. The Roman poet makes his hero choose a like situation for a temple ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... people of Anahuac, we summon you to the throne of Anahuac. Long may you live and justly may you rule, and may the glory be yours of beating back into the sea those foes who would destroy us. Hail to you, Guatemoc, Emperor of the Aztecs and of their vassal tribes.' And all the three hundred of the council of confirmation repeated in a voice of thunder, 'Hail ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... perfect accord between Italy and France on this topic? It is not a question whether France exercises a kind of protectorate over the Principality of Monaco, or whether the House of Savoy still regards the Prince of Monaco as its vassal, despite the circumstance that in 1860 Italy abandoned her rights over his little domain. France and Italy should be animated by one paramount desire—the extinction of these infamous gaming-tables; and, if France believes herself to possess the right of speaking ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... princes of the blood; to the Datus, or nobles of royal descent; or to the Orang Kayas, or wealthy vassals. All these obey and follow him to war, free of expense, when the king is sufficiently powerful to enforce it; but whenever the vassal feels himself strong enough to throw off the yoke, and to assert his independence, he sets up for himself. These vassals exact the same obedience from their slaves or villains, who pay the like deference only so long as they are compelled to observe and obey them. The property acquired by a slave ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... himself of the early legal constitution of England, he placed justice in the old local courts of the "hundred" and "shire," to which every freeman had access, and these courts he placed under the jurisdiction of the King alone. In Germany and France the vassal owned supreme fealty to his lord, against all foes, even the King himself. In England, the tenant from this time swore direct fealty to none ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... has come. The whole central army of which we are a part will advance. It will perhaps be known before night whether France is to remain a great nation or become the vassal of Germany. My children, if France ever had need for you to fight with all your hearts and souls, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dangerous inferences, utterly subversive of the rights of the princes and subjects dependent on the British nation in India, contrary to the principles of all just government, and highly dishonorable to that of Great Britain: namely, that the "Rajah of Benares was not a vassal or tributary prince, and that the deeds which passed between him and the board, upon the transfer of the zemindary in 1775, were not to be understood to bear the quality and force of a treaty upon optional conditions between equal ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... puzzled about it," said Oswald. "It seems unlikely that so good a man as Lord Lovel should corrupt the wife of a peasant, his vassal; and, especially, being so lately married to a lady with whom he was ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... martyr fulfils the calling of his dear soul. Be glad if you are not tried by such extremities. But although all the world ranged themselves in one line to tell you 'This is wrong,' be you your own faithful vassal and the ambassador of God— throw down the glove and answer 'This is right.' Do you think you are only declaring yourself? Perhaps in some dim way, like a child who delivers a message not fully understood, you are opening wider the straits of prejudice and preparing ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the narrator believed that the gaolers had dressed him thus as an insult. 'And I Stephen, the scribe, saw it with my eyes, and with my hands I buried him, with Prosper of Cicigliano, who had been his vassal; and no other retainers of the Colonna would have anything to do with the matter, out of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... must appear passing strange to those who have drawn their estimate of those years of Prince Henry's youth from Shakspeare, to find the real truth to be this. Not only was he not then in London the profligate debauchee, the reckless madcap, the creature of "vassal fear and base inclination," "the nearest and dearest of his father's foes;" not only was he acting valiantly in defence of his father's throne; but that very father's own pen is the instrument to bear chief testimony to his valour and noble merits at that ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... their reigns were a century apart. The first statue is that of Panmon, founder of his dynasty—a 40 line inscription relates the events of his reign, the protection of the Jews, etc. The second is a king who was a vassal of Tiglath-Pilezer, king of Assyria. The inscription describes wars of his father, his own relations with Assyria, his defeats and victories. It gives an account of his own reign and terminates by invoking the ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... have been glad to scare away these undesired strangers. Owing to this, a collision between the two forces occurred; but so crushing was the defeat of the Indians that they resigned themselves submissively to the Spaniards, and henceforth became a vassal tribe, lending assistance to their white masters in both civil ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... soldier fighting against the enemy to mean to kill his man. But by enemy in this passage we should probably understand rebel. The soldier spoken of is the instrument of the feudal lord bringing back to duty his rebellious vassal. In the Middle Ages, till the end of the fifteenth century, the notion of independent ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... obedience, are the qualities most esteemed by those illustrious personages on whom they are lavished; and I think that the rebel who sends in his adhesion on his own terms is sometimes treated with more courtesy and consideration than the stanch vassal whose fidelity remains unaffected ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Highness reach westward as far as Borneo, where, up to 25 years ago, the Sultanate of Brunei [62] was actually tributary (and now nominally so) to that of Sulu. The Sultan of Sulu is also feudal lord of two vassal Sultanates in Mindanao Island. There is, moreover, a half-caste branch of these people in the southern half of Palauan Island (Paragua) of a very subdued and peaceful nature, compared with the Sulu, nominally under the Sulu ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... see before you a kerai [vassal] of the Kokuo of Tokoyo. [1] My master, the King, commands me to greet you in his august name, and to place myself wholly at your disposal. He also bids me inform you that he augustly desires your presence at the palace. Be ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and Compiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to Joan in her cage. He came with two English ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... King, extended the authority of his family over some of the States of Turkestan. But, on the whole, the rulers of the Chow dynasty were not particularly distinguished, and one of them in the eighth century B.C. was weak enough to resign a portion of his sovereign rights to a powerful vassal, Siangkong, the Prince of Tsin, in consideration of his undertaking the defense of the frontier against the Tartars. At this period the authority of the central government passed under a cloud. The emperor's prerogative became the shadow of ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and equal to a full jury," wrote Benton. Webster said he would pardon almost anything when he saw true patriotism and sound American feeling, but he could not forgive the sacrifice of these to party. Clay characterised his language as that of an humble vassal to a proud and haughty lord, prostrating the American eagle before the British lion. In the course of his remarks, Clay also referred, in an incidental way, to the odious system of proscription practised in the State of New York, which, he alleged, Van Buren had introduced ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and who left all for His sake? Or the early Christians who, with one accord, sold their possessions, and gave the price to the poor?" Claude had before this displeased the knight, who now grew red with anger at the insolence of his vassal in thus answering him, and replied: "If they were not preachers for gain, they were at least stupid fellows." Hereupon a great murmur arose in the hall, but the aforesaid Zastrow is not silenced, and answered: "It is surprising, then, that the twelve stupid apostles performed more than ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... that foaming Strength Whose rebel forces wrestle still Thro' all his boundaried breadth and length Become a vassal to our will. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... During the past ten years the army has been drilled and equipped after the Prussian fashion, the finances placed on a tolerable footing, and practical independence of Turkey asserted. At the Vienna exhibition Roumania was the only one of the nominally-vassal states that did not display the star and crescent. Were the prince unrestrained by respect for Austrian and Prussian diplomacy, and free to lead his well-disciplined army of fifty thousand men into the field, he would give the signal for a general ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... though authentic deed of investiture enumerates eighty-three fiefs or manors which he held of the empire in Lombardy and Tuscany, from the Marquisate of Este to the county of Luni; but to these possessions must be added the lands which he enjoyed as the vassal of the Church, the ancient patrimony of Otbert (the terra Obertenga) in the counties of Arezzo, Pisa, and Lucca, and the marriage portion of his first wife, which, according to the various readings of the manuscripts, may be computed either at twenty or two hundred ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... with nut and beech—stands, or rather nods, an old castle in ruins. It seems to shake with every breeze that blows: but there it stands—and has stood—for some four centuries: once the terror of the vassal, and now ... the admiration of the traveller! The castle was, to my eye, of all castles which I had seen, the most elevated in its situation, and the most difficult of access. The clouds of heaven seemed to be resting upon its battlements. But what do I see ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... bearing the papal insignia. It was evident that it was not unexpected, for it found the priest with his effects packed and ready for a considerable journey. A hurried farewell to his mother, and the life-weary Jose, combining innocence and misery in exaggerated proportions, and still a vassal of Rome, set out for the port of Cadiz. There, in company with the Apostolic Delegate and Envoy Extraordinary to the Republic of Colombia, he embarked on the West Indian trader Sarnia, bound for Cartagena, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the whole it was a fair field for a great assembly of men on horseback and on foot. To southward the meadow rose, rolling away to the distant hills, whither the German host was already gone. The great lords, with their men-at-arms and squires, riding each in the midst of his vassal knights, went out thither to see such a sight as none had seen before, and ranged themselves by ranks around the field, so that there was room for all. And thither Gilbert went also with his man Dunstan, in the King's train, for he owed no service nor allegiance ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... for what they were compelled to disclaim. And, as one mode of effecting this, it was proposed that the king should become an emperor. Some, indeed, alleged that an emperor, but its very idea, as received in the Chancery of Europe, presupposes a king paramount over vassal or tributary kings. But it is a sufficient answer to say that an emperor is a prince, united in his own person the thrones of several distinct kingdoms; and in effect we adopt that view of the case in giving the title of imperial to the parliament, or common ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... is. I looked for injustice at Winston Aylett's hands. I read him truly in our only private interview. Insolent, vain, despotic—wedded to his dogmas, and intolerant of others' opinion, he disliked me because I refused to play the obedient vassal to his will and requirements; stood upright as one man should in the presence of a brother-mortal, instead of cringing at his lordship's footstool. But he was powerless to do more than annoy me without ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... I must obey: his art is of such power, It would control my dam's god, Setebos, And make a vassal of him. ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... man." Boniface, surprised alike at the extreme ugliness of Lord B.'s countenance, and the nature of the proposal, retreated from the room, and tumbled down stairs precipitately; having no doubt that this barbaric chief, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a tenant or vassal when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... territories of the Dukes of Burgundy. At this period appears the powerful but rash and cruel Charles the Bold. His life was spent in open or secret strife with Louis XI., king of France, whose suzerain, or nominal vassal, he was. The king was instrumental in stirring up rebellion in several cities of the Low Countries, which the duke put down with his ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... triumphant and imperial River, flushed with the tribute of these vassal streams! thou art thyself a tributary, and hastenest even in the pride of conquest to confess thine own vassalage! But no superior stream exults in the homage of thy servile waters; the Ocean, the eternal Ocean, alone comes forward ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Viceroy," he corrected. "I'm handing the Spear of State down to him, not up to him; he'll reign as my vassal, and, consequently, as vassal of the Company, and before long, he won't be much more at Krink, either. That'll take a little longer—there'll have to be military missions, and economic missions, and trade-agreements, and all ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... in Russia and Persia. All this fitted in with the Turkish programme: Germany had scarcely to inspire, only to encourage. That encouragement she gave, for, simultaneously she was penetrating Turkey as water penetrates a sponge, and reducing it to the position of a vassal state. To keep Turkey happy she allowed the Armenian massacres to run their deadly course, and only interfered with other massacres when they did not suit her purpose. But supposing (to suppose the impossible) that a peace to the European War was dictated ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... cheat my Rage, as he has abus'd my Love; But, Monster, though thou art below my Hand, I'm yet a Princess, and I can command. By Heaven, I'll try how much Rage can invent. Semiris, call Qlympia to me strait; She shall in Triumph with me stand and smile, To see thee by some Vassal bleed. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... not lie ahead of its guiding, but woe is me for the desert first to be traversed! Two vices are growing among us to dread proportions—indifference and hatred: the one will let poverty anguish at its door, the other will hound on the vassal against his lord. Papers like the "Fiery Cross," even though such a man as Westlake edit them, serve the cause of hatred; they preach, by implication at all events, the childish theory of the equality of men, and seek to make discontented a whole class which only needs regular employment on the old ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... gain possession of public land. The opposing forces were the South, which strove to perpetuate by this means a social system that was fundamentally aristocratic, and the North, which sought by the same means to foster its ideal of democracy. Though the South, with the aid of its economic vassal, the Northern capitalist class, was for some time able to check the land-hunger of the Northern democrats, it was never able entirely to secure the control which it desired, but was always faced ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... derivation of the word "feodal" from the Celtic "Fiudir"; but if so, it is curious that two words accidentally resembling each other conveyed ideas so closely alike; for a Celtic "Fiudir" was practically a tenant at the will of the lord; and it must be admitted that the word "vassal" is of Celtic origin. Charters which date from before the Norman invasion show that the land was regarded as the private property of the chiefs; frequently the wretched occupiers, instead of paying fixed rents, were liable to unlimited exactions, one of them being the right of the ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... to combat their enemies before the creation of a standing army put an end to the employment of vassals (there being no further need for them), and to all the power and authority of the seigneurs. There is thus no comparison between the title of vidame, which only marks a vassal, and the titles which by fief emanate from the King. Yet because the few Vidames who have been known were illustrious, the name has appeared grand, and for this reason was given to me, and afterwards by me ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... marvelous tact; he worked everything into his plays. He ground up the king and his vassal, the fool and the fop, the prince and the peasant, the black and the white, the pure and the impure, the simple and the profound, passions and characters, honor and dishonor,—everything within the sweep of his vision he ground up into paint and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... solution; and from out the Past There seems to shine as 'twere a beacon-fire: And all the land is lit with large desire Of lambent glory; all the quivering sea Is big with waves that wait the Morn's decree As I, thy vassal, wait thy beckoning smile Athwart the splendors ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... all the joyous banquet share, Nor e'er let Gothic grandeur dare, With scowling brow, to overbear, A vassal's right invading. Let Freedom's conscious sons disdain To crowd his fawning, timid train, Nor even own his haughty reign, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... rose against our rule. They killed many of us in the lower land, yes, they killed my brother and him to whom I was affianced. The rest of us fled north to this ancient fortress, hoping thence to escape by the river, the Zambesi. The Mambo, our vassal, gave us shelter here, but the tribes besieged the walls in thousands, and burnt all the boats so that we could not fly by the water. Many times we beat them back from the wall; the ditch was full of their dead, and at last they ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true; Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due, "O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside The liege lord of ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... that it was better to trust them to a great extent, and instead of going and staying with them to watch, we sent our compliments and gifts, and told them we expected they would remember their treaty and the consequences of any breach of faith. After all was over not a slave or vassal was missing, and though there were not wanting idle tongues let loose by the unlimited supply of strong drink, and brawlings, and determinations to take the poison of their own accord in order to prove their innocence, not one person has died as the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... proud ambition blinds, By faction still support it, Or where vile money taints the mind, They for convenience court it; But mighty Love, that scorns to show, Party should raise his glory; Swears he'll exalt a vassal true, Let it be Whig ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the matter of king or subject being purely an incidental one. He remembered the time when Andrew Melville, one of the Scotch ministers, had plucked him by his royal sleeve and called him "God's silly vassal" right to his face. So, when some one said "Synod" it brought the King up standing. He burst out: "If that is what you mean, if you want what the Scotch mean by their Synod and their Presbytery, then I tell you at once that I will have none of it. Presbytery agrees with monarchy very ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by numbers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last; and out of her fall grew revolutions whose influence to this hour is felt through every ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... dat in Teutchland—in mine coontry. It ist not ferry easy to explain it in a few vords, but der brincipal ding ist dat der vassal owes a serfice to hist lort. In de olten dimes dis serfice vast military, und dere ist someding of dat now. It ist de noples who owe der feudal serfice, brincipally, in mine coontry, and dey owes it to de kings ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... purple with the Alpine glow, Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow And rocked by tempests!—at the appointed hour Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a tower, With clang and clink of harness dost thou go To meet thy vassal torrents, that below Rush to receive thee and obey thy power. And now thou movest in triumphal march, A king among the rivers! On thy way A hundred towns await and welcome thee; Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch, Vineyards encircle thee with garlands gay, And fleets attend thy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... my liege," replied the prior. "The Holy Father recognises in your Grace, in every thought, word, and action, an obedient vassal of the Holy Church. But there are perverse counsellors, who obey the instinct of their wicked hearts, while they abuse the good nature and ductility of their monarch, and, under colour of serving his temporal ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Germany, and England. His revenues amounted to thirty-two millions sterling, which, at that time, was nearly equal to the whole revenues of all the monarchs of Europe. He is now circumscribed to a territory less than the smallest county in England, and is the vassal at will of a company of English merchants, who, with all their greatness, do not divide profits equal to one week of his former revenues! [end of ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... bird's gentle manners she often had prais'd, And begg'd from her lover a vassal so sweet; "To the honour of serving you he shall be rais'd," Said her lover, "whenever his skill ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... But the Emperor who succeeded Aurangzeb had none of their predecessors' greatness; and soon after Aurangzeb's death the Nizam of Hyderabad assumed independence, with the Nawab of the Carnatic as his vassal. ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... hanged himself for fear of falling into the hands of the Danes. Absalon gave chase, and the rout became complete. Of the five hundred ships only thirty-five escaped; all the rest were either sunk or taken. Duke Bugislav soon after became a vassal of Denmark, and of the Emperor's plots there was ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... at her farm-houses? He knew nothing of the rents, the whole matter was past and forgotten, and she had no claim now on him, and so every month she wrangled in the courts about this business. Item, she fought with Preslar of Buslar, because, being a feudal vassal of the Borks', she required him to kiss her hand, which he refused; then her dog having strayed into his house, she accused him of having stolen it. Item, she fought with the maid who acted as cook in the convent kitchen, and said she never got a morsel fit to eat. And the said maid (I forget her ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... of light and noise in the chase, and whom she had so recently cruelly insulted; but still it displeased her to see him devoting himself thus to a beautiful young girl, to whom he was undoubtedly making love at that very moment. She had regarded him as her own humble vassal—for she had not failed to read the passionate admiration in his eyes whenever they met her own—and could not brook his shaking off his allegiance thus; her slaves ought to live and die in her service, even though their fidelity were never rewarded by a single smile. She watched ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the future schemes of the Kalmuck Khan: and very probable it is—that, but for the war then raging, and the consequent prudence of conciliating a very important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from what would powerfully alienate him, even at that moment such measures would have been adopted as must for ever have intercepted the Kalmuck schemes. Slight as were the jealousies of the Imperial Court, they had not escaped the Machiavelian ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... spoke to her, and rose from her chair, looking at him with a haughtiness and indignation that he had never before known her to display. She was quite an altered being for that moment; and looked an angry princess insulted by a vassal. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... his death. With such a pledge of faith Here have we bought thee, Caesar; with his blood Seal we this treaty. Take the Pharian realm Sought by no bloodshed, take the rule of Nile, Take all that thou would'st give for Magnus' life: And hold him vassal worthy of thy camp To whom the fates against thy son-in-law Such power entrusted; nor hold thou the deed Lightly accomplished by the swordsman's stroke, And so the merit. Guest ancestral he Who was its victim; who, his sire ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... drinking also was expected to arouse interest, but if it went on in silence and gloom or amid the buzz of trivial conversation in different parts of the hall the unity of the hour was marred and the evening was voted dull—the lord himself then having no more honor than his meanest vassal. But the toast—no matter how it originated—remedied all this. A compliment and a proverb, a speech and a response, however rude, fixed the attention of every one at the table, and enabled the lord to retain the same leadership at the feast that he had won in the chase or in battle. He might ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... the promise of his youth and died prematurely, leaving his young son Antoine, the last hope of the family, to succeed to his grandfather. Count Antoine's overlord, the youthful count of Savoy, confided the education of his vassal and protege to a venerable prelate of Lausanne; but heeding nothing of his pious instructions the young ruler wasted his revenues in extravagant hospitality, lived gaily with his mistresses, and celebrated the weddings of his two sisters with famous feasting and generous ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... a job on which another man must work in order to live, the job-owner is the master, and the job-taker is his vassal. Necessarily, the vassal occupies a position of servility. When he asks for an opportunity to work, he is asking for an opportunity to live. When he takes a job he is binding his life and his conduct under terms prescribed ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... boast that Birney Holds not the tyrant's rod, Nor binds in chains and fetters, The image of his God; No vassal, at his bidding, Is doomed the lash to feel; No menial crouches near him, No Charley's[3] ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... appearance at the court of Siam; but the stout old chief, attended by trusty followers, boldly brought his own "hostage" thither; and Maha Mongkut, though secretly chafing, accepted the situation with a show of graciousness, and overlooked the absence of the younger vassal. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... goodly stripling then; At seventy years I so may say, That there were few, or boys or men, Who, in my dawning time of day, Of vassal or of knight's degree, Could vie in vanities with me; For I had strength—youth—gaiety, A port, not like to this ye see, But smooth, as all is rugged now; For Time, and Care, and War, have ploughed 190 My very soul from out my brow; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron |
