"Vassal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he was responsible in the sight of God, and never to have any other wife, any other child than the happiness and fortune of his brother. Therefore, he attached himself more closely than ever to the clerical profession. His merits, his learning, his quality of immediate vassal of the Bishop of Paris, threw the doors of the church wide open to him. At the age of twenty, by special dispensation of the Holy See, he was a priest, and served as the youngest of the chaplains of Notre-Dame the altar which is called, because of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Harald dwelt, and said he: 'Here is a sword which the King of England sendeth thee, bidding thee take it withal.' So the king took the grip of it. Then said the messenger: 'Thou hast taken the sword even as our king wished, and thou art therefore his sword taker and vassal.' ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... 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, Their ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... districts, as, for instance, in Gnesen, the Polish influence predominates in the towns, and reigns undisputed in the country. The middle class is exclusively German or Jewish; where these elements are lacking, there is none. The Polish vassal, emancipated by the enactment of 1810, is gradually ripening into an independent yeoman, and knows full well that he owes his freedom, not to his former Polish masters, but to Prussian legislation ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... 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 nation ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... 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
... moustachio and ran a spur on the ground for a little without answering, as one in a quandary, and then he said, "You're no vassal of mine, Baron" (as if he were half sorry for it), "but all you Glen Shira folk are well disposed to me and mine, and have good cause, though that Macnachtan fellow's a Papisher. What I had in my mind was that I might count on you taking a company of our fencible men, as ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... will not turn aside discipline. The smallest vassal in the fort shall know that. A day in the turret, with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, may put thee in better liking to ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, declaring that his own authority must be substituted for that of the lad's father, in spite of the latter being himself a reigning sovereign, and an ally rather than a vassal. ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... damoiselles, used to parade in full pomp and magnificence, receiving the homage of their dependants, and the applause of the townsmen. From hence, indeed, they might have looked down, in the proud spirit of disdain, upon their vassal subjects:—or, in case of rebellion, have planted their cannon and pulverised their habitations in a little hour. It is hardly possible to conceive a more magnificent situation ... but now, all is silence and solitude. The wild boar ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... for the hegemony of Central Europe, Austria. Her complete subjugation being unfeasible, she had to be shut up rigorously to her immediate dominions on the eastern side of Central Europe, in order to leave the path clear for Bismarck, by war or subterfuge, to absorb, under a system of nominally vassal States, the whole of the rest of Germany into the system ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... dangerous lover; but, again, he is urged, heaps of gold shine before him, how shall he turn from their tempting lustre? Is there not in yonder tower an oubliette that yawns for the disobedient vassal? He appeals to Arlette, she has no reply but tears; men at arms appear in the night, they knock at the skinner's door and demand his daughter, they promise fair in the name of their master; they ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sake, the fields and 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
... Hermes is the symbol of interest. He is the messenger, the inter-nuncio, in the low but expressive phrase, the go-between, to beguile or insult. And for the other visitors of Prometheus, the elementary powers, or spirits of the elements, 'Titanes pacati', [Greek: theoi huponomioi], vassal potentates, and their solicitations, the noblest interpretation will be given, if I repeat the lines of our ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... his loves, His eye still smiling, and his heart content. Then, hand in hand, Health, Sport, and Labour went. Nature supplied the wish she taught to crave. None prowl'd for prey, none watch'd to circumvent; To all an equal lot Heaven's bounty gave: No vassal fear'd his lord, no ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... it satisfies Mr. Irving. At last, the monks disappear, and Becket is left to confront his murderers. "I stand here in the transept, and Fitzurse rushes up to me. What's he say? Oh, 'I will not only touch but drag thee hence.' Then I say, 'Thou art my man, thou art my vassal. Away,' and ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... come, when Forests are rended; Come as the waves come, when Navies are stranded: Faster come, faster come, Faster and faster, Chief, vassal, page, and groom, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... convictions of his people, looked to Catholic France to give him security on his throne. Before the first half of the reign of Louis XIV had ended, it was the boast of the French that the King of England was vassal to their King, that the states of continental Europe had become mere pawns in the game of their Grand Monarch, and that France could be master of as much of the world as was really worth mastering. In 1679 ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... its three gates and its lofty Corinthian columns, stands outside of the city walls: a structure which has no other use or meaning than the expression of Imperial pride: thus the Roman conquerors adorn and approach their vassal-town. ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... "helpers of, not lords over, God's people," [Footnote: Cromwell to Dundass, letter cxlviii. Carlyle's Cromwell, iii. 72.] but the orthodox New Englander was the vassal of his priest. Winthrop was the ablest and the most enlightened magistrate the ecclesiastical party ever had, and he tells us that "I honoured a faithful minister in my heart and could have kissed his feet." [Footnote: Life and Letters of Winthrop, i. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... are still my vassal, my slave; and I alone rule here. Always have you rebelled and wanted to escape. Only my iron will has kept you here and made ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... generally too poor to fulfil this condition, and the habitants had to grind corn between stones, or in rude hand mills. The seigniors had the right of dispensing justice in certain cases, though it was one he very rarely exercised. As respects civil affairs, however, both lord and vassal were to all intents and purposes on the same footing, for they were equally ignored in ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... privations, and self-denial of poor Adrienne, she found her own advantages unexpectedly lessened to fifty-five; or, only a trifle more than one hundred per cent. But the colonel was firm, and, for once, her cupidity was compelled to succumb. The money was paid, and I became the vassal of Colonel Silky; a titular soldier, but a traveling trader, who never lost sight of the main chance either in his campaigns, his ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 of Leyden measuring 9.1 X 12.2 ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... scornful laugh), 'you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy, mother.' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... scruples of certain police agents (where the deuce will scruples next take up their abode?) or that these agents doubted the final result, and feared to lay their hand heedlessly upon possible victors. If Vassal, the Commissary of Police, who met us on the morning of the 4th, on the pavement of the Rue des Moulins, had wished, we might have been taken that day. He did not betray us. But these were exceptions. The pursuit of the police was none the less ardent ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... concluded, Cabral, continuing the exploration of the Malabar coast, arrived at Cochin, where the Rajah, a vassal of the Zamorin, hastened to conclude an alliance with the Portuguese, eagerly seizing this opportunity to declare himself independent. Although by this time his fleet was richly laden, Cabral made a visit to Cananore, where he entered into a treaty with the Rajah of the country; then, being impatient ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... mile an hour without whip or spur, and he's the young—. laird's frae this moment, if he likes to take him for a herezeld, [*This hard word is placed in the mouth of one of the aged tenants. In the old feudal tenures, the herezeld constituted the best horse or other animal in the vassal's lands, became the right of the superior. The only remnant of this custom is what is called the sasine, or a fee of certain estimated value, paid to the sheriff of the county, who gives possession to the vassals Of the Crown. ] as they ca'd it lang syne."—Bertram readily accepted ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... once China's vassal, by Japan, and that country's steadily tightening grip on Manchuria have doubtless quickened China's desire for military strength. Moreover, she wishes to grow strong enough to denounce the treaties by which opium is even now forced upon her against her will, and by which she is forced ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... had great trouble with his Scotch nobles, and many were the battles he fought with them, until at last he forced the Scottish king Balliol to declare himself his vassal, and he became the over-lord of Scotland. But there arose a brave Scot named William Wallace, who longed to see his country free from England, and he drove the English back, and again and again ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... different spirit were made by the mother of Boabdil, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, with the concurrence of the party which still remained faithful to him. It was thereby proposed that Mahomet Abdallah, otherwise called Boabdil, should hold his crown as vassal to the Castilian sovereigns, paying an annual tribute and releasing seventy Christian captives annually for five years; that he should, moreover, pay a large sum upon the spot for his ransom, and at the same time give freedom to four hundred Christians to be chosen by ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home and hearth, was the oath of vassal loyalty constraining him to stand at his post until his imperial master released him of his own accord. And at the very height of his political triumphs he wrote to his sovereign: "I have always regretted that my talents did ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the centre. All are Mohammedan. Kelat is the capital; its position commands all the caravan routes. Quetta, in the N., is a British stronghold and health resort. The Khan of Kelat is the ruler of the country and a vassal of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... their kinsmen and allies, and arrayed a grand army for the subjugation of their enemies. Before they took the field, as they could not leave the realm without a governor, they chose for that office Gautier, Count of Antwerp, a true knight and sage counsellor, and their very loyal ally and vassal, choosing him the rather, because, albeit he was a thorough master of the art of war, yet they deemed him less apt to support its hardships than for the conduct of affairs of a delicate nature. Him, therefore, they set in their place as ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... consul insists on its abandonment by England, as an article of the treaty of Amiens; but the answer of England is perfectly intelligible,—You have not adhered to that treaty in any instance whatever, but have gone on annexing Italian provinces to France. You have just now made a vassal of Switzerland, and to all our remonstrances on the subject you have answered with utter scorn. While you violate your stipulations, how can you expect that we shall perform ours? But another obstruction to the surrender of Malta has been produced by ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... without delay, to subdue the martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa was the only place of Armenia which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor; but the danger ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... arrogance, sent to Inca Yupanqui to tell him that he could see the power of the Chancas and the position they now held. They were not like him coming from the poverty stricken Cuzco, and if he did not repent the past and become a tributary and vassal to the Chancas; Asto-huaraca would dye his lance in an Inca's blood. But Inca Yupanqui was not terrified by the embassy. He answered in this way to the messenger. "Go back brother and say to Asto-huaraca, your Sinchi, ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... treaty crowned the royal submissiveness towards the powerful vassal. It provided that in case of Charles's failure to observe all the stipulated conditions, his own subjects would be justified in taking arms against him at the duke's orders. A similar clause occurs in ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... expense of the Wends. The policy of Absalon was continued on a still vaster scale by Valdemar II. (1202-1241), at a time when the German kingdom was too weak and distracted to intervene to save its seaboard; but the treachery of a vassal and the loss of one great battle sufficed to plunge this unwieldy, unsubstantial empire in the dust. (See VALDEMAR ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Majesty, who has so ready a perception of what is just, must admit the propriety of my resolution. Though I am not jealous of the glory and power which surrounds you, I cannot submit to the dishonour of being regarded as a vassal. Your Majesty governs the greatest part of Europe, but your dominion does not extend to the nation which I have been called to govern; my ambition is limited to the defence of Sweden. The effect produced upon the people by the invasion of which ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... (1904) 31,655. Flanders in the feudal period was a fief of the king of France—-the count of Flanders being the first of the twelve peers of France; but there was a small strip extending from Alost to the isles of Zeeland, designated Imperial Flanders, of which the count was the vassal of the Holy Roman emperor. Attached to the hotel de ville is a fine belfry of the 15th century, but unfortunately it was seriously damaged by fire in 1879. In the church of St Martin, dating from 1498 but unfinished, is a fine Rubens. The subject is St Roch, the patron saint of lepers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "everything is comprehended in the word king." Struck by his magnanimity, Alexander not only restored him to his dominions, but also considerably enlarged them; seeking by these means to retain him as an obedient and faithful vassal. ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... captives to death rendered the reducing of them to perpetual slavery an act of mercy on the part of the conqueror, which practice was not entirely exploded even in the fourteenth century, when Louis Hutin in a letter to Edward II. his vassal and ally, desired him to arrest his enemies, the Flemings, and make them slaves and serfs. (Mettre par deveres vous, si comme forfain a vous Sers et Esclaves a tous jours.) Rymer. Booty, however, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... made king in the place of Jehoiachin], and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow-tree [established Zedekiah on the throne, and gave him the means of prosperity as his vassal]. And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature [not a lofty cedar, but a low vine; that is, a tributary king], whose branches turned towards him [towards Nebuchadnezzar, as dependent upon him], and the roots thereof were under him [under Nebuchadnezzar, ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... 1030 made many raids in which he sacked Kanauj, Muttra, Somnath and many other places but without acquiring them as permanent possessions. Only the Panjab became a Moslim province. In 1150 the rulers of Ghor, a vassal principality near Herat, revolted against Ghazni and occupied its territory, whence the chieftain commonly called Muhammad of Ghor descended on India and subdued Hindustan as well as the Panjab (1175-1206). One of his slaves named ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... lovely bride! Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil dyed? Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest After so many hours of toil and quest, A famished pilgrim,—saved by miracle. Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest, Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... her successes on the field rose higher, it became ever more articulate: till this of "the SEYN-SOLLENDE Kaiser" put a crown on it. Justifiable, if the Reich with its Laws were a chattel, or rebellious vassal, of Austria; not justifiable otherwise. "Hear ye?" answered almost all the Reich (eight Kurfursts, with the one exception of Kur-Hanover: as we observed): "Our solemnly elected Kaiser, Karl VII., is a thing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and the vassal produced another effect,—that the leader was obliged to find sustenance for his followers, and to maintain them at his table, or give them some equivalent in order to their maintenance. It is plain from these principles, that this service on one hand, and this obligation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... prevented by the inevitable friction with the Germans, who always found some excuse for putting down any attempt at founding a strong Slavonic Empire. In this instance King Henry II intervened on behalf of Boleslav III, who had stooped to becoming a vassal of the German King, with the title of Duke. After the usual fighting, Boleslav III was restored to his country for a short period in which he distinguished himself by wholesale assassination of his opponents. He eventually died in Poland as prisoner of Boleslav ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... term is perhaps the following: Klepper-lehn was a feudal tenure, so termed among the old Germans, where the yearly due from the vassal to the lord was a klepper, or, in its stead, so many bushels of oats: and the word klepper, or kleopper, is explained by Haltaus. Glos. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... (May 30, 1579) of the result of his efforts to subdue other and neighboring islands. The city in Borneo which he attacked in the preceding year has been rebuilt, and the king of that land is ready to submit. The king of Jolo (Sulu) has become a vassal of Spain, and peace has been made with the people dwelling on the Rio Grande of Mindanao. Sande is still eager to set out for the conquest of the Moluccas and of China, and is doing all that he can to accumulate shipping and artillery for ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... a wife holds towards a concubine is the same as that of a lord to his vassal. The Emperor has twelve imperial concubines. The princes may have eight concubines. Officers of the highest class may have five mistresses. A Samurai may have two handmaids. All below this ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... for a while. "You are a fool, Adhelmar," said he, at last, "but you are a brave man, and you love as becomes a chevalier. It is a great pity that a flibbertigibbet wench with a tow-head should be the death of you. For my part, I am the King's vassal; I shall not break faith with him; but you are my guest and my kinsman. For that reason I am going to bed, and I shall sleep very soundly. It is likely I shall hear nothing of the night's doings,—ohime, no! not if you murder d'Andreghen in the court-yard!" ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... from Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah continued for eight years to play the part of a faithful vassal. At length, however, in the ninth year, he fancied he saw a way to independence. A young and enterprising monarch, Uaphris—the Apries of Herodotus—had recently mounted the Egyptian throne. If the alliance of this prince could be secured, there was, Zedekiah thought, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... is gratified, and you have seen your vassal in such of his trim array as accords with riding vestments; for robes of state and coronets are ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Rajah's supposed intrigues with the Nabob of Oude: this man was an actual prisoner of Mr. Hastings, and nothing else,—a mere vassal, as he says himself, in effect and substance, though not in name. Can any one believe or think that Mr. Hastings would not have received from the English Resident, or from some one of that tribe of English gentlemen and English military collectors ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 end of the sixth century, the Kingdom of Wessex was made more or less an entity, and the dark-haired, dark-eyed race who once held the country were in the position of a conquered and vassal people; for the times and the manners of those times well used by their conquerors, especially in the country of the Dorsaetas, where at the worst they were treated as useful slaves, and at the best the masters were ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... that crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no oak; the matter that clothes it would enjoy its stupid slumber; and when the forest monarch stands up in his sinewy, lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, be annihilated, and the whole structure would wither in a second to inorganic dust. So every gigantic fact in Nature is the index and vesture of a gigantic force. Everything which we call organization that spots the landscape of Nature is a revelation of secret ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... They permitted their outlying vassal nations to speak any language they chose and to worship whatever god they chose, so long as they recognized the sovereignty of Rome. When a conquering nation goes beyond that, and begins to suppress religions, languages, and customs, it begins at that very moment to sow ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... moment Pizarro' s chaplain, a Dominican friar, came forward, with Bible and crucifix in hand, and began to expound to him the Christian doctrines, ending by asking him to acknowledge himself a vassal of the king of Spain. The Inca, when by aid of the interpreter he had gained a glimpse of the priest's meaning, answered him with high indignation, and when the friar handed him the Bible as the authority for his words, he flung it angrily to the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... upon him did the men and women throng. And with their wives the townsmen at the windows stood hard by, And they wept in lamentation, their grief was risen so high. As with one mouth, together they spake with one accord: "God, what a noble vassal, an he had ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... fell on his knees before me not like a vassal but like a lover, and kissed my feet, and was beside himself for joy. And his sons, who were men of some forty summers, tall and warrior-like, kissed my hands and made ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... it, an eternity of circumstances. It is the nature of law to require obedience, but this demanded servitude; and the condition of an American, under the operation of it, was not that of a subject, but a vassal. Tyranny has often been established without law, and sometimes against it, but the history of mankind does not produce another instance, in which it has been established by law. It is an audacious outrage ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... 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 Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... broke up the power of feudalism. Lord and vassal together entered upon enterprises of danger and suffering, which were great levelers of class distinction. In the enthusiasm of the holy cause, many feudal lords disposed of all their worldly possessions, and became as poor as their vassals. ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The vitaxoe, or eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper Asia, [31] within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under other names, a lively image of the feudal system [32] which has since prevailed in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... answered gallantly, falling into the spirit which her words betokened, and bowing low. "Behold your vassal; command me ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... there will weary stranger halt To bless the sacred "bread and salt."[di][76] Alike must Wealth and Poverty Pass heedless and unheeded by, For Courtesy and Pity died With Hassan on the mountain side. His roof, that refuge unto men, Is Desolation's hungry den. The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour, 350 Since his turban was ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... and vain. William was very much his superior, not only in age and experience, but in talents and character, and in personal renown. Still, he approached the monarch with all the respectful observance due from a vassal to his sovereign, made known his plans, and asked for Philip's approbation and aid. He was willing, he said, in case that aid was afforded him, to hold his kingdom of England, as he had done the duchy of Normandy, as a dependency ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... jealousy and calumny, is exiled from the capital. Not content with this, his unrelenting enemies are now bent upon the extinction of his family. Strict search for his son—not yet grown—reveals the fact of his being secreted in a village school kept by one Genzo, a former vassal of Michizane. When orders are dispatched to the schoolmaster to deliver the head of the juvenile offender on a certain day, his first idea is to find a suitable substitute for it. He ponders over his school-list, scrutinizes with careful eyes all the boys, as they stroll into the class-room, ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... vigorous manner. Don Pedro was destitute of means as well as of men, and Edward was obliged to raise a large sum of money for the provisioning and paying of his troops. His vassals, the nobles and barons of his principality, were obliged to furnish the men, it being the custom in those times that each vassal should bring to his lord, in case of war, as many soldiers as could be spared from among his own tenants and retainers—some fifty, some one hundred, and some two hundred, or even more, according ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sagacious monarchs of the time, who, dreading the fiery and overbearing character of Richard, considering him as his natural rival, and feeling offended, moreover, at the dictatorial manner in which he, a vassal of France for his Continental domains, conducted himself towards his liege lord, endeavoured to strengthen his own party, and weaken that of Richard, by uniting the Crusading princes of inferior degree ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... it was a fatality, had so willed it that the vassal should have fallen into the same snares as had his lord, who was now called to judge him at ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... over from Tetoro, King of Pare, in Tahiti, to his vassal Mahua, chief of Tetuaroa,{*} saying, 'Get thee ready a great feast, for in ten days I send thee my daughter Laea to be wife to thy ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... nothing of them. Yet private individuals, when they were clever men like Urbain de la Mariniere, were sure by hook or by crook to arrange the vintage at the time that suited their private arrangements. The ancient connection, once of lord and vassal, now of landlord and tenant, between La Mariniere and La Joubardiere, had been hardly at all disturbed by the Revolution. Joubard was not the man to turn against the old friends of his family. Besides, he believed in the waning moon. So when Monsieur Urbain hit on the precise moment for his own ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... our Lord's relation to His disciples is given in the fact that He changes Simon's name. Jehovah, in the Old Testament, changes the names of Abraham and of Jacob. Babylonian kings in the Old Testament change the names of their vassal princes. Masters impose names on their slaves; and I suppose that even the marriage custom of the wife's assuming the name of the husband rests originally upon the same idea of absolute authority. That idea ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... sacrificed individual interests to the general good by making a desert of the whole country. Francis marked his impotent hatred by summoning the emperor before parliament by the simple name of Charles of Austria, as his vassal for the counties of Artois and Flanders. The charge was the infraction of the treaty of Cambray, the offence was laid as felony, to abide the judgment of the court of peers. On the expiration of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... and down in the crisp, dry snow and watched for Virginia to come, and as his mind leapt ahead he saw her enthroned in a mansion, with him as her faithful vassal—when he was not her lord and king. For the Huffs were proud, even now in their poverty, and Virginia was the proudest of them all; and in this, their first meeting, he must remember what she had ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... and there an instance of obstinate adherence to the exact letter of the agreement in regard to the nature of employment, although, as a general thing, the engage held himself ready to fulfil the behests of his bourgeois, as faithfully as ever did vassal those ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... cracks his whip, he winds his horn, He calls his vassal-crew; Lo! horse and hound, and sage and cell, All vanish ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... "Landlord, I think I could eat a morsel of a poor man;" which, with the extreme ugliness of his lordship's countenance, so terrified the landlord, that he fled from the room and tumbled down stairs, supposing the earl, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a vassal, or tenant when his appetite ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... them as slaves, or sell them in Castilla, or do what he pleased with them." Legazpi permitted him to see his wife and daughters, telling him "that he had been as watchful of their honor, as if he had kept them in his own house." Simaquio signified his desire "to be ... the friend and vassal of the king of Castilla, and to have perpetual peace and friendship, and that he would never be found lacking in it." To this Legazpi replied that it was necessary to treat with Tupas and the others jointly, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... thou Henceforth be king: the nation in thy name May issue edicts, champions may command The vassal multitudes of marshalled war, And the fierce charger shrink before the shouts, Lowered as if earth had opened at his feet, While thy mailed semblance rises toward the ranks, But God alone ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... 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
... 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 property and left the pitch-roofed cottage down the street. The home ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... himself, with his servant Abbas and the charvadar of whom they hired horses, set out at nightfall for the mountain citadel of Bala Bala. For there the great Salman Taki Khan, chieftain of the lower Lurs, otherwise known as the Father of Swords, was to celebrate as became a redoubtable vassal of a remote and youthful suzerain the coronation ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... prerogatives of the crown. After holding a meeting, they appointed the Duke of 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 liege ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... always flow from such causes. It is not thirty years ago since Mr Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochaber in Scotland, without any legal warrant whatever, not being what was then called a lord of regality, nor even a tenant in chief, but a vassal of the Duke of Argyll, and with out being so much as a justice of peace, used, notwithstanding, to exercise the highest criminal jurisdictions over his own people. He is said to have done so with ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... not say that the promised land may 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 ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... which belong to woman, it has not been accidental, not through ignorance on his part; but I believe that man has done this through calculation, actuated by a spirit of pride, a desire for domination which has made him degrade woman in her own eyes, and thereby tend to make her a mere vassal. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... family altar. If I were tied to 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 ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... straight up to the throne, and explained, in a low voice, the reason of her coming. The emperor received her kindly, and declared himself fortunate at finding a vassal so brave and so charming, and begged the princess to remain in attendance on ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... fortress on their way, belonging to a prince called Ekandono, who was vassal to the king of Saxuma. It was situate on the height of a rock, and defended by ten great bastions. A solid wall encompassed it, with a wide and deep ditch cut through the middle of the rock. Nothing but fearful precipices on every side; and the fortress approachable ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... the valiant dwarf: "Now spare my life. And might I be the vassal of any save one knight, to whom I swore an oath that I would own him as my lord, I'd serve you till my death." So spake the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... her at once. The Kaisar's consent I have, as he says, 'If we have one vassal who has common sense and honesty, let us make the most of him.' Ah! my son, I shall return to see ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thing take place? Shall the daughter of Ehrenstein become Jugendheit's vassal? Oh, how we have fallen! Where is the grand duke's pride we have heard so much about? Are we, then, ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... points in the situation which had arisen which ultimately concerned Great Britain. The first essential feature of British diplomacy, said Sir Edward, was that France should not be brought into such a condition in Europe that she became a species of vassal state to Germany. On the morning of July 31, therefore, he had informed the German Ambassador that if the efforts to maintain peace failed and France became involved Great Britain would be drawn ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... There is no room in middle Europe for two empires, and the House of Hapsburg must fall before the House of Hohenzollern. Austria, body and soul, must become part of the German Empire. Then further down, mark you. Roumania must become a vassal state or be conquered. Bulgaria is already ours. Turkey, with Constantinople, is pledged. Greece will either join us or be wiped out. Servia will be blotted from the map; probably also Montenegro. These countries which are painted in fainter red, ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was kindled, the Christian men of England went to Geneva and there met John Calvin, whose system of Christian thought set the soul of man forth, in his awful agony of sin, and in God's redemption for him—set him forth independent of kings and rulers, and in whose sight a king was but God's vassal. When Englishmen had to come in contact with John Calvin, the iron of his free spirit became steel, and then Puritanism was born, and at that time God raised the curtain that hung over a whole hemisphere, and gave that hemisphere to these free Teutonic ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... make that foaming Strength Whose rebel forces wrestle still Thro' all his boundaried breadth and length Become a vassal to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hold him! Now, then, I hasten to London—I arrange this annuity—see that the law tightens every cord of the compact; and when all is done, and this dangerous man fairly departed on his exile, I return to Madeline, and devote to her a life no longer the vassal of accident and the hour: but I have been taught caution. Secure as my own prudence may have made me from farther apprehension of Houseman, I will yet place myself wholly beyond his power: I will still consummate my former purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat; Madeline may not ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... took the tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed in—a common dog, but sword in hand.—Where is the loft window? It ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... have been informed from respectable authority that in Ireland, although dairies abound in many parts of the Island, the disease is entirely unknown. The reason seems obvious. The business of the dairy is conducted by women only. Were the meanest vassal among the men, employed there as a milker at a dairy, he would feel his ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... swear an oath of homage, saing, "I BECOME YOUR MAN for the lands which I hold to you, and I will be faithful to you against all men, saving only the service which I owe to my lord the King." On his side the lord solemnly promised to defend his tenant or vassal in the possession of his property, for which he was to perform some service to ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... 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 siege to those within. The ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... [Fr.], femme fille [Fr.]; camarista^; chef de cuisine, cordon bleu [Fr.], cook, scullion, Cinderella; potwalloper^; maid of all work, servant of all work; laundress, bedmaker^; journeyman, charwoman &c (worker) 690; bearer, chokra^, gyp (Cambridge), hamal^, scout (Oxford). serf, vassal, slave, negro, helot; bondsman, bondswoman^; bondslave^; ame damnee [Fr.], odalisque, ryot^, adscriptus gleboe [Lat.]; villian^, villein; beadsman^, bedesman^; sizar^; pensioner, pensionary^; client; dependant, dependent; hanger on, satellite; parasite &c (servility) 886; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... applying to himself the words of Jeremiah, "Behold, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest root out and destroy, and that thou mayest plant and build again," addressed Henry as a disobedient vassal. Already lying under the censures of the church, he had gone on to heap crime on crime; and therefore, a specific number of days being allowed him to repent and make his submission, at the expiration of this period of ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... towards a young and interesting sovereign, whose authority he had disregarded, whose fleet he had kidnapped, whose fair provinces he had pounced upon, that they determined to come to the aid of Abdul Medjid the First, Emperor of the Turks, and bring his rebellious vassal to reason. In this project the French nation was invited to join; but they refused the invitation, saying, that it was necessary for the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe that his Highness ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... believe little in them from others, and I should not forgive myself should I say to others more than I myself believe. 'Tis, doubtless, very remote from the present practice; for there never was so abject and servile prostitution of offers: life, soul, devotion, adoration, vassal, slave, and I cannot tell what, as now; all which expressions are so commonly and so indifferently posted to and fro by every one and to every one, that when they would profess a greater and more respectful inclination upon more just occasions, they have not wherewithal ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... he cultivated as under glasses strange and mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just at present. To show any forwardness in suggesting a modus vivendi to Grace would be to put an end to these exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the contemplation of the soft ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... just learnt, Cornwall is the country of my birth. I was the eldest of the only two surviving children of a large family; and, as heir to the baronetcy of the proud Mortons, was looked up to by lord and vassal as the future perpetuator of the family name. My brother had been designed for the army; but as this was a profession to which I had attached my inclinations, the point was waved in my favour, and at the age of eighteen ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... makes this curious distinction in proof of it. It was, he says, an optional vassalage: for, if he chose to get rid of our troops, he might do so and be free; if he had not a mind to do that, and found a benefit in it, then he was a vassal. But there is nothing less true. Here is a person who keeps a subsidiary body of your troops, which he is to pay for you; and in consequence of this Mr. Hastings maintains that he becomes a vassal. I shall not dispute whether vassalage is optional ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... conquests of those from the West he tried to prevent their approach to his dominions. But trade had been established; and the opium traffic had its birth, and the people were crazy to procure and smoke it. This was the cause of the wars between China and England and France, with the vassal question. In 1800 an edict of the emperor prohibited the importation of ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... between him and pope Innocent the third, in which he was so manifestly in the right; nor have suffered the insolence of that pope, and the power of the king of France, to have compelled him in the issue, basely to resign his crown into the hands of the former, and receive it again as a vassal; by means of which acknowledgment the pope afterwards claimed this kingdom as a tributary fief to be held of the papal chair; a claim which occasioned great uneasiness to many subsequent princes, and brought numberless ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... Providence. We can only say, Victrix causa diis placuit, and Cato must make the best of it. What is called poetical justice, that is, an exact subservience of human fortunes to moral laws, so that the actual becomes the liege vassal of the ideal, is so seldom seen in the events of real life that even the gentile world felt the need of a future state of rewards and punishments to make the scale of Divine justice even, and satisfy the cravings of the soul. Our sense of right, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell |
