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Abdicate   Listen
verb
Abdicate  v. t.  (past & past part. abdicated; pres. part. abdicating)  
1.
To surrender or relinquish, as sovereign power; to withdraw definitely from filling or exercising, as a high office, station, dignity; as, to abdicate the throne, the crown, the papacy. Note: The word abdicate was held to mean, in the case of James II., to abandon without a formal surrender. "The cross-bearers abdicated their service."
2.
To renounce; to relinquish; said of authority, a trust, duty, right, etc. "He abdicates all right to be his own governor." "The understanding abdicates its functions."
3.
To reject; to cast off. (Obs.)
4.
(Civil Law) To disclaim and expel from the family, as a father his child; to disown; to disinherit.
Synonyms: To give up; quit; vacate; relinquish; forsake; abandon; resign; renounce; desert. To Abdicate, Resign. Abdicate commonly expresses the act of a monarch in voluntary and formally yielding up sovereign authority; as, to abdicate the government. Resign is applied to the act of any person, high or low, who gives back an office or trust into the hands of him who conferred it. Thus, a minister resigns, a military officer resigns, a clerk resigns. The expression, "The king resigned his crown," sometimes occurs in our later literature, implying that he held it from his people. There are other senses of resign which are not here brought into view.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abdicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... you as far as you want to go, you decline to advance any further; even though you fully admit that the very same reasoning forbids you to stop where you are pleased to cry halt! But this is simply forcing your reason to abdicate in favour of your caprice. It is impossible to imagine that Hume, of all men in the world, could have rested satisfied with such an act of high-treason against the sovereignty of philosophy. We may rather conclude that the last word of the discussion, which he gives ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... nations, is a manifestation of vitality, its contrary (the stay-at-home attitude) is a sign of decadence. Peoples who rise, or who suddenly flourish again, are imperialistic; peoples who die are peoples who abdicate. Fascism is a doctrine which most adequately represents the tendencies, the state of mind of a people like the Italian people, which is rising again after many centuries of abandonment ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various

... was moody, contemplative, and desirous of solitude. Nothing that the Duke had said had shaken him. He was still sure of his pearl, and quite determined that he would wear it. Various thoughts were running through his brain. What if he were to abdicate the title and become a republican? He was inclined to think that he could not abdicate, but he was quite sure that no one could prevent him from going to America and calling himself Mr. Palliser. That ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... probably joined him. His march Londonward is given in the last article. From the 3rd of September all the royal decrees bear the significant words, "with the assent of our dearest cousin Henry Duke of Lancaster." He commenced his reign on the 29th of September in reality, when he forced Richard to abdicate; but officially, on the 1st of October, 1399. His first regnal act was to grant to himself all the "honours of descent" derived from his father; in other words, to revoke his own attainder. He was crowned on the 13th of October. A year later, November ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... guilty of the same extravagance in the language he publicly used, as Titus Ampius informs us; according to whom he said, "The republic is nothing but a name, without substance or reality. Sylla was an ignorant fellow to abdicate the dictatorship. Men ought to consider what is becoming when they talk with me, and look upon what I say as a law." To such a pitch of arrogance did he proceed, that when a soothsayer announced to him the unfavourable omen, that the entrails of a victim offered for sacrifice ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... contingency arises, it is for a moment difficult to get rid of our habitual associations, and to feel that we are not a mere partnership, dissolvable whether by mutual consent or on the demand of one or more of its members, but a nation, which can never abdicate its right, and can never surrender it while virtue enough is left in the people to make it worth retaining. It would seem to be the will of God that from time to time the manhood of nations, like that ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... else? Is it not true in Ireland? Has it not hitherto been true in the colonies? Why should you presume, that, in any country, a body duly constituted for any function, will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption would go against all governments in all modes. But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply, from a free assembly, has no foundation in nature. For first observe, that besides ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... most mighty David, Duke of Rothsay, Lieutenant of the Kingdom, and alter ego; in whose favour, indeed, the good King, wearied with the fatigues and troubles of sovereignty, will, I guess, be well disposed to abdicate. So long live our brave young ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... awake to thy renown, Require what 'tis our wealth to give, And comprehend and wear the crown Of thy despised prerogative! I, who in manhood's name at length With glad songs come to abdicate The gross regality of strength, Must yet in this thy praise abate, That, through thine erring humbleness And disregard of thy degree, Mainly, has man been so much less Than fits his fellowship with thee. High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow, The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword, The ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... to question Eliza's prior claim to Simon. She always sat beside him on the original settle against the lean-to. She would not abdicate the seat even when the ground grew hot and pleasant and she saw half her mates lying on the short sparse grass with their heels in the air, conning their books, or falling asleep over them, as the case might be. She felt it her prerogative to sit right there, with her chubby ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... a copious blood supply, yet the hardening of the arteries often deprives this organ of its necessary nourishment. Then the higher faculties begin to abdicate. If the hardening is extensive senile softening of the brain may take place. This is always due to a lack of pure blood. Sometimes the arteries are brittle enough to break. Baldness is another symptom of physical decay. The hair follicles are not properly nourished, for the arteries have become ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... sex, Christina settled the difficulty by appointing Charles her successor, and at the Riksdag of 1650 the Swedish crown was declared hereditary in Charles and his heirs male. In the summer of 1651 Christina was, with difficulty, persuaded to reconsider her resolution to abdicate, but three years later the nation had become convinced that her abdication was highly desirable, and the solemn act took place on the 6th of July 1654 at the castle of Upsala, in the presence of the estates and the great dignitaries of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... earnestly entreats the general government not to abdicate, by non user, the power vested in them of appropriating public money to great national objects of internal improvements, and declares the final result of the doctrine of abdicating powers arbitrarily designated as doubtful is but the degradation of the nation, the reducing itself ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... commonly in history by the name of Ptolemy Soter. His son is called Ptolemy Philadelphia. This son, though the youngest, was preferred to his brothers as heir to the throne on account of his being the son of the most favored and beloved of the monarch's wives. The determination of Soter to abdicate the throne himself arose from his wish to put this favorite son in secure possession of it before his death, in order to prevent the older brothers from disputing the succession. The coronation of Philadelphus was made one of the most magnificent ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... French people. When I mentioned their name, it seemed to produce no emotion, one way or the other. But if the marshals and grandees, who have hold of the wires of administration at the point where they are centralized, chose to make Napoleon III abdicate, (as they made Napoleon I. abdicate at Fontainebleau,) and to set up a king of the House of Orleans in his place, they could probably do it; and they might choose to do it, if, by such blunders as the Mexican expedition, he seemed to be placing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... voices, weak or strong, from gifted or from shallow men, urging upon the people their duties, and presenting to them the hopes of the life to come. Oh, what a power is this! How few realize its greatness, as a whole! What a power it is, even in its weaker forms, when the clergy abdicate their prerogatives and turn themselves into lecturers, or bury themselves in liturgies! But when they preach without egotism or vanity, scorning sensationalism and vulgarity and cant, and falling back on the great truths which save the world, then sacredness is added to dignity. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... measures adopted were heard in Parliament; the victims were eulogized as great martyrs of a sacred cause; and popular feeling ran so high that the Cabinet had to resign and the Metropolitan was forced to abdicate and die an exile in a monastery on the Island of Salamis. It was then that I first imbibed hatred against the ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... peoples could maintain a long or an equal contest with a nation of similar strength in which the government should be centralized. A people which should divide its sovereignty into fractional powers, in the presence of the great military monarchies of Europe, would, in my opinion, by that very act, abdicate its power, and perhaps its existence and its name. But such is the admirable position of the New World that man has no other enemy than himself; and that, in order to be happy and to be free, it suffices to seek the gifts of prosperity ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... the heels of this came a new story, that Queen Victoria was about to abdicate. This story stated that the Prince of Wales would not be crowned King while his mother lived, but would occupy ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 35, July 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... terror, and began to fear the ban of excommunication which lay upon him. This weakness alarmed the suspicions of his sons, terrible and wolf-like men, whom Matteo had hitherto controlled with bit and bridle. They therefore induced him to abdicate in 1322, and when in the same year he died, they buried his body in a secret place, lest it should be exhumed, and scattered to the winds in accordance with the Papal edict against him.[1] Galeazzo, his son, was less fortunate than Matteo, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position, it was harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. "If you please, Sir," she said, hurriedly, with an increasing colour and ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte

... but one route by which to flee a throne and not to die—abdication. On his return from Varennes, the king should have abdicated. The Revolution would have adopted his son, and have educated it in its own image. He did not abdicate—he consented to accept the pardon of his people; he swore to execute a constitution from which he had fled. He was a king in a state of amnesty. Europe beheld in him but a fugitive from his throne led back to his punishment, the nation but a ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... would be too much to claim that higher thought makes men unselfish, it at least cracks the hard shell in which their selfishness abides. If a man disciplines himself to abdicate his personal point of view in thinking about the world he lives in, it makes easier a similar attitude in relation ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... be reform. As for himself, said Louis Philippe, he had understood that this was only a pretext. Reform would be the entrance on power of the opposition, the entrance of the opposition would be war, would be the beginning of the end. Accordingly he had determined to abdicate as soon as the opposition assumed the reins of government; for he no longer would be himself supported by public opinion. The want of this support it was which finally caused him to abandon the throne without resistance. He could not have kept it without civil war. For this he ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... other hand the home need not abdicate all of its old-time functions as a social center. A few years ago in attending a rural community conference at the University of Illinois I was interested to hear a farm woman, a graduate of that university, ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... to the duties of government, and the power of the civil ministers and military chiefs grew accordingly. The case was like that of the Merovingian monarchs of France and the Mayors of the Palace, who in time succeeded to the throne. The mikados began to abdicate after short reigns, to shave off their hair to show that they renounced the world and its vanities, to become monks and spend the remainder of their days in the cloister. These short reigns helped the shoguns ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he deposes the ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... Gundebald gave that dignity at Ravenna, in March, 473, to Glycerius, a man of unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops for Gaul, rose against ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... during that performance; for the first time, I thought like you on this subject. I caught myself saying, while the tears streamed down my face, "If she is only happy, after all!" (But oh, that if!) It seemed amazing to abdicate a secure fortune, and such a power—power to do anything so excellently (putting its recognition by the public entirely out of account) for that fearful risk. God help us all! 'Tis a hard matter to judge rightly on any point whatever; and settled and firm as I had ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... uselessness of his effort. He proved the deafness of high places. The privileged have no hearing on the side next the disinherited. Is it their fault? Alas! no. It is their law. Forgive them! To be moved would be to abdicate. Of lords and princes expect nothing. He who is satisfied is inexorable. For those that have their fill the hungry do not exist. The happy ignore and isolate themselves. On the threshold of their ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... unarmed assembly, he fell immediately he incurred the resentment of Count Ricimer, one of the chief commanders of the barbarian troops who formed the military defence of Italy. At a distance from his Gothic allies, he was compelled to abdicate (October 16, 456), and Majorian was raised ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... being made, Ernst and several servants set off in attendance on Master Gresham for the capital city of the Netherlands. It had been for some time known that the Emperor—Charles the Fifth— purposed to abdicate the throne in favour of his son Philip the Second, now titular King of England, as well as of several small kingdoms and provinces. The day fixed was the 25th of October of the year 1555. In the magnificent hall of the residence of the Dukes of Brabant, the great ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... he begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances, the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... intemperate measures had brought on the church, but which it was, perhaps, not yet too late to rectify; and he concluded by admonishing her, that, if she valued her own fame, or the interests of her soul, she would compel this man of yesterday to abdicate the office, for which he had proved himself so incompetent, and return to ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... the world a great example of pride, of abnegation, of heroism, they are again giving to it a deeper lesson, a more valuable, a more efficacious one. They are proving that no misfortune counts, that nothing is lost while the soul does not abdicate. The powers of darkness will never prevail against the forces of light and love that are leading humanity towards the heights which victory is already making clear ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... from hence To some fair Phrygian or Maeonian town, If there some mortal have thy favour gain'd? Or, for that Menelaus in the field Hath vanquish'd Paris, and is willing yet That I, his bane, should to his home return; Here art thou found, to weave again thy wiles! Go then thyself! thy godship abdicate! Renounce Olympus! lavish here on him Thy pity and thy care! he may perchance Make thee his wife—at least his paramour! But thither go not I! foul shame it were Again to share his bed; the dames of Troy Will for a byword hold me; and e'en now ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at their sides, crowns on their heads ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... all property, land included, to popular control? Is it because the subject of slavery is an exciting topic, a theme for dangerous agitation, to be checked only by placing the subject beyond the power of Congress? The answer is, that Congress cannot abdicate its power on the ground of expediency. If it may give up one power, it may give up all. Nor can Congress delegate its power for the same reason. Trust power, from its very nature, cannot be delegated. To break down great principles, to set aside ancient usage, to abandon ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... names whereby to draw forth an army for diversion, but no man would answer. Report hereof being made to the Senate, the younger sort of the fathers grew so hot with the Consuls that they desired them to abdicate the magistracy, which they had not the ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... insanity in his genius appears certain—an insanity which has reappeared in his great-grandson and namesake who, subject to similar fits of loss of control, used to terrorise the populace by galloping furiously through village streets, and was finally forced to abdicate his right to the throne in March 1909, after the brutal murder of his valet. A case worth the study of ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... this story was invented to gratify Mucianus. Many consider that the policy of all the Flavian generals was rather to threaten the city than to attack it. They realized that Vitellius had lost the best cohorts of his Guards, and now that all his forces were cut off they expected he would abdicate. But this prospect was spoilt first by Sabinus' precipitation and then by his cowardice, for, after very rashly taking arms, he failed to defend against three cohorts of Guards the strongly fortified castle on the Capitol, which ought to have been impregnable even to a large army. However, ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary had sued for peace and agreed to cease fighting on what amounted to terms of unconditional surrender. At home, the German Government faced revolution; the Kaiser was about to abdicate and flee. On the 6th of November, the Berlin Government begged for an immediate armistice and five days later agreed to the stringent terms which the Allies presented. On the 11th of November, at eleven in the morning, firing ceased. Until the last ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... on these principles, was then in a position to remove one opponent after another. In the middle of the third century B.C. the greater part of the China of that time was already in the hands of Ch'in, and in 256 B.C. the last emperor of the Chou dynasty was compelled, in his complete impotence, to abdicate in favour ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... systematic and continuous misgovernment they created a gulf between the Slavs and themselves which nothing on earth can remove. Every Habsburg believes he has a "mission" to fulfil. The only mission left for Kaiser Karl is to abdicate and dissolve his empire into its component parts. There is no reason whatever why Austria should be saved for the sake of the degenerate ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... of humility, with which Christianity combated pagan pride. Hero-worship recoils step by step before the great formula, which Christianity ceases not to repeat to the Celtic races to sever them from their memories: There is none greater than God. Arthur allows himself to be persuaded to abdicate from his divinity, and ends by ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... shyp & gate them into the bote: he onely abode / and by chaunce was safe brought into the hauen / wherupon he chalengeth the vessell for his / where as the party defendant wyll lay against hym that he is abdicate or for- saken of his father / and so can nat by the law haue any parte of ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox

... wits and her knowledge vanished in one absorbing feeling. Even her fidelity vexed the unfaithful husband, who seemed to bid her do wrong by stigmatizing her virtue as insensibility. Augustine tried in vain to abdicate her reason, to yield to her husband's caprices and whims, to devote herself to the selfishness of his vanity. Her sacrifices bore no fruit. Perhaps they had both let the moment slip when souls may meet in comprehension. ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... felt myself at home on the ocean. My father had objected to my becoming a sailor, and had placed me in his counting-house. The sedentary life of a clerk was, however, not to my taste, and I was very glad to abdicate my seat on the high stool on every decent pretext. Still I had done my duty when there, and my conscience was at rest on that score. Misfortunes overtook my father's house; speculations were entered into which proved unsuccessful; and his long-established and ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... tyranness? And ere thou for my joy was given, How rough the road to that blest heaven! With what pangs I fore-expiated Thy cold outlawry from her head; How was I trampled and brought low, Because her virgin neck was so; How thralled beneath the jealous state She stood at point to abdicate; How sacrificed, before to me She sacrificed her pride and thee; How did she, struggling to abase Herself to do me strange, sweet grace, Enforce unwitting me to share Her throes and abjectness with her; Thence ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... to abdicate the Throne of England, endeavoured the Preservation of this his Kingdom of Ireland, where his faithful Subjects, (a Remnant of the various and manifold Wastes of foregoing Reigns) considering the thousand Disadvantages ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... popular cause, and Ivanov failed to reach the capital. The Tsar followed him, but was stopped at Pskov on the 14th. There on the 15th—the modern Ides of March—the modern Russian Tsar or Caesar was constrained to abdicate. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... yourselves in forsaking me, and since I no longer rule over brave men, I resign my power to the tyrant you prefer. Seven months I have ruled over you, prosperous in commerce, stainless in justice—victorious in the field:—I have shown you what Rome could be; and, since I abdicate the government ye gave me, when I am gone, strike for your own freedom! It matters nothing who is the chief of a brave and great people. Prove that Rome hath many a Rienzi, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... hand-breadths long, and having planted these upside down, they seated themselves on the points and delivered their message to the Great-Name Possessor, requiring him to declare whether or not he would abdicate in favour of the newly ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... the 9th December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there. Most of ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... sanctions the natural will is Stoical and pantheistic; it does not, like Indian and Platonic absolutism, seek to suspend the will in view of some supernatural destiny. Pantheism subordinates morally what it finds to be dependent in existence; its religion bids human reason and interest abdicate before cosmic forces, instead of standing out, like Buddhism and Christianity, for salvation, for spiritual extrication, from a world which they regard as delusive and fallen. The world of German absolutism, like the Stoic world, was not fallen. On the contrary, it was divinely inspired ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... has its drawbacks, which should make any feeling woman afraid to put her child out to nurse. Is she prepared to divide her mother's rights, or rather to abdicate them in favour of a stranger; to see her child loving another more than herself; to feel that the affection he retains for his own mother is a favour, while his love for his foster-mother is a duty; for is not some affection due where there has ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... have discussed there is another class of questions connected with war which present great difficulty. It is the right of men to abdicate their private judgment by entering into the military profession. In small nations this question is not of much importance, for in them wars are of very rare occurrence and are usually for self-defence. In a great ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does not mend his ways, I slowly emerge again into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... One must be a queen to know how to abdicate, and to descend with dignity from a lofty position which is never wholly lost. Those only who have an inner consciousness of being nothing in themselves, show regrets in falling, or struggle, murmuring, to return ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac

... own. These flowers, that round us spring, may be transplanted: and Odo made to bloom with amaranths and myrtles, like this Serenia. Before thy people act the things, thou here hast heard. Let no man weep, that thou may'st laugh; no man toil too hard, that thou may'st idle be. Abdicate thy throne: but still retain the scepter. None need a king; but many ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... efforts to suppress throughout Germany all agitating political ideas and movements, the news arrived of the revolution in Naples, July, 1820, effected by the Carbonari, by which the king was compelled to restore the constitution of 1813, or abdicate. Metternich lost no time in assembling the monarchs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with their principal ministers, to a conference or congress at Troppau, with a view of putting down the insurrection by armed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... smoke, and look friendly; till the King gathered strength for continuing his instructions to his Successor. All else was as if settled with him; this had still remained to do. This once done (finished, Monday night), why not abdicate altogether; and die disengaged, be it in a day or in a month, since that is now the one work left? Friedrich Wilhelm does ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... became James I of England, was baptised in the Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle in 1566, and in 1567, when he was only about thirteen months old, was crowned in the parish church at Stirling, his mother Queen Mary having been forced to abdicate in favour of her son. The great Puritan divine John Knox preached the Coronation sermon on that occasion, and the young king was educated until he was thirteen years of age by George Buchanan, the celebrated scholar and historian, in the castle, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their posterity forever. These gentlemen may value themselves as much as they please on their Whig principles; but I never desire to be thought a better Whig than ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... who brought the astounding news to the store that evening. Chester was Jethro's own candidate for senior Selectman! Jethro himself had said so, that he would be happy to abdicate in Chester's favor, and make it unanimous—Chester having been a candidate so ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Put the evidence before the people, and they'll see what they're up against. I personally don't care whether we have an Emperor or not, but at least we can force Hannikar IV to abdicate in favor ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett

... do nothing for pity—nothing for love? Will ye leave a foreign Parliament to mitigate—will ye leave a native Parliament, gained in your despite, to redress these miseries—will ye for ever abdicate the duty and the joy of making the poor comfortable, and the peasant attached and happy? Do—if so you prefer; but know that if you do, you are a doomed race. Once more, Aristocracy of Ireland, we warn and entreat you to consider ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... interfere in an arbitrary manner. On that occasion Khudadad, the late ruling khan, murdered his prime minister in a fit of passion, and upon investigation it was found that he had put to death also without trial a number of innocent subjects. The Viceroy of India permitted him to abdicate and gave him a generous allowance, which was much better treatment than the villain was entitled to. His son, Mir Mahmud, who succeeded him, turns out to be an excellent ruler. He is intelligent, conscientious, and has the welfare of his ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... sovereign is obliged to abdicate and to fly from his kingdom, that he arranges matters so that he shall not become a pauper when he arrives at the place of refuge. If he is not able to carry away anything more than a valise, he is much more likely to put his royal jewels into it than ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... time that she is ennobling by her dignity the objects of marriage, your wife will pretend that she ought to have her opinion and you yours. "In marrying," she will say, "a woman does not vow that she will abdicate the throne of reason. Are women then really slaves? Human laws can fetter the body; but the mind!—ah! God has placed it so near Himself that no human hand can ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... eloquence, and enthusiasm for ideal excellence, with vanity, inexperience of mankind, unsteadiness, and physical timidity. As these latter qualities became conspicuous, they eclipsed his virtues, and caused his benefits to be forgotten: he was compelled to abdicate his government, and retire into exile. After several years, some of which he passed in the prison of Avignon, Rienzi was brought back to Rome, with the title of senator, and under the command of the legate. It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... impulsively abdicated, on a rising taking place, and escaped with his family to this country. England and Belgium were unaffected by the outburst of revolution which convulsed Europe: the Emperor of Austria was forced to abdicate, and Metternich, like Guizot, became a fugitive; Prussia was shaken to her foundation, and throughout Germany the movement in favour of representative institutions made rapid headway; a National Assembly for Germany was constituted, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... destroy the whole case. If the position of the religious instructor is to be maintained only by his holding one thing as true, and teaching another thing as to be received,—in the name of the GOD of Truth, either let all teaching cease, or let the fraudulent instructor abdicate willingly his office, before the moral indignation of an as yet uncorrupted people thrust him ignominiously from his ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... were three children to inherit; though by the fundamental laws of the realm the next heir is immediately to succeed. Neither does it appear how a prince's abdication can make any other sort of vacancy in the throne, than would be caused by his death, since he cannot abdicate for his children (who claim their right of succession by act of parliament) otherwise than by his own consent in form to a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... put an end to that painful state of things, and that, finally, he regarded himself as the cause of the continual misunderstanding between the French Empire and Holland. It is curious that Louis thought he could abdicate the crown of Holland in favour of his son, as Napoleon only four years after wished to abdicate his crown in favour ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... illegitimate, that ultimately won the day, and handed on the Imperial regalia to its successors. After that, as indeed before that, for long centuries the government was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one infant Sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as soon as he approached man's estate. At one period, these Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a livelihood by selling their autographs! ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... of mind next time. It would be useless for the few short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign will very soon sit upon my inconstant throne. To-night I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in the modern annals of Royalty—I am politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... the Bowides, required the caliph to provide for the defence of the city. The helpless Mothi replied, that his arms, his revenues, and his provinces, had been torn from his hands, and that he was ready to abdicate a dignity which he was unable to support. The emir was inexorable; the furniture of the palace was sold; and the paltry price of forty thousand pieces of gold was instantly consumed in private luxury. But the apprehensions ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... rather, farmerizes, to translate Goethe's—word more literally) the spirit of natural objects, carrying his personifications to that point where the imaginative borders on the grotesque, is perhaps his strongest characteristic. His poetic faculty, putting on its Alemannic costume, seems to abdicate all ambition of moving in a higher sphere of society, but within the bounds it has chosen allows itself the utmost range of capricious enjoyment. In another pastoral, called "The Oatmeal Porridge," he takes the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Parliament any right to make laws which should be binding on a foreign queen, and in virtue of which, if she transgressed them, she could be punished with death? In fact these doubts were raised at the time.[259] Against them it was alleged that Mary, who had been forced to abdicate by her subjects and deprived of her dignity, could not be regarded any longer as a queen: while a deposed sovereign is bound by the laws of the land in which he resides. If she was still a queen, yet ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... see Mr. Hastings appearing in his own character again,—exercising the power he had pretended to abdicate, whilst the Nabob sinks and subsides under him. He becomes the supporter of Sudder ul Huk Khan, now that the infamy of the treatment he received could no longer be concealed from the Council. On the 1st of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... we but turn from braggart pride Our race to cheapen and defame? Before the world to wail, to chide, And weakness as with vaunting claim? Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate The steadfast spirit that made us great, And rail ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... me, but I have a great regard for my arms and legs. I have been a ruler of men, but I have trembled in my high estate, for I feared the populace. They could do everything except take my life. Therefore I made it a point to abdicate when the skies were clear. In such cases I set out on journeys from ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... Climax of prophetic revelation). Humility may have prevented him from always assuming the highest of these titles (Nuḳṭa). He knew that there was one whose fervent energy enabled him to fight for the Cause as he himself could not. He can hardly, I think, have gone so far as to 'abdicate' in favour of Ḳuddus, or as to affirm with Mirza Jani [Footnote: NH, p. 336.] that 'in this (the present) cycle the original "Point" was Ḥazrat-i-Ḳuddus.' He may, however, have sanctioned Muḥammad 'Ali's assumption of the title of ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... "Don't abdicate, dear aunt," replied Theodose. "God keep me from ever taking a step without you! You are the good genius of this family; I think only of the day when Thuillier will take his seat in the Chamber. If you let the house you will come into possession of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... took to drink and degradation, he had been the butt-end of riot and revolt at the Foundry. He had had his own way with Whiffler. He did not like to abdicate and give in to this new chap without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... in by favour, false forged deeds or wills." Incisae leges negliguntur, laws are made and not kept; or if put in execution, [342]they be some silly ones that are punished. As, put case it be fornication, the father will disinherit or abdicate his child, quite cashier him (out, villain, be gone, come no more in my sight); a poor man is miserably tormented with loss of his estate perhaps, goods, fortunes, good name, for ever disgraced, forsaken, and must do penance to the utmost; a mortal sin, and yet make the worst of it, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... own sake, she was holding on to her place, her uniqueness, refusing the possibility that another woman could serve him, as she had served him with pain, with suffering. She was like a queen who does not love her throne supremely but will not abdicate, who would rather fail in her appointed place than see another ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... have endowed southern France with a literary language rivalling the French; it appears to have given an impulse toward the unification of the dialects and subdialects of the langue d'oc. But the patoisants are numerous and powerful, and will not abdicate their right to continue to speak and write their local dialects in the face of the superiority of the Felibrige literature. Is it to be expected that Frenchmen in the south will hereafter know and use three languages ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... to believe that the words which he had heard had proceeded from the pulpit of the Barchester Cathedral. Was he again to be disturbed? Was his whole life to be shown up as a useless sham a second time? would he have to abdicate his precentorship, as he had his wardenship, and to give up chanting, as he had given up his twelve old bedesmen? And what if he did! Some other Jupiter, some other Mr Slope, would come and turn him out of St Cuthbert's. Surely he could not have ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... government can settle them. Now it is most important that this point should be fully cleared up. We certainly ought not to usurp functions which do not properly belong to us: but, on the other hand, we ought not to abdicate functions which do properly belong to us. I hardly know which is the greater pest to society, a paternal government, that is to say a prying, meddlesome government, which intrudes itself into every part ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... they plunged into the old story about English selfishness, and greed, and duplicity. But the climax related to Spain, and it amounted to this: they agreed that the Bourbons of the Spanish throne should be made to abdicate, and Bonaparte's relations set up as sovereigns instead ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... the successor be found and consents to make an attempt, the old unfortunate cannot be allowed to go free when that attempt is shown to be a failure. He has not absolutely given up the keys of his boxes, and no one will take them from him. Even a sovereign can abdicate; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds. The reader may therefore understand that the Duchess was asking her husband what place among the political rulers of the country had been offered to him by the last aspirant to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... territorial bills, deserves more than a passing allusion. Not only was it his last contribution to territorial legislation, but it suggested a far-reaching change in our colonial policy. It was the logical conclusion of popular sovereignty practically applied.[934] Congress was invited to abdicate all but the most meagre power in organizing new Territories. The task of framing an organic act for the government of a Territory was to be left to a convention chosen by adult male citizens who were in actual residence; but this organic ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... following year, which he spent at Nicomedia. At one time he was reported to be dead. He rallied, however, in the spring of 305, and showed himself in public, but greatly altered in appearance. Galerius soon after came to Nicomedia, and it is said that he persuaded Diocletian to abdicate. Others say that ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... both in theory and practice, being in its most plenary acceptation the SOVEREIGNTY, THE STATE ITSELF—it could not be produced by a less or inferior authority, much less by the will or the act of one who, with reference to civil and political rights, was himself a slave. The master might abdicate or abandon his interest or ownership in his property, but his act would be a mere abandonment. It seems to involve an absurdity to impute to it the investiture of rights which the sovereignty alone had power to impart. There is not perhaps a community in which slavery ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... was initiated in 1838. In 1839 Maria Christina, having lost her prestige, was obliged to abdicate; then followed the regency of the Duke de la Victoria Espartero, an insurrection in Barcelona, the Cortes of 1843, an attack on Madrid, and the fall of the regency, a period of seven years marked by a series ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... Emperor of Austria was the first person who informed the King of the Queen's conduct in Italy, that after the enquiry was set on foot a negotiation was entered into with the Queen, the basis of which was that she should abdicate the title of Queen, and that to this she had consented. He said that Brougham had acted a double part, for that he had acquiesced in the propriety of her acceding to those terms, and had promised that he would go over to her and confirm ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... infinitely above his younger competitor. If, unhappily, it were necessary to make a choice between the life-work of the one and the life-work of the other—making the world the poorer by the loss of Titian or Tintoretto—can it be doubted for a moment what the choice would be, even of those who abdicate when they are brought face to face with the mighty genius of ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... the notorious case of Mr. KING who, on being offered a peerage if he would desist from his criticisms of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and his Ministry, pointed out that other monarchs might abdicate, but that those who thought he would do so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various

... the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter, of womanhood. But, alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power, which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... monarchy in Prussia, as formerly in England and France, does not lend itself to peaceful transformation into a middle-class monarchy. It does not gracefully abdicate. In addition to personal prejudices, the princes are bound hand and foot by a whole civil, military, and parsonic bureaucracy—constituent parts of absolute monarchy which do not by any means desire to ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte produced without intention on his part, was the uprising against Spanish oppression in South America. When Napoleon compelled Ferdinand to abdicate the crown of Spain in favor of Joseph Bonaparte, the loyalty and spirit of the Spaniards were aroused, and the people refused to submit to a monarch imposed on them by treachery and supported by foreign bayonets. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... to abdicate the sort of authority in which his knowledge of Dutch had placed him, and when he protested that he had done nothing but act as interpreter, Ellen said, "Yes, but we couldn't have done anything without you," and this was the view that Mrs. Kenton took ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of Prussia, had a good deal of trouble with his Parliament, and in 1852 wanted to abdicate rather than rule in obedience to a parliamentary majority—it was the "conflict time" about funds for army reorganization. Bismarck dissuaded him from doing so by promising to become Minister and carry on the government, if need were, without a parliament and without ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... territories were left intact she would gladly join in one. He had need to be done with her in order to settle his affairs in Spain and elsewhere. But he feared Francis, and hoped that such a vacillating temporizer might abdicate in favor of some thoroughly trustworthy successor. Napoleon confessed to Bubna that he admired the Austrian troops; they were as good as his own, and under his leadership would be victorious. Champagny's demands, he admitted, were not final, but certain territories ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... been in their character, their mission civilization in its widest and loftiest sense. They have ruled not with the "Divine right of kings," but with the Divine right of queens, which is quite a different title, undisputed and secure to them, if they do not abdicate it of themselves or drag it into the field of controversy to be matched and measured against the Divine or human rights of kings. "The heaven of heavens is the Lord's, but the earth He has given to ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... ball, in 1792, and his son, Gustaf Adolf IV., came to the throne. His policy involved the nation in a war with the allies, and he lost Finland and Pomerania. He was so unpopular that he was compelled to abdicate, and his uncle, Charles XIII., was raised to the throne in 1809. He had no children, and the Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg was elected as his successor; but he was assassinated, and one of Napoleon's generals, Bernadotte, was chosen crown prince, and in 1818 he succeeded ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... in the strength of the dynastic principle in the country, he induced two incapable emperors to abdicate, himself took young Francis Joseph to be solemnly invested with his sovereignty at Santa Lucia, among Radetsky's riflemen, just before the battle of Novara, made the alliance with Russia which forced Hungary into submission, and having thus snatched ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... following into Anagni, with shouts of "Death to Pope Boniface! Long live the King of France!" The populace, dumbfounded, remained motionless. The pope, deserted by all, even by his own nephew, tried to touch the heart of Colonna himself, whose only answer was a summons to abdicate, and to surrender at discretion. "Those be hard words," said Boniface, and burst into tears. But this old man, seventy-five years of age, had a proud spirit, and a dignity worthy of his rank. "Betrayed, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... no exception. He lost his eldest son, the prince of Wales, Charles I. was beheaded, James II. was forced to abdicate, and the two Pretenders consummated the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... to compensate for all personal discomfort. So, in the sweetest of voices, and with a feigned humility of manner, she declared this little room to be even much too good for a poor widow whose misfortunes had compelled her to abdicate her ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... an hour she heard the low tones of conversation change to the brisk notes of leave-taking. Her heart began to beat with fear, but not the kind of fear that makes people run away; rather the kind that makes them abdicate all reason and fan their emotions into ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... statesman Stambulov, was immediately initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was constituted, at the head of ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... century is right; there is nothing more to be said, so far as concerns his title to renown. The creative achievement is far more precious and important than any possible criticism of it. This does not mean that in dealing with such a poet the critic is in duty bound to abdicate his lower function and to let his scruples melt away in the warm water of a friendly partisanship; it means only that he will be best occupied, speaking generally, in a conscientious attempt to see the man as he was, to "experience the savor of him", and to understand the national temperament ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... idealism is its law, are bid step down, while others more newly grounded in what belongs to literature possess the city; but seeing the shrines interdicted, the obliteration of ancient names, the heroes' statues thrown down, shall we learn what our predecessors never knew—to abdicate and abandon? I hear in the temples the ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... known as Jalapilla, situated about a couple of miles south of the city, is the spot where Maximilian resided for a brief period after the French army had deserted him. Here he held the famous council as to whether he should abdicate the Mexican throne or not. He was more than half inclined to do it. It was really the only common-sense course which was left open to him. Had he done so, he might have been living to-day. Vera Cruz was close at ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... abdicate? The human being was obviously susceptible to personality beyond all other things. And beauty moved that absurd creature preposterously. There, at least, the woman who chanced to be born with these superficial attractions, had a ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... absolutist party were deprived of power until they should be restored to it by the action of the new king, or by a revolution. The regency wished the new king to make a speedy choice between the two crowns; and it was anticipated that he would abdicate the Portuguese crown in favour of his seven-year-old daughter, Maria da Gloria. The absolutists on the other hand hoped that the king might by procrastination avoid the separation of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... of Russia is impatient, and the future King of France will never forgive us if we delay his return to Paris. Come, gentlemen, let us for the last time try the way of kindness and persuasion. Let us openly and honestly advise Napoleon to abdicate; he must make up his mind to ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... we shall find Montague still cruising in the Baltic at the time when Richard, from whom he derived his commission, will be forced to abdicate the protectorial dignity.[1] ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... finally the troops were forbidden to fire on the people, who, moreover—and nothing could have been more dangerous—were permitted to mingle with the troops. The riot succeeded without fighting and forced the king to abdicate. ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... was the first Doge to be crowned at the head of the Giants' Stairs; it was while his brother Agostino was Doge (1486-1501) that Venice acquired Cyprus, and its queen, Caterina Corner, visited this city to abdicate her throne. Cardinal Barbarigo, famous not only for his piety but for refusing to become Pope, was ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... or what right has it now, to abdicate any power conferred upon it as trustee of the States? What right had Congress then, or has it now, to shrink from the performance of a duty because the mere counters spread on the table may be swept off, when they have not answered the purposes for which they were placed? What is it to you, or ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... capricious, and feminine in her beauty, with forty nimble seamen in the forecastle, not that of the metal trough with an engine in the middle and mechanics sweating in her depths. When the Atlantic packet was compelled to abdicate, it was the beginning of the end. After all, her master was the fickle wind, for a slashing outward passage might be followed by weeks of beating home to the westward. Steadily forging ahead to the beat of her paddles or the thrash of her screw, the steamer even of that day was far more ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... to add," I said coldly, "that, since I have lived at 'Pastimes,' I have not had my own way at all. I have not wanted it. Mrs Fane's character is stronger than mine. I have been content to abdicate in her favour. If you asked her opinion of me, she would probably tell you that I was too pliable—too ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... crime and outrage and a general sense of comfort and satisfaction such as had been unknown in the previous history of the country. His Chief Secretary, Forster, however, had not been long in Ireland before he realized that this was the dream of a madman; and that the Government must either act or abdicate in favour of anarchy; but the Cabinet refused to support him. Before the end of the year the Government had practically abdicated, and the rule of the Land League was the only form of Government in force in a large part of the country. The name of the unfortunate Captain Boycott will be for ever ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... all questions relating to his realm and its people should be settled in parliaments in which the commons should be included. Thereafter no statute could be legally passed without their consent. In 1327 Parliament showed its power by forcing Edward II to abdicate in favor of his son, and thereby established the principle that the representatives of the nation might even go so far as to depose their ruler, should he show himself clearly unfit for his high duties. About this time Parliament began to meet in two distinct divisions, which later became the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... abdicate, desert, leave, resign, abjure, discontinue, quit, retire from, cast off, forego, recant, retract, cease, forsake, relinquish, surrender, cede, forswear, renounce, vacate, depart from, give up, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... and half seriously gives permission to them to take the law into their own hands. He really means, 'I will not be your tool, and if my conviction of "the Man's" innocence is to be of no account, you must punish Him; for I will not.' How far he meant to abdicate authority, and how far he was launching sarcasms, it is difficult to say. Throughout he is sarcastic, and thereby indicates his weakness, indemnifying himself for being thwarted by sneers which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... Austrian masters. They were supported by king Albert of Sardinia, but a strong Austrian army under old Radetzky marched into the valley of the Po, defeated the Sardinians near Custozza and Novara and forced Albert to abdicate in favour of his son, Victor Emanuel, who a few years later was to be the first king of a ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... conspired with Mary's hated religion to alienate entirely the love of her people. Her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered. The queen was suspected of having some guilty knowledge of the affair. She was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief. When did distress ever oblige a prince to abdicate his authority? And what effect will it have upon those who are made to believe themselves a people ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... taking his seat my father began: "Well now, daughter, you are the captain. Right here I abdicate. Anything you want done shall be done. What you say about things in the kitchen shall be law. I will furnish the raw materials—you and the girls must do the rest. We like to be bossed, don't we, Belle?" ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... done twenty times before. I thought some o' goin' to war with the wild niggers in the hills, an' avengin' my father-in-law's death, but I couldn't get my army more than three miles inland, so I had to give that up. Before three months had passed I wanted to abdicate the worst way. I wanted to tread a deck again, an' rove around with Bull McGinty. I wanted th' smell o' the open sea an' th' heave o' th' Dashin' Wave underfoot. I was tired o' breadfruit an' guavas an' cocoanuts ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... strenuous opposition to the measures of his favourite Ministers, and by their alliance with his son. So deeply was this feeling rooted in His Majesty's mind, that when a junction with that party seemed to be all but inevitable in March, 1778, he threatened to abdicate rather than be "trampled on by his enemies." Four years afterwards he explicitly repeated the same threat under the excitement of an adverse division; and it was supposed by those who were best acquainted with the firmness of his resolution that, had he been forced ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... Austria a free hand in her dealings with Servia was an open menace to Germany, a challenge which had to be accepted unless Germany was prepared to abdicate all her influence in the Near Orient and to allow Russia to override the legitimate claims and aspirations of her only firm ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... toil, we imagine that we achieve the utmost that is possible; while he, who, from a distance, looks on and commands, believes that he requires only the possible. O ye kings! I had not thought it could have galled me thus. It is so sweet to reign!—and to abdicate? I know not how my father could do ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... the occupants of the throne, there was a corresponding one which led the officers of the court to encourage and perhaps sometimes to compel the emperors to abdicate. These administrative officers, into whose hands the management of the government had fallen, were desirous to retain their authority, and therefore whenever an emperor exhibited signs of independence, ...
— Japan • David Murray

... and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world into himself. "All those things for which men plough, build, or sail, obey ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the greatest orator who triumphs in the splendor of his eloquence, while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly." You ask them to give up these pleasures and these triumphs, and to abdicate their thrones,—to become implements instead of ornaments, and to help to bring down the high price of labor in the present scarcity of laborers; and you offer them in exchange the right to wear trousers, to drive an omnibus, or to wear a policeman's uniform! Do you think that they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... herself to task. There was still much impulse in Mrs. Mansfield. To-night a subtlety in Charmian, which no man could have detected, set that impulse in a generous and warm blaze; filled her with a wish to abdicate in the child's favor, to make her the center of the evening's attention, the source of the evening's conversation; to show Heath that Charmian could be as interesting as herself and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... you of your self-distrust! You—reign? Come, come! You would be pale and wan; One of those timid, introspective kings Who are imprisoned lest they abdicate. ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... take hints and resent rebuffs, and so exile themselves from the world prematurely and haughtily. They abdicate the moment they see that any desire their discrowning. Abdication is grand, no doubt. But possession is more profitable. "A well-bred dog does not wait to be kicked out," says the old see-saw. But the well-bred dog thereby turns himself into the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... the moment when German military strength is on the point of acquiring that final superiority which, should the occasion arise, would force us to submit to humiliation or destruction, France suddenly refuses to abdicate, and shows, as Renan said: 'her eternal power of renaissance and resurrection.' The disgust of Germany can ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... to you in his library. I wish you to go." The last words not to seem to abdicate ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... known that the Kaiser would not object to his massacres of the Armenians and the strengthening of Turkish rule, for these only aided the purposes of Germany. But Abdul Hamid was forced to abdicate by a revolution of his own people before the Armenians were exterminated and before the Kaiser's dream was realized. By 1915, however, the "Great Assassin's" power was in the hands of Turks who held the same beliefs ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... Rudolph showing that the double infirmity inherent in the paternal lineage of Charles the Rash and in the maternal line of Joanna the Mad continues in the Austrians; a recent king of Prussia itself shutting himself up in his room as in a gaol, and obliged by fatality to abdicate the throne of his forefathers during his lifetime in favor of the next heir, must prove, as they have done, what is the result of braving the maledictions of the oracle of Delphi, and the catastrophes of the twins of OEdipus with such persistency, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... he had not stormed since the spring of 1778, when he had been asked to entrust the government to Lord Chatham. Like the child who refuses to play when he sees the game going against him, George threatened to abdicate the throne and go over to Hanover, leaving his son to get along with the Whig statesmen. But presently he took heart again, and began to resort to the same kind of political management which had served him so well in the earlier years of his reign. Among the Whig statesmen, the Marquis of Buckingham ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... of the monarchs of this dynasty [Page 125] calls for notice. The last emperor was compelled to abdicate; and thus, after a career of nearly three centuries bright with the light of genius and prolific of usages good and bad that set the fashion for after ages, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... of Rome is hanging over us; whether that of Sylla be in store for our despot, I know not. Should he, however, abdicate at the end of three years (Sylla's term), he will be hunted by the cries of a guilty conscience and by the curses of an outraged people, more intolerable than the pangs which tortured in his ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... forget in such a rapid survey of events that Bismarck could have had any serious opposition to face as he tramped through those eight years, from 1862 to 1870, with a kingdom on his back. It is easy to forget that King William himself wished to abdicate in those dark hours, when his people refused him their confidence, and called a halt upon his endeavors to strengthen the absolutely essential instrument for Prussia's development, the army; it is easy to forget that even the silent and seemingly imperturbable Moltke hesitated and wavered ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... Lincoln's questions as intrusions, and one day sent down word that he was too tired to see the President. Lincoln had told a friend that he would hold McClellan's stirrups for the sake of victory. But he could not abdicate in favor of McClellan or ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... dead soldier. He scowled in disgust, but she reached his hand under the table. She had given orders to Otaballo and then she had lain awake all night crying because he had carried them out. Her plan had been to get the kingdom all straightened out and at peace, and then to abdicate. But things had gone wrong and she told them a story of plots and counterplots, of strange men arrested at her very door with knives in their hands, of a bomb found in the palace, that held them breathless. Danbury fairly boiled ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett



Words linked to "Abdicate" :   abdicator, give up, abdication, renounce, resign, abdicable, vacate



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