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Fealty   /fˈiəlti/  /fˈilti/   Listen
Fealty

noun
1.
The loyalty that citizens owe to their country (or subjects to their sovereign).  Synonym: allegiance.






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"Fealty" Quotes from Famous Books



... of its lands; and beyond doubt with this very state of things was connected the fact that the Roman clientship was not personal, but that from the outset the client along with his clan entrusted himself for protection and fealty to the patron and his clan. This earliest form of Roman landholding serves to explain how there sprang from the great landlords in Rome a landed, and not an urban, nobility. As the pernicious institution ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... dead. The governing class determined to change all this. They insisted on the Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the native Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as laws and constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense popular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low, who carry on His government, are to be regarded not as public servants, but rather ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain

... primary. I will only add at present that, fully appreciating the magnitude of the subject and solicitous that the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the Republic may be bound together by inseparable ties of common interest, as well as of common fealty and attachment to the Union, I shall be disposed, so far as my own action is concerned, to follow the lights of the Constitution as expounded and illustrated by those whose opinions and expositions constitute the standard of my political faith in regard to the powers of the Federal ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce

... in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... nothing more Than to touch upon the matter Of high royalty, with a bearing As became him, boldly answered; For in truth his princely blood Moves, excites, inflames his ardour To attempt great things: he said, "In the restless realm of atoms Given to birds, that even one Should swear fealty as a vassal! I, reflecting upon this, Am consoled by my disasters, For, at least, if I obey, I obey through force: untrammelled, Free to act, I ne'er will own Any man on earth my master."— This, his usual theme of grief, Having roused him nigh to madness, ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... very valley; but, mind you, at the price of swearing fealty to the Republic of Genoa—this and the repayment of a beggarly thousand piastres which the Republic had advanced to pay the captain of the ship which brought them, and to buy food and clothing. Very generous ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... of the king's chief officers, who had aforetime been those of Bakhtzaman, and acquainted them with this; whereat they rejoiced with joy exceeding. Then they assembled together to Bakhtzaman, and made a covenant and handfast of fealty with him and fell upon the foe and slew him and seated King Bakhtzaman again on the throne of his kingship. And his affairs prospered and Allah amended his estate and restored to him His bounty, and he ruled his subjects justly and abode in the obedience of the Almighty. "On ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... that had thus taken place (he was then in the King William's court, because his father had given him as a hostage to our king's father, and so he lived here afterwards), he came to the king, and did such fealty as the king required at his hands; and so with his permission went to Scotland, with all the support that he could get of English and French, and deprived his uncle Dufenal of the kingdom, and was received as king. But the Scots afterwards ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... got married. They walked into a Registrar's office, with Gilbert and Ninian and Henry to bear them company, and made their declarations of fealty to each other. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... heroes of the Old Testament, their elevation above all low and individual interests,—above all, in the entire and vehement devotion of their total being to the service of their divine Master, I find a lesson of humility, a ground of humiliation, and a shaming, yet rousing, example of faith and fealty. But let me once be persuaded that all these heart-awakening utterances of human hearts—of men of like faculties and passions with myself, mourning, rejoicing, suffering, triumphing—are but as a Divina Commedia of a superhuman—O bear with me, if I say—Ventriloquist;—that the royal harper, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... saw him, we were led to esteem him highly. He was a great lover of Irish poetry and song, and had, perhaps, as fine a private collection of them as there is in this country. His heart was indeed wound up in the dear old land; but he did not forget in this love the allegiance and fealty he owed to the land of his adoption. His life is but another of the many examples of Irishmen, who, living at home under a government of giant's strength used as a giant would use it, would be called a rebel; but who under a government where all men are free and recognized becomes a worthy ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... their energies to convert the Indians to nominal Christianity. A fanatic adventurer by the name of Giles Gonzales, acquired much celebrity for his success in inducing the natives to accept the Christian faith and to acknowledge fealty to the king of Spain. He was at the head of one hundred steel-clad warriors. His mode of persuasion, though unique, was very potent. When he approached the seat of the chief of Nicaragua, he sent a courier to ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... Ftihahs.[FN275] So the King said, "O Kazi, draw up a legal instrument testifying of these Emirs that they are agreed to make King over them my daughter's husband Hasan." The Kazi wrote the act and made it binding on all men,[FN276] after they had sworn in a body the oath of fealty to Hasan. Then the King did likewise and bade him take his seat on the throne of kingship; whereupon they all arose and kissed King Hasan's hands and did homage to him, and swore lealty to him. And the new King dispensed justice among the people that day in fashion right royal, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... the purblind guides that lead Thy weary steps along this rugged course. Yet ... when I glance abroad, and track the source More selfish far, of other nations' deed, And mark their tortuous craft, their jealous greed, Their serpent-wisdom or mere soulless force, Homeward returns my vagrant fealty, Crying, "O England, shouldst thou one day fall, Shatter'd in ruins by some Titan foe, Justice were thenceforth weaker throughout all The world, and Truth less passionately free, And God the poorer ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... formally accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy, barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins of parchment known as the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... willing to accept the terms offered by Governor Hamilton, to those who would renounce the cause of the colonies and attach themselves to the interest of Great Britain; calling upon them to remember their fealty to their sovereign; assuring them of protection, if they would join his standard, and denouncing upon them, all the woes which spring from the uncurbed indulgence of savage vengeance, if they dared to resist, or fire one gun to the annoyance ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... overthrow and pursues it to its accomplishment? How paint the wretch who, under pretence of agreement in your opinions, worms himself into your secrets only to betray them; and who, upon the same altar with you, pledges his faith and fealty to the same principles, and then sells faith, and fealty, and principles, and you alike, for the unhallowed Judas guerdon? Of such, on his own confession was that distinguished upholder of the British crown and government, Mr. Devany. With an affrontery that did not ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... day of clansmen owning fealty to the Douglas was no hasty or local one. It was not, indeed, a "rising of the countryside," such as took place when the English were reported to be over the border, when the beacon fires were thrown west from Criffel to Screel, from Screel to Cairnharrow, and then tossed northward by ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... behalf, but Hector Darcy declared with unblushing effrontery that he voted in her favour, and held to his decision, in spite of all that the others could say. Peggy deplored his want of taste, yet felt a dreary sense of comfort in his fealty. It soothed the ache at her heart, and made her so unconsciously gentle in return that the major's hopes went up at ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... me for a Samuel once I reckon she has a hundred times; and that clock! It's a pictur'." He looked about the interior as he took the seat offered him at the table, and praised the details of the furnishing with a reference to the effect of each at home. In this he satisfied that obscure fealty of the husband who feels that such a connection of the absent wife with some actual experience of his is equivalent to their joint presence. It was not so much to praise Mrs. Braile's belongings to her as to propitiate the idea of Mrs. Reverdy that he ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... yet for me Ye break the bands of fealty. My life, my honour, and my cause, I tender free to Scotland's laws. Are these so weak as must require 'Fine aid of your misguided ire? Or if I suffer causeless wrong, Is then my selfish rage so strong, My sense of public weal so low, That, for mean vengeance on a foe, Those cords of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... on high, "you that were the king, we, who have taken your kingship, give you life, and liberty, and honour; see that in reward you serve us well, lest again you should lie upon that bed of stone. Do you swear fealty to us?" ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... cold and passionless, and wherein there was no shade of mercy, he went on: "And now, Henry Darby—for Lord and Knight you are no longer—you have suffered penalty for one crime, hear the judgment for the other: As false to your oath of fealty and traitor to your King, the sentence is that you be taken hence to Tyburn and there hanged by the neck until dead—and may the Lord Omnipotent have pity on ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... he spake he stretched his hands to the sky, "I call you to witness, ye everlasting fires of heaven, that with good right I now break my oath of fealty and reveal the secrets of my countrymen. Listen then, O King. All our hope has ever been in the help of Minerva. But from the day when Diomede and Ulysses dared, having bloody hands, to snatch her image from her holy place in Troy, her face was turned from us. Well do I remember how the ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... hand a golden rod, kissed him and blessed him. Upon which the Duke of York conducted him to the place assigned to him in right of his principality. The Estates swore "the same faith, loyalty, aid, assistance, and fealty" to the Prince, as they had sworn to his father. Much interest seems to have been excited by this creation of Henry of Monmouth as Prince of Wales. On the 3rd of November the "Commons pray that they may be entered on the record (p. 072) at ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... wrongfulness in aiding the plot ever occurred either to Bertram or Maude. In their eyes King Henry was no king at all, but a rebel, a usurper, and a murderer; and the true King, to whom alone their fealty was due, was (if Richard were dead) the boy unjustly confined in Windsor Castle. To work his freedom, therefore, was not a bad deed, but a good one; nor could it fairly be called ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... also the long list of feudal conditions to be observed, by the fulfilment of which the great barons and their followers held their lands. For their tenure was liable to homage and fealty, as understood in the feudal sense, to wardships and impediments to marriage, to fines for alienations, to what English legists call primer seizins, rents, reliefs, escheats, and, finally, forfeitures; this last was at all times more strictly observed in England than in any other feudal country, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... all its tyranny and all its faults and shortcomings, was based on the requirements of mutual help and service, and was maintained by the obligations of honour and fealty. Regular subordination, mutual obligation, social unity, were the pillars of the fabric. The whole state was one: the king represented the unity of the nation. The great barons held their estates from him, the minor nobles of the great barons, the gentry ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various

... negotiations it was arranged for such of the volunteers as desired to do so, to return to their homes. This left a force of thirty thousand men at Washington who accepted the new conditions, and declared fealty to Dru and the cause he represented. There was now requisitioned all the cars that were necessary to convey the army from Buffalo to New York, Philadelphia and Washington. A day was named when all other traffic was to be stopped, until the troops, equipment and supplies had been conveyed to ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... blood, upon the maiden's white palm; and then the voice of the priest, raised softly in blessing, fell upon his ear with a tender hope; and at the end he knelt down very gently, and kissed the Lady Mary's hand in token of fealty; and the thought of the Earl's jest about bidding him to kiss her on the lips came like a ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... is shown in a letter from Samuel Adams to Elbridge Gerry, that the members of the Cincinnati would acquire large tracts of western land under this arrangement, and, importing peasants from Germany, would grant farms to them on terms of military service and fealty, thus introducing into America the feudal system. In order to forestall any such movement, it was provided by Congress that in any new states formed out of the western territory no person holding a hereditary title should ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... "thou speakest like one who never saw a woman worthy the affection of a soldier. Believe me, couldst thou look upon those of Europe, to whom, after Heaven, we of the order of knighthood vow fealty and devotion, thou wouldst loathe for ever the poor sensual slaves who form thy haram. The beauty of our fair ones gives point to our spears and edge to our swords; their words are our law; and as soon will a lamp shed lustre when ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... the Polish King were crowned with St. Stephen's crown, it would be his own fault if he were not King of Hungary as long as he lived; but if the crown were not to be found, of course he could not receive it, and the fealty of the nobles would not be ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... shall achieve The dateless doom of Atreus' name, Or? kindling torch and joyful flame In sign of new-won liberty? Once more Orestes shall retrieve His father's wealth, and, throned on high, Shall hold the city's fealty. So mighty is the grasp whereby, Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw, Unseconded, a double ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... sole, And beaded breast and beetling jowl, And belly spread upon his thighs, And costly diamonds for eyes. As Chunder Sen approached and knelt To show the reverence he felt; Then beat his head upon the sod To prove his fealty to the god; And then by gestures signified The other sentiments inside; The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen, The wisest and the best of men, Half-fancied) grew by just a thought More narrow than it truly ought. Yet still that prince of devotees, Persistent upon bended ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... fatness of the earth may never cease! The Lord send thee abundance of corn and wine, And prosper continually all thing that is thine! The Lord make great people servants unto thee: And nations to do homage and fealty! And here, to succeed my place, mine heir I thee make, Of all things that I have possession to take. Lord and ruler be thou over thy brethren all, And bow to thee as head thy mother's children shall! Cursed be that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... force. What expression, or what degree of contempt is most appropriate for the citizens connected with these rebel efforts;—persons owing a true and faithful allegiance to the Government, yet aiding and abetting its public enemies, persons who while professing a common fealty with their fellow citizens, would welcome to their homes incendiaries, and incite them to murder and plunder those very fellow citizens, and compel them to suffer all the horrors of a cruel warfare! No epithets that ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... accomplishment. Like many who are less honest in confessing their faith, this girl professed allegiance to her Creator only so long as He appeared a coadjutor in her schemes; and, when thwarted and disappointed, fierce rebellion broke out in her heart, and annulled her oaths of fealty ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... life that lies In kisses sweet on sweeter altars laid. There were no heroes did not lovers ride, And pyramid high deeds upon new time; Nor tale for feast, or field, or chimney-side, And harps were dumb and song had ne'er a rhyme. Then live, proud heart, in happy fealty, Nor sigh thee more thy dear bonds to remove; Thou art not thrall to liege of mean degree, For all are kings who bear the lance of love; No wight so poor but may his tatters lose, And find his purple if his ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... are burdened with fealty, faith, reverence, more than they know what to do with; they stand like a hedge of sweet-peas, throwing out fluttering tendrils everywhere for something high and strong to climb by,—and when they find it, be it ever so rough in the bark, they catch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... Dear as was still the memory of that earthly love, the only real passion I had ever known, could ever know, it came no longer to my spirit as a substitute for religion. I had learned to separate my worship of God from my fealty to man, yet was this last not weakened, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... freedom from your allegiance to one man, in order to swear fealty to another. That your vows to me are irksome because they prevent your taking other vows to Cecil Cumberland. I pass over the moral aspect of the affair; that must rest with your own conscience," (it is astonishing ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... House of Vipont was a courtier, married a beauty, got the Garter again, and, for the first time, became the fashion. Fashion began to be a power. In the reign of James II. the House of Vipont again contrived to be a minor, who came of age just in time to take the oaths of fealty to William and Mary. In case of accidents, the House of Vipont kept on friendly terms with the exiled Stuarts, but it wrote no letters, and got into no scrapes. It was not, however, till the Government, under Sir Robert Walpole, established the constitutional ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thing, the particular fascination which Kathleen herself exercised over her followers, kept them her undeniable slaves, and not for the world would any of them have left her now that they had sworn fealty to her cause. So Kathleen had thought when she left the house that morning; but as she entered the school she knew that one girl, and that the girl whom she most cared for, had decided to choose the thorny path which led far from Kathleen ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... enter changed her plan and retracing her steps by King's windows smiled credulously on the representative of His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel, gold by bronze, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. On Ormond quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for the subsheriff's ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... recently made count of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had for defenders two heroes, one of the Church and the other of the Empire: the faith of the Christian and the fealty of the vassal; the conscientiousness of the priest and the honor of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... much of the rest for ever. Of Moliere—surely the next greatest name of Christendom—I could tell a very similar story; but in a little corner of a little essay these princes are too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass on. How often I have read "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," or "Redgauntlet," I have no means of guessing, having begun young. But it is either four or five times that I have read "The Egoist," and either five or six that I have read the "Vicomte ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... love, by a brightness of wit and good humour that charmed all, by an authority which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which increased the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty, and would have kept it, doubtless, if schemes greater and more important than a poor little boy's admission into orders had not ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... badly, he could not do so; he could not quarrel with the children, who had almost been born into his arms; nor even with the very walls, and trees, and grassy knolls with which he was so dearly intimate. He could not proclaim himself an enemy to Greshamsbury; and yet he felt that fealty to Mary required of him that, for the present, he should put on an ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... pride and ferocity of a Highland chief. In the Council Chamber at Edinburgh he had contracted the deep taint of treachery and corruption. After the Revolution he had, like too many of his fellow nobles, joined and betrayed every party in turn, had sworn fealty to William and Mary, and had plotted against them. To trace all the turns and doublings of his course, during the year 1689 and the earlier part of 1690, would be wearisome. [208] That course became somewhat less tortuous when the battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of my fondness for the sea; I was born by it. Not more surely do Savoyards pine for the mountains, or Cockneys for the sound of Bow bells, than those who are born within sight and sound of the ocean to return to it and renew their fealty. In dreams the children of the sea hear ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... life, and especially after he rose to leadership in his party, Lincoln was stirred to his depths by the sense of fealty to a lofty ideal; but throughout his entire life, he also accepted human nature as it is, and worked with keen, practical good sense to achieve results with the instruments at hand. It is impossible to conceive of a man farther removed from baseness, farther removed ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... sometimes these nobles carried rapine, pillage and slaughter into each other's territories, when the government had devolved upon the Franks; and the king took no notice of their misdeeds, as long as they observed a certain fealty towards him, and in some instances they put aside the monarch if he acted in such a manner as to trench upon what they considered their privileges. A third power soon began to assume a high authority, which consisted of the bishops, who had ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... produce the masterpieces was because they did not have money to buy brushes, paints and canvas. Neither did they have funds to purchase food to last until the thing was done; and it is difficult to produce great art on half-rations. So they formed the brotherhood, and one midnight swore eternal fealty. They were to draw lots: the lucky member was to paint and the other five were to support him for a month. He was to be supplied his painting outfit and to be absolutely free from all responsibility as to the bread-and-butter question for a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... Universe, the Eternal Laws ordained by God the Maker, in conforming to which lies victory and felicity, in departing from which lies, and forever must lie, sorrow and defeat, for each and all of the Posterity of Adam in every time and every place; he who has sworn fealty to these, and dare alone against the world assert these, and dare not with the whole world at his back deflect from these;—he, I know too well, is a rare man. Difficult to discover; not quite discoverable, I apprehend, by manoeuvring of ballot-boxes, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... advantage of her people that she should so remain. Her attachment to the cause of the Roy Outremer, her willing homage to him, would never have been given for so long a period of time, had not the people of the land found that it was to their own advancement and welfare thus to accord this homage and fealty. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... as much. Colonel Lord Montdidier sahib, I offer fealty! My blood be thine to spill in thy cause! Thy life on my head—thine honor on my life—thy way my way, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... the moral standard of his party by his own, had the unhappy audacity to declare publicly that there were friends enough of the South in his native State to prevent the march of any troops thence to sustain that Constitution to which he had sworn fealty in Heaven knows how many offices, the rewards of almost as many turnings of his political coat. There was one journal in New York which had the insolence to speak of President Davis and Mister Lincoln in the same paragraph. No wonder the "dirt-eaters" of the Carolinas could ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionally preached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and soon had the honour of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active part in academical ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to preach to the prince aforesaid. Next, as to the four bishops we have named who had been in Rome: Except Declan alone they were not in perfect agreement with Patrick. It is true that subsequently to this they did enter into a league of peace and harmonious actions with Patrick and paid him fealty. Ciaran, however, paid him all respect and reverence and was of one mind with him present or absent. Ailbe then, when he saw the kings and rulers of Ireland paying homage to Patrick and going out to meet him, came himself to Cashel, to wait on him and he also paid homage to ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous

... warrior, You must not grow so passionate in speeches.— Lords, sith that we are, by sufferance of heaven, Arriv'd and armed in this prince's right, Here for our country's cause swear we to him All homage, fealty, and forwardness; And for the open wrongs and injuries Edward hath done to us, his queen, and land, We come in arms to wreck it with the sword; That England's queen in peace may repossess Her dignities and honours; and withal We may ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... and I took them back to the convent, well enough pleased with the progress I had made, though I had only increased my passion. I was surer than ever that Armelline was born to exercise an irresistible sway over every man who owed fealty ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... of the race by their preposterous antics, artists endured the misery of velvet jackets; women tight-laced, men about town invented the crease in the trouser-leg to keep which in order alone demands the fealty of a lifetime. In summer men consented to be roasted alive on the London pavement rather than part with the frock-coat in which their depraved conception of beauty delighted. In those days one imagines people were only comfortable when once safely in bed, and that was never for long at a ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood

... espoused the cause of the Southern Confederacy, and lost his wonderful prestige and influence in California, as well as a fortune, in his fealty to his native state, Mississippi. In 1866 he was created Duke of Sonora by Maximilian, in the furtherance of his visionary scheme of western ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... Reyer's opera is drawn from the same source as that of 'Goetterdaemmerung.' Hilda, the youthful sister of Gunther, the king of the Burgundians, loves the hero Sigurd, and at the instigation of her nurse gives him a magic potion, which brings him to her feet. Sigurd, Gunther, and Hagen then swear fealty to each other and start for Iceland, where Brunehild lies asleep upon a lofty rock, surrounded by a circle of fire. There Sigurd, to earn the hand of Hilda, passes through the flames and wins Brunehild ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... you talk. And you consider then that if a husband be not master of his wife's heart, he has no right to her fealty; if a wife ceases to love, she may cease to be true. Is that your doctrine on this matter, as a minister of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Reformers have been at least partially satisfied, had succeeded to a Democratic administration, can it be doubted that he would have made a similar change in favor of the Republicans? Is not every President bound by fealty to his party, consequently by a regard for his honor and reputation, to perpetuate a system which the true aim of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... higher respects they must reject and condemn—in which, too, they shall not fear that snares are being laid for them, to entangle them unawares in admiration for ought which is inconsistent with their faith and fealty to their ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown

... beast;' and for the knight? why, it would be easy to convert the wanderer I descried on the summit of Mount Washington, into a lover and deliverer, whose 'allegiance and fast fealty' had bound him to my trail. But, alas! there is no leisure in this material age for fancy-weaving; and all our way was as bare of tradition or fable as if no human footstep had impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near Davis's, crossing the way, which we ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... groschens in such Manhattan dirt as he could conveniently transport upon his person. Thus he enabled his aristocratic descendants to wax so fat on "unearned increment" that some of them must forswear their fealty to Uncle Sam and seek in Yewrup a society whose rough edges will not scratch the varnish off their culchah. Mrs. Bradley-Martin does not exactly "look every inch a queen," her horizontal having developed at the expense of her perpendicular, suggesting the rather robust physique of her father's ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Israel could never determine. Very probably, though, the latter was the case, inasmuch as some vague shadowy report of Israel not being an Englishman, had, a little previous to his interview with the king, been communicated to several of the inferior gardeners. Without any impeachment of Israel's fealty to his country, it must still be narrated, that from this his familiar audience with George the Third, he went away with very favorable views of that monarch. Israel now thought that it could not be the warm heart of the king, but the cold heads of his lords in council, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... counsellor and friend, and committed into his hands the care of the realm and of the three royal children, until Havelok should be of age to be knighted and rule the land himself. King Birkabeyn felt that such a charge was too great a temptation for any man unbound by oaths of fealty and honour, and although he did not distrust his friend, ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... Standish and his family. Henry replied briefly to the man's questions, but two hours later a scout came in and reported the grim sight that he had seen in the Standish home. No one could ask for further proof of the fealty of the five, who sought a little sleep, but ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... course. And the constituted authorities are doubtless sincere and single-minded in their endeavors to advance and defend the national honour, particularly those constituted authorities that hold their place of authority on grounds of fealty; since the national prestige in such a case coalesces with the prestige of the nation's ruler in much the same degree in which the national sovereignty devolves upon the person of its ruler. In so defending or advancing the national prestige, such a dynastic or autocratic ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... Henry in a long speech announced to the assembled clergy the result of the conclave of the previous day. He extolled the good government of the late king who before his death had caused fealty to be sworn to his daughter, the empress. The delay of the empress in coming to England (he said) had been the cause of Stephen's election. The latter had forfeited all claim to the crown by his bad government, and God's judgment had been pronounced against him. Lest therefore, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... in his fealty to the puppy. Sacrificing his own regal dignity, he would romp with her, at times when it would have been far more comfortable to drowse. He bore, without murmur, her growling assaults on his food; amusedly standing aside while she ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... cynical approval and, with a sudden turn, executed a deep bow to the Pearl, one hand on the heart, expressing gallantry, fealty, the humblest admiration; all these sincere and yet permeated with a subtle ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... necessaries of life, and the temptation came in the shape of presents from that man, I could not resist—I was too weak. I listened to his insidious persuasion, and tried to make myself believe that I was guiltless, as I owned no fealty to King George. But I am justly punished, and never again will I allow myself to be made an accessory to ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... a finger if it had not to be!" He stood a moment, his flaxen head bent, lost in troubled thought. Quite suddenly he turned upon Nicanor, who, lynx-eyed, watched. "See then; I owe fealty to my lord, but thou art my friend, and this thing I cannot do. We have starved together and fought together, thou and I! The gods judge me, but thou art my friend! I have money—not much, but more than nothing. Take thou ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... with insubordination or lack of discipline. On the contrary, they were rigorously governed by an iron hand and by the unwritten "code of honor." A pirate entered upon "the account" (a term meaning piracy) by taking the oath of fealty to the cause, abjuring all social ties, pledging himself never to desert his ship or defraud his comrades or steal anything belonging to his fellows. Having thus bound him by an oath firm and dreadful in its malediction upon any violation of its terms, the organization ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... Eleuths fought stubbornly, but they were too greatly outnumbered, and in the end were put to flight, after having inflicted severe loss on their foes, an uncle of the emperor being among the slain. Galdan now, finding that the war was going against him, offered fealty and obedience to the emperor, which Kanghi, glad to withdraw his army from its difficult position in the desert, accepted, sending the chieftain a letter of forgiveness. Thus ended ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... dismiss the past so far as Amy was concerned, the orphan girl in his own home to whom he had promised fealty. What would be his feeling toward another man who had promised so much and had proved fickle? What would the inmates of his own home say? What would even his gentle mother, of whom he had made a confidante, think of him? Would not a look of pain, or, even worse, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... charity, and particularly the instruction of youth and ignorant persons in the Christian religion.'" It cannot be denied, whatever the original purpose of the Society, that it not only checked the onward march of Protestantism, but it even restored many provinces and communities to their fealty to the Mother Church. How well the last clause of the admonition above quoted was carried out will be seen when we remember that the Jesuits originated the most successful educational system of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... he said at last, when she had reminded him of her question. "Without cause I had made no vow. Canst thou not trust thy knight? And of my fealty, so solemnly sworn, Caterina knoweth naught. It is for me and thee alone—and least of all for the ear of Venice. But thou knowest—if it were no more than that the way of a crown be not easy for a young and guileless maid—some one of her own should be with her in ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... understood to be acknowledging a feudal dependence. When the kingdom was won, however, he found himself unwilling to carry out such an arrangement, whether tacitly or openly promised. To Gregory VII's demand for his fealty he returned a respectful but firm refusal. The sovereignty of England was not to be diminished; he would hold the kingdom as freely as his predecessors had done. Peter's pence, which it belonged of right to England to pay, should be regularly collected and sent to Rome, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... souvenir of the past and every present interest combine to sanction this union. The Church consecrates it at Rheims by a sort of eighth sacrament, accompanied with legends and miracles; he is the anointed of God.[1116] The nobles, through an old instinct of military fealty, consider themselves his bodyguard, and down to August 10, 1789, rush forward to die for him on his staircase; he is their general by birth. The people, down to 1789, regard him as the redresser of abuses, the guardian of the right, the protector of the weak, the great almoner ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are, in fact, loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... most vigorous life. Through it man is transformed into a reasoning beast, whose brutal cleverness has a fascination for weak minds."[243-1] The religion of beauty failed in that it addressed the esthetic emotions, not the reasoning power. Art does not promote the good; it owes no fealty to either utility or ethics: in itself, it must be, in the negative sense of the words, at once useless and immoral. "Nature is not its standard, nor is truth its chief end."[244-1] Its spirit is repose, "the perfect form in perfect rest;" whereas the spirit of religion is action because of ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... Congressional district of his State. His tenure of office runs for but two years, at the expiration of which he must submit to his constituents not a record of constructive statesmanship, based upon his fealty to measures of national or international importance, but rather one alleging the skill with which he has protected the peculiar interests of his district. That he has sought to obtain a new customs house, has opposed a tariff for revenue ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... is a hero and the girl doesn't know she is hiding herself behind a veil too dazzling to let him see her as she is. How would it be if they outwitted nature at her little game and gave each other the fealty of blood brothers, the interchange of ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... hast seen? or what hast heard?" And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, [5] And the wild water lapping on the crag." To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: "Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again [6] As thou ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... duke said. "Also she probably did not know that in ancient days of chivalry ladies sent forth their knights to bear buffeting for their sakes in proof of fealty. Rise up, Sir Knight!" This last phrase of course T. Tembarom did not know the poetic ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the dog powerfully. One October day he had known her for Anthony's darling, and as such had become her vassal. He had since seen no reason to withdraw his fealty. As we have seen, at her coming he had leaped for joy. Occasion and personage, however, deserved more honour than that. Ever since the three had begun their ramble, he had been scouring the undergrowth for an offering meet to be laid at the lady's ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... They called him the great Prince and man of men. But Enid, whom the ladies loved to call Enid the Fair, a grateful people named Enid the Good; and in their halls arose The cry of children, Enids and Geraints Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more, But rested in her fealty, till he crown'd A happy life with a fair death, and fell Against the heathen of the Northern Sea In battle, fighting ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... I was thy lover, I wrote thee on my shield, I cried thy name in goodly fealty, Thy champion I. And now, no more for me Thy face, thy smile: thou goest far afield, My dear, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Churchill owes to the element injected into American life by Theodore Roosevelt.... Like him Mr. Churchill has habitually moved along the main lines of national feeling—believing in America and democracy with a fealty unshaken by any adverse evidence and delighting in the American pageant with a gusto rarely modified by the exercise of any critical intelligence. Morally he has been strenuous and eager; intellectually he has been ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert

... 25 Lies my security. The army will not Abandon me. Whatever they may know, The power is mine, and they must gulp it down— And substitute I caution for my fealty, They must be satisfied, at ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... each had his distinct flag and insignia; each fortified his domain with fortresses, armed with cannon and manned by his paid soldiery. The colonists were but humble dependants; they were his immediate subjects and were forced to take the oath of fealty and ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... defence of beleaguered Truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... that he was an American, and his demeanour that he was one of those experienced, wealthy, and kindly travellers who know the Christian names of all the hall-porters in the world, and have the trick of securing their intimacy and fealty. He wore a blue suit and a light gray wideawake, and his fine moustache was grizzled. In his left hand he carried a ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the Lushkar team. He could not, of course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him, with the blue and silver turban atop, and the big black boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre in token of fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: 'Rung ho, Hira Singh!' (which being translated means 'Go in and win'). 'Did I whack you over the knee, old man?' 'Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... to the greatest insult that could come to her people. He remembered what Rameses had told him—that the Cree girl's first kiss was her betrothal kiss; that it was the white garment of her purity, the pledge of her fealty forever. He lifted himself upon his elbow, but the girl had run to the door. Voices came from outside, and the two men reentered the tepee. He understood enough of what was said to learn that the camp had been holding council, and that two men were about to make an effort to reach the nearest ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... a title been accorded to any one in Florence, where every man was as good as, if not better than, his neighbour. Foreign sovereigns, and their lieutenants, who, from time to time, visited the city and claimed toll and fealty from the citizens, had never been addressed as "Signori"—"Lords and Masters." The "Spirito del Campanile" as it was called, was nowhere more rampant than in the "City of the Lion and Lily," where everybody at all times seemed only too ready ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... too, and kissed her abruptly, awkwardly. All his natural grace was gone from him. But when he kissed her she did not know it; her lips clung to his with a tender passion, a fealty that terrified him. ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... one month from the delivery of these words by the President an ominous movement was made in Congress. Notwithstanding all the vows of fealty to the Compromise of 1850, the pro-slavery leaders of the South were not contented with the aspect of affairs. The result of the Mexican war had deeply disappointed them. Its most striking political effect thus far was the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... preservation of all charters and natural muniments; and the holding of parliaments only within Scotland; and specially provided that no vassal should be compelled to go forth of Scotland for the purpose of performing homage or fealty; and that no native of Scotland should for any cause whatever be compelled to answer, for any breach of covenant or from crime ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... officers of government, which Mr. Gallatin considered as tantamount to a declaration that principles and opinions were of no importance in its administration. To lose sight of this principle was to substitute men for measures. Jackson's idea of party, however, was personal fealty. He engrafted the pouvoir personnel on the Democratic party as thoroughly as Napoleon could have done in his place. Moreover, Gallatin considered Jackson's assumption of power in his collisions with the judiciary at New ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... Frederick William IV. ascended the throne. According to the old custom, he summoned to Koenigsberg the estates of the provinces of Prussia and Posen to attend the coronation and take their oaths of fealty. On this occasion he inquired of this body whether they would elect twelve members of the East Prussian knighthood, to represent the old order of lords, and what privileges they wished to have secured. They replied that they saw no need of reviving that order; and as to privileges, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Wi-no-na, Gave her all his heart's rude homage, Felt no loss for all his giving, Loved her for the joy of loving. Scorned he all fatigue and danger Which would bring her food or pleasure; And each day brought proof of fealty, For his deeds were ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten

... had deputed the office to his cousin and presumptive heir. Lord Montfort was well represented, and the people cheered his cousin Odo heartily, as in his suit of golden armour richly chased, and bending on his steed, caparisoned in blue and gold, he acknowledged their fealty with ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli



Words linked to "Fealty" :   allegiance, trueness, loyalty



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