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adjective
Vassal  adj.  Resembling a vassal; slavish; servile. "The sun and every vassal star."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vassal" Quotes from Famous Books



... before they can safely strike against Earth, and you've buffered yourself with a jury-rigged economic trading system. But what happens when some really bright overlord decides to by-pass his local enemies? He'll drop fifty planet bombs out of your peaceful skies and collect your vassal worlds before they can rearm. You won't know about that, though. You'll ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey

... Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... and his brother Dermot attempted, evidently with some success, to seize the throne. Dermot died in 1118 and Murtough early in the following year. Turlough O'Conor, the powerful king of Connaught, promptly invaded Munster, and divided it into two vassal kingdoms, Thomond and Desmond. The former he gave to the sons of Dermot, of whom Conor was one, the latter to Teague Mac Carthy. Apparently Conor O'Brien soon established himself as sole king of Thomond, and Cormac Mac Carthy became king of Desmond on the death of his ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... Lord North brought forward this wholesale Bill of indemnity to the Governor and soldiers, if they should trample upon the people of Boston and be charged with murder, it was noticed that he trembled and faltered at every word; showing that he was the vassal of a stronger will than his own, and vainly struggled to wrestle down the feelings which his nature refused ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... is, on the whole, excellent, almost always pleasing, and now and then stately and splendid. The matter is generally of much less value; as our readers will readily believe when we inform them that Mr. Courtenay, a biographer, that is to say, a literary vassal, bound by the immemorial law of his tenure to render homage, aids, reliefs, and all other customary services to his lord, avows that he cannot give an opinion about the essay on Heroic Virtue, because he cannot read it without skipping; a circumstance which strikes ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... winds come, When forests are rended, Come as the waves come, When navies are stranded. Faster come, faster come, faster and faster, Chief, vassal, page and groom, ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous

... the danger, my liege," replied the prior. "The Holy Father recognises in your Grace, in every thought, word, and action, an obedient vassal of the Holy Church. But there are perverse counsellors, who obey the instinct of their wicked hearts, while they abuse the good nature and ductility of their monarch, and, under colour of serving his temporal interests, take steps which ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation sway'd, In vassal tides ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... mainly at the expense of the Wends. The policy of Absalon was continued on a still vaster scale by Valdemar II. (1202-1241), at a time when the German kingdom was too weak and distracted to intervene to save its seaboard; but the treachery of a vassal and the loss of one great battle sufficed to plunge this unwieldy, unsubstantial empire in the dust. (See VALDEMAR ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... his host, as doth the melted snow Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon." King Henry ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... The world an abject vassal to her charms, And kings competing for a single smile, Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle She gave surrender to abducting arms. Not Theseus, who plucked her lips' first kiss, Not Menelaus, lawful mate and spouse, Such answering passion in her heart could rouse, Or wake such tumult in her ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... own jurisdiction, he was left free to accomplish the two ulterior objects of his mission, viz. the installation of the Khedive's flag on the Lakes, and the establishment of definite relations with Mtesa, whose truculent vassal, Kaba Rega, of Unyoro, showed open hostility and resentment at the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... arms, enslaved his adversary. The Roman wanted matter; the Barbarian wanted man. Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were almost nothing,—simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of wine brought by a little girl, or a Maypole set up within the suzerain's reach. In return, the vassal or incumbent had to follow the seignior to battle (a thing which happened almost every day), and equip and feed himself at his own expense. "This spirit of the German tribes—this spirit of companionship and association—governed the territory as it governed individuals. The lands, like the men, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... specious reasoning about the political and social status of the Negro. He admits the antiquity of the Negro; but makes a special effort to place him in a servile state at all times, and to present him as a vanquished vassal before Ramses III. and other Egyptian kings. He sees no change in the Negro's condition, except that in slavery he is better fed and clothed than in his native home. But, nevertheless, the Negress of whom he makes mention, and the entire picture in the Theban tomb, put ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... ruler dreaded by contemporaries as merciless to the last degree. He burned men alive if they offended him, and had no compunction in ordering the guilty to be tarred and blinded. He was of such a temper that the Pope had not the courage to demand from him the homage of a vassal. It was Frederick II, Henry's son, who came into conflict with the Papacy so violently that all his neighbours ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... thou separatest them from those of thy great family, if thou refusest to thy subjects that happiness which thou owest them; if, heedless of thy own security, thou armest thyself against them; thou shall be like all tyrants, the slave to gloomy care, the bondman of alarm, the vassal of cruel suspicion: thou wilt become the victim to thine own folly. Thy people, reduced to despair, shorn of their felicity, will no longer acknowledge thy divine rights. In vain, then, thou wouldst sue for aid to that superstition which hath deified thee; it can avail nothing ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... to breakfast, full of plans for his house, which will make a pretty and romantic habitation. After breakfast the Court claimed its vassal. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... outcome of this war what it may, I do not believe the Belgians can ever be molded, either by kindness or by sternness, into a tractable vassal race. German civilization I concede to be a magnificent thing—for a German; but it seems to press on an alien neck as a galling yoke. Belgium under Berlin rule would be, I am sure, Alsace and Lorraine all over again on a larger scale, and an unhappier one. She would ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... at your service: nay, you shall ride me, Before your worship shall be put to the trouble To walk a-foot. Alas! when you are lord Of this lady's manor (as I know you will be), You may with the lease of glebe land, Requite your vassal. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... Majesty's government squandering away the funds which had been granted to him." This astonishing assumption of the public voice of England is but a slight foretaste of the usurpation which, on a peace, we may be assured they will make of all the powers in all the parts of our vassal Constitution. "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... but they had fought for these only as the gaining of a boon and a privilege from powers that were; and everywhere it was conceded that there was upon earth a class of men ordained by Providence to rule, and that the vassal's obedience was the inheritance of the many. And when men rose up in their might to fight upon the plains of Runnymede, in earnest contest, for ancient rights, for ancient privileges, it was after all only asking something of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the dispossessed Ameer of Meerpoor in Scinde against the British; while at Herat, the very fons et origo mali, the sons of Shah Kamran have been expelled after their father's death, by the wily vizier Yar Mohammed, who has strengthened himself in his usurpation by becoming a voluntary vassal of Persia! Thus has the Shah acquired, without a blow, the city which became famous throughout the world by its resistance to his arms; and the preservation of which, as a bulwark against the designs of Russia, was the primary object which led the British ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... eyes.(878) Of land owners, those who are in debt gain, that is especially the poorer, and the more speculative among them.(879) On the other hand, owners of large estates who have alienated their tithe-rights, or right to vassal-service etc. for capital, or for fixed sums to be paid at regular intervals, that is, in a great many places the great mass of the nobility, undergo a not ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... casts but a glance at their prostrate forms, they heard the mention of a name, perchance, and with a word or a sign told what was to be said of a passionate glorious heart at rest, thanks to Austrian or vassal-Sardinian mercy. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... an athletic man; he came to the conference mounted on a gray charger, which had cost him four hundred head of cattle, and brandished with ease and dexterity a heavy spear in his hand. He seemed willing to become the nominal vassal of the King of England, but refused to submit to any conditions. Richard set a price on his head, proceeded to Dublin, and at the expiration of a fortnight was joined by the Duke of Albemarle with men and provisions. This seasonable supply enabled him to recommence the pursuit of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the people, marched over the border to attack the city of Lucena. As a result he was himself assailed, his army put to the rout, and himself taken prisoner by the forces of Ferdinand of Aragon. To regain his liberty he acknowledged himself a vassal of the Spanish monarch, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. On his release he made his way to the city of Granada, but his adherents were so violently assailed by those of his father that the streets of the city ran blood, and Boabdil ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... a law of the Alemanni (Tit., 57), if two sisters were heiresses to a father's estate and one married a vassal (colonus) of the King or Church and the other became the wife of a free man equal to her in rank, the latter only was allowed to hold her father's land, although the rest of the goods ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... ducal chair, his right to which is still disputed. At the end of it, if he is not yet the Conqueror and the Great, he has shown all the gifts that were needed to win him either name. He is the greatest vassal of the French crown, a vassal more powerful than the overlord whose invasions of his duchy he has had ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... empire of Charles the Great had broken up. One of AEthelstan's sisters was given to Charles the Simple, the king of the Western Franks; another to Hugh the Great, Duke of the French and lord of Paris, who, though nominally the vassal of the king, was equal in power to his lord, and whose son was afterwards the first king of modern France. A third sister was given to Otto, the son of Henry, the king of the Eastern Franks, from whom, in due time, sprang a new line of Emperors. ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no oak; the matter that clothes it would enjoy its stupid slumber; and when the forest monarch stands up in his sinewy, lordliest pride, let the pervading life-power, and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, be annihilated, and the whole structure would wither in a second to inorganic dust. So every gigantic fact in Nature is the index and vesture of a gigantic force. Everything which we call organization ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... fallen; when you know that you have made me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of my life, when you know that for her sake, I would now if I could—but I can not, my soul recoils from you too much—submit myself wholly to your will, and be the meekest vassal that you have!' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... decided that the Vikings should settle in Francia and be subjects of the Frankish king, Rollo was told that he must kiss the foot of Charles in token that he would be the king's vassal. The haughty Viking refused. "Never," said he, "will I bend my knee before any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." After some persuasion, however, he ordered one of his men to perform the act of homage for him. The king was on horseback and the Norseman, ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... justice in the old local courts of the "hundred" and "shire," to which every freeman had access, and these courts he placed under the jurisdiction of the King alone. In Germany and France the vassal owned supreme fealty to his lord, against all foes, even the King himself. In England, the tenant from this time swore direct fealty to none save ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... prosers, one Lord and two Brewers; and the only points in which they coincided were in being all three parliament men, all three politicians, all three in opposition to the Government of the country. Their names, as we understand, were Vassal Holland, Samuel Whitbread, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... willing enough to entertain any scheme, which included the humbling of his proud vassal Panglima Prang, who so lately had done him dishonour in his own capital. Moreover the Bendahara of Pahang was as astute as it is given to most men to be, and he saw that strife between the great Chiefs must, by weakening all, eventually ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... England, who was also King of Denmark, and urged him to conquer Norway. Knut did so in 1028 and made his son Svein King of Norway. Einar opposed this, and Magnus the Good (see Note 6) was called to rule, whose most faithful vassal Einar became. He followed King Magnus and his co-regent Harold Hardruler to Denmark, where Magnus died. Here and in Norway Einar, as the champion of all that was good, opposed many of the illegal and unrighteous deeds and ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... false and dangerous inferences, utterly subversive of the rights of the princes and subjects dependent on the British nation in India, contrary to the principles of all just government, and highly dishonorable to that of Great Britain: namely, that the "Rajah of Benares was not a vassal or tributary prince, and that the deeds which passed between him and the board, upon the transfer of the zemindary in 1775, were not to be understood to bear the quality and force of a treaty upon optional ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... upon this occasion wanting linen to bind up their wounds, the emperor tore his own robes to supply them. 20. This victory compelled the enemy to sue for peace, which they obtained upon very disadvantageous terms; their king coming into the Roman camp, and acknowledging himself a vassal of ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... own the town. They dare do anything. They control the banks, the trust companies, the street railroads, the gas works, the telephone franchises and the newspapers. Almost all the ability in the town is engaged in their service. They gather it in as it develops, and the multitude is made vassal to them. They own everything in St. Louis worth owning. They are the local nobility. They can crush anyone who ventures to oppose their desires. When they war among themselves they manage that no interloper shall come ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of condemning captives to death rendered the reducing of them to perpetual slavery an act of mercy on the part of the conqueror, which practice was not entirely exploded even in the fourteenth century, when Louis Hutin in a letter to Edward II. his vassal and ally, desired him to arrest his enemies, the Flemings, and make them slaves and serfs. (Mettre par deveres vous, si comme forfain a vous Sers et Esclaves a tous jours.) Rymer. Booty, however, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various

... they sprang, their swords they drew, and lifted high their shields, and flew To win the narrow way; Aunus from green Tifernum, lord of the Hill of Vines; And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves sicken in Ilva's mines; And Picus, long to Clusium vassal in peace and war, Who led to fight his Umbrian powers from that gray crag where, girt with towers, The fortress of Nequinum lowers o'er ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... treaty of Clair-on-Epte in which France purchased peace by this cession of the coast was a close imitation of the Peace of Wedmore. Hrolf, like Guthrum, was baptized, received the king's daughter in marriage, and became his vassal for the territory which now took the name of "the Northman's land" or Normandy. But vassalage and the new faith sat lightly on the Dane. No such ties of blood and speech tended to unite the northman with the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... who were not easily to be won. To one of them, Kveld-Ulf, or Night-Wolf, Harold sent envoys, asking him to enter his service, but the chief sent back word that he was too old to change. Then he offered Bald Grim, old Night-Wolf's son, high honors if he would become his vassal. Bald Grim replied that he would take no honors that would give ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... humor was Saladyne, making his brother Rosader his foot-boy, for the space of two or three years, keeping him in such servile subjection, as if he had been the son of any country vassal. The young gentleman bore all with patience, till on a day, walking in the garden by himself, he began to consider how he was the son of John of Bordeaux, a knight renowned for many victories, and a gentleman famosed ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... for shipbuilding; of casting of cannon, and drilling of soldiers; of ships in hundreds collecting at Lisbon; of a crusade preached by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who had bestowed the kingdom of England on the Spaniard, to be enjoyed by him as vassal tributary to Rome; of a million of gold to be paid by the pope, one-half down at once, the other half when London was taken; of Cardinal Allen writing and printing busily in the Netherlands, calling on all good ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... imitate the example of his lord by carving out portions of the feud to be held of himself by some other person, on the terms and conditions similar to those of the original grant. Here B. must be looked upon as only vassal to A., his superior or lord; and although feuds did not originally extend beyond the life of the first vassal, yet in process of time they were extended to his heirs, so that when the feudatory died, his male descendants were admitted to the succession, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various

... courteously inquired if his rest had been peaceful. Hrothgar answered mournfully: "Ask me not of peace, for care is renewed in Heorot. Dead is Aschere, my best counsellor and friend, the truest of comrades in fight and in council. Such as Aschere was should a true vassal be! A deadly fiend has slain him in Heorot, and I know not whither she has carried his lifeless body. This is doubtless her vengeance for thy slaying of Grendel; he is dead, and his kinswoman has come ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... oppression; which, unseen And noiseless though it work; yet in the end, Even like the viewless elements of the storm, Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst! So let the nations learn, that not in wealth; Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense; Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp Of vassal kings, and tributary lands; Do happiness and lasting power abide: That virtue unto man best glory is; His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice, Though for a season it the heart delight; Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong; Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... antiphrasis doubtless, were always called "maids of honour." It was in the household of his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, that Louis had first met the two mistresses of his predilection; and when he wished to assure himself by a new tie of his royal vassal on the other side of the channel, it was still the domestic circle of the Duchess of Orleans which supplied him with the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... repeopling their decaying state, 270 Though seven short springs conclude their vital date, Their ancient stocks eternally remain, And in an endless race their children's children reign. No prostrate vassal of the East can more With slavish fear his haughty prince adore; His life unites them all; but, when he dies, All in loud tumults and distractions rise; They waste their honey and their combs deface, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... 'And why,' asks M. Planchut, 'should there not be perfect accord between Italy and France on this topic? It is not a question whether France exercises a kind of protectorate over the Principality of Monaco, or whether the House of Savoy still regards the Prince of Monaco as its vassal, despite the circumstance that in 1860 Italy abandoned her rights over his little domain. France and Italy should be animated by one paramount desire—the extinction of these infamous gaming-tables; and, if France believes herself to possess the right of speaking with more respectful ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... society and her ill temper for her family altar. If I were tied to such a female as that, do you know what I would do? You don't, eh? Well, neither do I. There was a time, we are told, when to be a Roman was to be greater than to be a king; yet there came a time when to be a Roman was to be a vassal or a slave. Change is the order of the universe, and nothing stands. We must go forward, or we must go backward. We must press on to grander heights, to greater glory, or see the laurels already won turned to ashes upon ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... heart's abundance speaks the tongue Countess for emperor: And indeed, why not? She is as imperator over me; And I to her Am as a kneeling vassal, that observes The pleasure or ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... system offers perhaps the best illustration of a patriotism wholly submerged in loyalty. The sense of mutual obligation and service was very clear in this case; the vassal in swearing fealty knew perfectly well what sort of a bargain he was striking. A feudal government, while it lasted, was accordingly highly responsive and responsible. If false to its calling, it could be readily disowned, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... in small Colonies at Shendi and elsewhere long before the Egyptian invasion (A.D. 1820-1822). They are still great trade carriers, and visit very distant districts. The Ababda of Egypt, numbering some 30,000, are governed by an hereditary "chief.'' Although nominally a vassal of the Khedive he pays no tribute. Indeed he is paid a subsidy, a portion of the road-dues, in return for his safeguarding travellers from Bedouin robbers. The sub-sheikhs are directly responsible to him. The Ababda of Nubia, reported by Joseph von Russegger, who ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... independence of Benares. The alliance with the English was like the protection Rome extended to Greece when threatened by Asia, and which ended in the subjection of both Greece and Asia. The Rajah of Benares became the vassal of the company, and therefore was obliged to furnish money ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... laughed disdainfully, yet with never so faint a note of regret. It was absurd! She was Mademoiselle de Bellecour, and he her father's secretary; educated, if you will—aye, and beyond his station—but a vassal withal, and very humbly born. Yes, it was absurd, she told herself again: the eagle may ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... fire by night. I do not say that the promised land may not lie ahead of its guiding, but woe is me for the desert first to be traversed! Two vices are growing among us to dread proportions—indifference and hatred: the one will let poverty anguish at its door, the other will hound on the vassal against his lord. Papers like the "Fiery Cross," even though such a man as Westlake edit them, serve the cause of hatred; they preach, by implication at all events, the childish theory of the equality of men, and seek to make discontented a whole class which only needs regular ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... confided to them with tears in her eyes the reasons for her being there. She told them of a certain grandee of Spain, living in Andalusia, of whom her father, lowly in birth but rich in fortune, was a vassal. This grandee had two sons. She had been betrothed to the younger one of these, Don Fernando, and he had jilted her in favor of a lady of noble birth, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... ensure. Of Charlemagne, in an age when as yet the use of infantry was but imperfectly known, it may be said symbollically, that he found the universal people, patrician and plebeian, chieftain and vassal, with the left foot [Footnote 11] in the stirrup—of Napoleon, in an age when the use of artillery was first understood, that he found every man standing to his gun. Both, in short, found war in pro-cinctu—both found the people whom they governed, willing to ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... between the German Emperors and the Italian Popes for mastery. The Germans strove for political domination, for temporal power; the Italians strove, at least in ideal, in order that the spiritual should not be the vassal of the physical. It was soul force against brute force. Looking at it as deeply as possible we see that the Italians, a race sprung out of ancient culture, mightily affected but not denatured by Christianity, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... may a' rin masterless, My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, My lord may grip my vassal lands, For there again maun I ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... lord and the vassal produced another effect,—that the leader was obliged to find sustenance for his followers, and to maintain them at his table, or give them some equivalent in order to their maintenance. It is plain from these principles, that this service on one ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... overlooked that any presumptive hard usage which the vassal peoples might look for at the hands of the German dynasty would necessarily be tempered with considerations of expediency as dictated by the exigencies of usufruct. The Imperial establishment has shown itself to be wise, indeed more wise than amiable, but wise at least ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... abus'd my Love; But, Monster, though thou art below my Hand, I'm yet a Princess, and I can command. By Heaven, I'll try how much Rage can invent. Semiris, call Qlympia to me strait; She shall in Triumph with me stand and smile, To see thee by some Vassal bleed. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... him at all until the ceremony is over and the girl has a new name. What he wears is of no consequence, and he has no wedding gifts, though he may be remembered for a moment if he gives a diamond star to the bride. Yet it is this ceremony which changes him from a vassal to a king. Before marriage he is a low and useless trump, but afterward he is ace ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... border encrusted with diamonds and rubies. Shortly after our entrance the rajah proposed that we should retire from the heat and importunity of the crowd. We took our seats on the ground, according to Indian custom, and the rajah delivered a discourse, in which he said he was the vassal of the sovereign of Delhi, and that as Delhi was in the possession of the British, he honoured the sovereignty of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the blood of your sister Blanchefleur, you that wept as you bore me to that boat alone, why did you not drive out the boy that was to betray you? Ah! What thought was that! Iseult is yours and I am but your vassal; Iseult is yours and I am your son; Iseult is yours and ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier

... poor Tasso! Else, O Cornelia, it had indeed been much. I thought in the simplicity of my heart that God was as great as an emperor, and could bestow, and had bestowed on me as much as the German had conferred, or could confer on his vassal. No part of my insanity was ever held in such ridicule as this. And yet the idea cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... order to gratify the avidity of his foreign favorites. About the same time he published in England the sentence of excommunication, pronounced against the emperor Frederic, his brother-in-law;[***] and said in excuse, that, being the pope's vassal, he was obliged by his allegiance to obey all the commands of his holiness. In this weak reign, when any neighboring potentate insulted the king's dominions, instead of taking revenge for the injury, he complained to the pope as his superior lord, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... him and pope Innocent the third, in which he was so manifestly in the right; nor have suffered the insolence of that pope, and the power of the king of France, to have compelled him in the issue, basely to resign his crown into the hands of the former, and receive it again as a vassal; by means of which acknowledgment the pope afterwards claimed this kingdom as a tributary fief to be held of the papal chair; a claim which occasioned great uneasiness to many subsequent princes, and brought numberless calamities on ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... haughty and vain. William was very much his superior, not only in age and experience, but in talents and character, and in personal renown. Still, he approached the monarch with all the respectful observance due from a vassal to his sovereign, made known his plans, and asked for Philip's approbation and aid. He was willing, he said, in case that aid was afforded him, to hold his kingdom of England, as he had done the duchy of Normandy, as a dependency of ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... lightly. Richard, offended with Bertran, gave him a flick on the ear and sent him to the devil with his japes. He did no more because he valued him no more. He thought him a perverse rascal, glorious poet, ill-conditioned vassal, untimely parasite of his father's realm. He knew he had caused endless mischief, but he could not hate such a cork on a waterspray. Now, it fretted Bertran to white heat that he should be despised by a great man. It seemed that at last he could ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... two accursed hells yawning for the young and innocent and unsuspicious as well as for the wicked and evil-minded. Ungrateful country, here wuz one of thy sons who sung the praises of thy institutions under every sky! Ungrateful indeed, to pierce thy most devoted vassal with this sharp thorn, this ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... a lover, he continues, I can direct you to one, the fairest, truest, and richest in the whole world. Henry, King of England, is his vassal, and to thee, maid, this lover sends a message and desires ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... might be equal to the arduous task of establishing absolute monarchy in England. Such an ally would undoubtedly expect substantial proofs of gratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace and war according to the directions of the government which protected him. His relation to Lewis would closely resemble that in which the Rajah of Nagpore and the King of Oude now stand to the British Government. Those princes are bound to aid ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... there were known," he continued, excitedly, "and to the great cause—the first step in making England pensioner of France and Holland the vassal of Louis—my head would pay the penalty. Can you ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... tenant and vassal to the Sieur de Poissy, he seemed to me to be much more in league with the people of M. de la Tourelle. He was evidently aware, in part, of the life which Lefebvre and the others led; although, again, I do not suppose he knew or imagined one-half of their ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... and as a social being? It is an exact parallel to the feeling of a hereditary king that he is excellent above others by being born a king, or a noble by being born a noble. The relation between husband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that the wife is held to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was. However the vassal's character may have been affected, for better and for worse, by his subordination, who can help seeing that the lord's was affected greatly for the worse? whether he was led ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... monk throughout the country. In the meantime his son was under the care of a tutor, Nagatoki, who, of course, was one of the Hojo family. Thus it had come about that a tutor now controlled the regent; who was supposed to control the shogun; who was supposed to be the vassal of the emperor; who in turn was generally a child under the control of a corrupt and venal court. Truly government in Japan had sunk to its lowest point, and it was time ...
— Japan • David Murray

... as before, they stand: When a vassal bold, gentle, and gay, Steps out from his comrades' shrinking band, Flinging his girdle and cloak away; And all the women and men that surrounded Gazed on ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... strongly against this illegal transaction, for Cervetri and Anguillara were fiefs of the Church, and neither had Cibo the right to sell nor Orsini the right to buy them. Moreover, that they should be in the hands of a powerful vassal of Naples such as Orsini suited the Pope as little as it suited Lodovico Maria Sforza. It stirred the latter into taking measures against the move he feared Ferrante might make ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... were the South, which strove to perpetuate by this means a social system that was fundamentally aristocratic, and the North, which sought by the same means to foster its ideal of democracy. Though the South, with the aid of its economic vassal, the Northern capitalist class, was for some time able to check the land-hunger of the Northern democrats, it was never able entirely to secure the control which it desired, but was always faced with the steady and continued opposition of the real North. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... banquet share, Nor e'er let Gothic grandeur dare, With scowling brow, to overbear, A vassal's right invading. Let Freedom's conscious sons disdain To crowd his fawning, timid train, Nor even own his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... of Saint Austin referred to was situated in Fulk's patrimony, i.e., in the tract known as the Blaunche Launde, situated in Shropshire, on the border of North Wales. As source for the tale he refers to Le Graal, le lyvre de le Seint Vassal, and goes on to state that here King Arthur recovered sa bounte et sa valur when he had lost his knighthood and fame. This obviously refers to the Perlesvaus romance, though whether in its present, or in an earlier ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... season without venturing to confess it; secondly, he adored as a mere suppliant; thirdly, he adored as one who knew that the lady was not indifferent; and finally, he became the accepted lover, that is to say, the chosen servitor and vassal of ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... He seemed sufficiently drunk to execute his threat, and his invitation to supper was couched this time more in the terms of a command. At last he borrowed a stool from the Judge, who by now was his willing vassal, and planted himself in the hallway, where he remained throughout the performance—a gloomy, watchful figure. Lorelei came down boldly, dressed for the street, and, since she could not pass the besieger, excused ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... time, in solemn state, Death, in his pomp of terror, sate. Attendant on his gloomy reign, Sadness and Madness, Woe and Pain, His vassal train. With hollow tone The tyrant muttered ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... inscriptions. We now know also that the political condition of Babylonia described in the narrative is scrupulously exact. Babylonia was for a time under the domination of the Elamites, and while Amraphel or Khammurabi was allowed to rule at Babylon as a vassal-prince, an Elamite of the name of Eri-Aku or Arioch governed Larsa in the south. Nay more; tablets have recently been found which show that the name of the Elamite monarch was Kudur-Laghghamar, and that among his ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... the ever-shifting vicissitudes of Eastern politics, the Tsar of Russia, who had heretofore posed as the "protector" of Roumans and Serbs against their sovereign, sent his fleet to the Bosphorus in 1833 in order to "protect" the sovereign against his rebellious vassal, Mehemet Ali, and exacted a reward for his services in the shape of the leonine arrangement signed at Hunkiar-Iskelesi. And so Mr. Miller carries us on from massacre to massacre, from murder to murder, and from one bewildering treaty to another, all of which, however, present ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... cap with a trencher was upon his head, and it was rather a long cap, and the narrator believed that the gaolers had dressed him thus as an insult. 'And I Stephen, the scribe, saw it with my eyes, and with my hands I buried him, with Prosper of Cicigliano, who had been his vassal; and no other retainers of the Colonna would have anything to do with the matter, out of fear, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... universe? She did so breathe ambrosia, so immerse My fine existence in a golden clime. She took me like a child of suckling-time, And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd, The current of my former life was stemm'd, And to this arbitrary queen of sense I bow'd a tranced vassal."—KEATS, Endymion. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... fallen into the hands of hereditary foes whose forces had been united against them. Fire and steel had done their worst, and only a month-old child had escaped from the burning Rocca, being saved in a boat laden with reeds at anchor in the river, and hidden by a faithful vassal. The child had grown to manhood and had lived to old age, leading a peasant's life on the banks of the Edera; the name had been mutilated in common usage amongst those who spoke only the dialect of ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... hands and eyes, To let Love through to the most secret closes Of all his flowery Court of Paradise." . . . Sunder the jealous gates. Thine ivory Castle Is hung with scarlet, is the Convent of Pain. With purple and with spice indeed the Vassal Receives her King whom dark desires constrain. Rejoice, rejoice!—But far from flutes and dances The cloistered Soul lies frozen ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... an independent life, the ideal of the old-fashioned Northern gentleman, who was accustomed to consideration and respect from the freemen, his neighbours, who had authority by his birth and fortune to look after the affairs of his countryside, who would not make himself the tenant, vassal, or steward of any king. In the new country these ideas were intensified and defined. The ideal of the Icelandic Commonwealth was something more than a vague motive, it was present to the minds of the first ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... spoke abrupt: 'Farewell to thee, Pattern of old fidelity!' The Minstrel's hand he kindly pressed,— 'O, could I point a place of rest! My sovereign holds in ward my land, My uncle leads my vassal band; To tame his foes, his friends to aid, Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade. Yet, if there be one faithful Graeme Who loves the chieftain of his name, Not long shall honored Douglas dwell Like hunted stag in mountain cell; Nor, ere yon pride-swollen robber dare,— I may not give the rest ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... be King of Scotland too. And now Edward I saw his chance to make that dream come true. He chose as King the man who had, perhaps, the greatest right to the throne, John Balliol. But he made him promise to hold the crown as a vassal to ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... the end of the sixth century, the Kingdom of Wessex was made more or less an entity, and the dark-haired, dark-eyed race who once held the country were in the position of a conquered and vassal people; for the times and the manners of those times well used by their conquerors, especially in the country of the Dorsaetas, where at the worst they were treated as useful slaves, and at the best the masters ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... no whit regarding such letters of safe conduct. Some there be which affirme that the Pope had bestowed the realme of England with the title of Defensor fidei, vpon the king of Spaine, giuing him charge to inuade it vpon this condition, that he should enioy the conquered realm, as a vassal and tributarie, in that regard, vnto the sea of Rome. To this purpose the said Pope proffered a million of gold, the one halfe thereof to be paied in readie money, and the other halfe when the realme of England or any famous port ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... was not a Roman soldier beyond the frontier of the old Roman possessions; at its close king Mithradates was wandering as an exile and without an army in the ravines of the Caucasus, and king Tigranes sat on the Armenian throne no longer as king of kings, but as a vassal of Rome. The whole domain of Asia Minor to the west of the Euphrates unconditionally obeyed the Romans; the victorious army took up its winter-quarters to the east of that stream on Armenian soil, in the country from the upper Euphrates to the river Kur, from which the Italians then for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... by purchase, a portion of those powers which were directly derived from inspiration, Simon Magus displayed a degree of profane and brutal ignorance inconsistent with his possessing even the intelligence of a skilful impostor; and it is plain that a leagued vassal of hell—should we pronounce him such—would have better known his own rank and condition, compared to that of the apostles, than to have made such a fruitless and unavailing proposal, by which he could only expose his own ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... arch, with its three gates and its lofty Corinthian columns, stands outside of the city walls: a structure which has no other use or meaning than the expression of Imperial pride: thus the Roman conquerors adorn and approach their vassal-town. ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in the things that pertain to the allegiance I owe to the King of Kings, I will act, with His heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal." ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... considered this speech, laid it before his friends, and demanded their advice if he should agree to it, and enter into such terms with King Olaf and become his vassal. "But I do not see what my lot will be at my departure if I say no; for the king has clearly enough declared his claim upon Orkney; and from his great power, and our being in his hands, it is easy for him to make our ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... them joyfully, and come with me to Arthur, to receive the order of knighthood, for thou dost merit it." "May I never shew my face again, if I go," said Peredur, "but take thou the goblet to Gwenhwyvar, and tell Arthur, that wherever I am, I will be his vassal, and will do him what profit and service I am able. And say that I will not come to his Court, until I have encountered the tall man that is there, to avenge the injury he did to the dwarf and dwarfess." And Owain went back to the Court, and related all these ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... ridden blithely forth as singing page in my lady's train, when she left her own fair land of Aragon to be wedded to this grim Count Fael of the North; how from that time forth I had dwelt here in his castle, vassal to him only because he was lord to my liege lady, but fearing alway his stern face, that froze the laugh on the lips and made joyousness die, stillborn; how my sole happiness had been to serve my lady and sing her such songs as I made, and my grief to ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... Peace, 196 B.C. Macedonia to remain an independent state, but, like Carthage, to lose all her foreign possessions, and to be sunk to the level of a vassal state. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... The courtiers, with an impatient expression, receded anxiously, as though afraid of contact with this unfortunate man, who had no territories, no riches, no honors to offer them, but had come as a vassal to pacify the wrath of Napoleon, and save at least a remnant of his kingdom. But the king did not come with craven heart; he did not hasten his approach to the emperor with fawning submissiveness, but slowly, with his head proudly erect, and a ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... offspring we no difference know, They do the females as the males bestow; So he of one of his daughters' marriages gave the ward, Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird; He knew what she did to her master plight, If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight, Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright. Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... into democratic republics; it had ended in the revolution of Venice, in the violation of treaties with the new Venetian republic; and finally, in transferring that very republic, the creature and vassal of France, to the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... "in the days of Herod," called "the Great," a monster of cruelty, a vassal of Rome, who ruled the Jews with savage tyranny. The political slavery of the people was only less pitiful than their spiritual decline, for religion had become an empty form, a mere system of ceremonies and rites. However, God is never without his witnesses and his true worshipers. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... of despots and owls who are intent on pushing Europe back at the point of the bayonet into the debasement and thick darkness of the Feudal Ages. It is the French Republic which disturbs with nightmare visions the slumbers of the Russian Autocrat, and urges him to summon convocations of his vassal-Kings at Olmutz and at Warsaw,—it is the overthrow of the French Republic, whether by open assault or by sinister stratagem, which engrosses the attention of those and kindred convocations throughout ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... cultivated as under glasses strange and mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just at present. To show any forwardness in suggesting a modus vivendi to Grace would be to put an end to these exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the contemplation of the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... must appear passing strange to those who have drawn their estimate of those years of Prince Henry's youth from Shakspeare, to find the real truth to be this. Not only was he not then in London the profligate debauchee, the reckless madcap, the creature of "vassal fear and base inclination," "the nearest and dearest of his father's foes;" not only was he acting valiantly in defence of his father's throne; but that very father's own pen is the instrument to bear chief testimony to his valour and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... the possessions of Armstrong himself, the investitures of which not having been regularly renewed, the feudal casualty of non-entry had been incurred by the vassal. The brother of Johnie Armstrang is said to have founded, or rather repaired, Langholm castle, before which, as mentioned in the ballad, verse 5th, they "ran their horse," and "brake their spears," in the exercise of border chivalry.—Account of the Parish of Langholm, apud ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... we came and he bended low, but with such grace and so much dignity that it were as though he were a king receiving a vassal. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... seas, Applauding thunder rolled upon the breeze. Memorial columns rose Decked with the spoils of conquered foes, And bards of high renown their stormy paeans sung, While Sculpture touched the marble white, And, woke by his transforming might, To life the statue sprung. The vassal to his task was chained— The coffers of the state were drained In rearing arches, bright with wasted gold, That after generations might be told A thing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... considering who and whence Klingsohr was, and the fact that the treaty of espousals took place two months afterwards, 'adhuc sugens ubera desponsata est,' it is not impossible that King Andrew and his sage vassal may have had some previous conversation on the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... low-lying there, A willing vassal at my feet, Glad partner of my home and fare, My shadow in ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... dreamer! lovely bride! Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shap'd and vermeil dyed? Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest After so many hours of toil and quest, A famish'd pilgrim,—saved by miracle. Though I have found, I ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... aristocracies surely this is the most rationally and happily, as well as most respectably founded; for though one's heart revolts against the names of Baron and Vassal, while the petty tyrants live scattered far from each other, as in Poland, Russia, and many parts of Germany, like lions in the desert, or eagles in the rock, secure in their distance from equals or superiors; yet here at Venice, where every nobleman is a baron, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... kindly, as on a vassal true; Then to the King Ruy Diaz spake after reverence due,— "O King, the thing is shameful, that any man beside The liege lord of Castile ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... first established in England, there was no distinction of freehold and copyhold; the latter, according to Blackstone, was a possession acquired by a vassal subsequent to the Norman feudal system. Copyholders being thus considered as slaves, were, notwithstanding their possessions, deemed unworthy of the franchise; and from this refinement, on the arbitrary principles of the Normans, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... the poor girl's ear, was accompanied by such a loud scream of agony, as distressed, while it startled, the good-natured monarch himself. "I did but jest," he said; "Julian is well, my pretty maiden. I only used the wand of a certain blind deity, called Cupid, to bring a deaf and dumb vassal of his to the exercise ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... who, at any rate, did understand a little. Indeed, Festus has to take the second place throughout, and it may have been the ignoring of him that nettled him. For all his courtesy to Agrippa, he knew that the latter was but a vassal king, and may have chafed at Paul's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... to prevent their approach to his dominions. But trade had been established; and the opium traffic had its birth, and the people were crazy to procure and smoke it. This was the cause of the wars between China and England and France, with the vassal question. In 1800 an edict of the emperor prohibited the importation of ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... that foaming Strength Whose rebel forces wrestle still Thro' all his boundaried breadth and length Become a vassal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and all around was dreamy night: There stood Dundagel, throned; and the great sea Lay, like a strong vassal at his master's gate, And, like a drunken ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... been informed from respectable authority that in Ireland, although dairies abound in many parts of the Island, the disease is entirely unknown. The reason seems obvious. The business of the dairy is conducted by women only. Were the meanest vassal among the men, employed there as a milker at a dairy, he would feel his situation ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner

... ridden down from Wensley Moor, With the slow motion of a summer's cloud, And now, as he approach'd a vassal's door, 'Bring forth another horse!' he ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... Then the vassal airs that woo thee, Hush their low breath hearkening to thee. In delight and in devotion, Pausing from her whirling motion, Nature, in enchanted calm, Silently drinks the floating balm. Sorceress, her heart with thy tone Chaining—as thine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... on one condition only,' said the victor, 'and that is that you shall swear fealty on my sword to king Ermyn, and acknowledge yourself to be his vassal.' ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... Morga describes this naval campaign in detail. Ternate is captured by the Spaniards without bombardment, and with little loss to themselves. The fugitive king of the island is persuaded to surrender to the Spaniards and become a vassal of Felipe. Several other petty rulers follow his example and promise not to allow the Dutch to engage in the clove trade. Acuna builds a new fort there, and another in Tidore, leaving Juan de Esquivel as governor of the Moluccas, with a garrison and several vessels far their defense, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... Belgian cities and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the treasures piled up by the devotion ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... south, from east, from west, had gathered Scotland's warriors. All between the ages of sixteen and sixty, from king to vassal, stood ready to fight for the beloved land. Marmion heard the mingled hum of myriads of voices float up the mountain side. He saw the shifting lines, and marked the flashing of shield and lance. Nor did he mark less that in ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... Count of Avesnes when his freehold was declared a mere fief, himself a mere vassal, a serf of the Earl of Hainault. Read, too, the dreadful story of the Great Chancellor of Flanders, the first magistrate of Bruges, who also was claimed as a serf.—Gualterius, Scriptores ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... this treaty, and rather to pay (or more properly, continue to owe) the whole ten millions than accede to the wily proposal. This advice will probably seem more friendly than disinterested, and I have not the slightest idea of the Sultan's listening to it. He has, in fact, become the vassal of Russia, and his lot is settled in this respect, for from Russia he has most to fear and most to hope. The conduct of our Government in this question, has been marked by nothing but negligence and indecision, vainly ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... misfortune had been the pensioners of France. Charles II, a Stuart, alien in religion to the convictions of his people, looked to Catholic France to give him security on his throne. Before the first half of the reign of Louis XIV had ended, it was the boast of the French that the King of England was vassal to their King, that the states of continental Europe had become mere pawns in the game of their Grand Monarch, and that France could be master of as much of the world as was really worth mastering. In 1679 the Canadian Intendant, Duchesneau, writing from Quebec to complain ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... surrender these territories into the hands of the imperial commissioners, until his title to them should be decided. On the other hand, Ferdinand had taken up arms at the instigation of the Spaniards, to whom, as possessors of Milan, the near neighbourhood of a vassal of France was peculiarly alarming, and who welcomed this prospect of making, with the assistance of the Emperor, additional conquests in Italy. In spite of all the exertions of Pope Urban VIII. to avert a war in that country, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... unless we first procured an order for it from the viceroy of Canton, for that he neither received provisions for his garrison, nor any other necessaries, but by permission from the Chinese government; and as they took care only to furnish him from day to day, he was indeed no other than their vassal, whom they could at all times compel to submit to their own terms, only by laying ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... economic independence and you are now approaching the legal-vassal stage," Steve warned Mary as they viewed the rooms of the new brown house. "Do you know ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... proposed to pay from the royal treasury would become the masters instead of servants of the people—or they would be servants only of the king. The purpose of the Stamp Act obviously was to make America the vassal of Great Britain. The act required that legal documents and commercial instruments should be written, and that newspapers should be printed on ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... full pomp and magnificence, receiving the homage of their dependants, and the applause of the townsmen. From hence, indeed, they might have looked down, in the proud spirit of disdain, upon their vassal subjects:—or, in case of rebellion, have planted their cannon and pulverised their habitations in a little hour. It is hardly possible to conceive a more magnificent situation ... but now, all is silence and solitude. The wild boar ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... were indeed vavasors to the King," said he; "but here is the very seal of Eustace Loring which shows that he made himself vassal to the Abbey and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... I am not vassal to anybody; I belong to nobody, and am entirely my own master," replied Aramis, who, during this conversation, followed with his eye every gesture of D'Artagnan, every glance of Porthos. But D'Artagnan was impassible and Porthos motionless; the thrusts aimed so skillfully ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... a Samsi-Hadad (or Samsi-Raman) seems to have been vassal-prince at Assur, and the names of several of the high-priests of Assur who succeeded him have been made known to us by the recent German excavations. The foundation of the monarchy was ascribed to Zulilu, who is described as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... of the house; and whenever thunder was heard, one of the family would take a piece of the log and throw it on the fire, which was believed to guard the family against lightning. In the Middle Ages, we are told, several fiefs were granted on condition that the vassal should bring in person a Yule log every year for the hearth ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... upon the capital. He seized Montezuma and held him as a hostage for the peaceable conduct of his subjects. The Mexicans took up arms, only to be defeated again and again by the Spaniards. Montezuma became a vassal of the Spanish crown, and covenanted to pay annual tribute. Attempting to reconcile his people to this agreement he was himself assailed and wounded, and, refusing all nourishment, soon after died. With re-enforcements, Cortez completed the conquest of the country, ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... or do what he pleased with them." Legazpi permitted him to see his wife and daughters, telling him "that he had been as watchful of their honor, as if he had kept them in his own house." Simaquio signified his desire "to be ... the friend and vassal of the king of Castilla, and to have perpetual peace and friendship, and that he would never be found lacking in it." To this Legazpi replied that it was necessary to treat with Tupas and the others jointly, "and that in this manner it would ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... priest with his effects packed and ready for a considerable journey. A hurried farewell to his mother, and the life-weary Jose, combining innocence and misery in exaggerated proportions, and still a vassal of Rome, set out for the port of Cadiz. There, in company with the Apostolic Delegate and Envoy Extraordinary to the Republic of Colombia, he embarked on the West Indian trader Sarnia, bound for Cartagena, in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... of the kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The vitaxoe, or eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper Asia, [31] within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under other names, a lively image of the feudal system [32] which has since prevailed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... we have been concerned mainly with the tactile kiss, which is sometimes supposed to have arisen in remote times to the east of the Mediterranean—where the vassal kissed his suzerain and where the kiss of love was known, as we learn from the Songs of Songs, to the Hebrews—and has now conquered nearly the whole of Europe. But over a much larger part of the world and even ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... met John Calvin, whose system of Christian thought set the soul of man forth, in his awful agony of sin, and in God's redemption for him—set him forth independent of kings and rulers, and in whose sight a king was but God's vassal. When Englishmen had to come in contact with John Calvin, the iron of his free spirit became steel, and then Puritanism was born, and at that time God raised the curtain that hung over a whole hemisphere, and gave that hemisphere ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various

... believe it?—that intermeddling monarch took out of my hands the whole grand, ambitious scheme I had so carefully devised. He went to Canossa; he married Adelheid; he marched upon Berengar; he subjugated him and made him his vassal; he formed an alliance with Pope John XII; he was proclaimed King of the Lombards; he was crowned with his queen in St. Peter's; he eventually acquired the southern portion of Italy. All this was exactly what I had ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... absurdities it has been declared that Germany intends to claim a fourth of France, making this dismembered country a vassal State, bound to the triumphal car of the conqueror by the very heaviest chains. It is incredible, but true, that such a statement has been made in the press by a Frenchman, formerly President ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... own dominions. It was not merely the loss of territory that made the peace of Presburg, humiliating to Austria: the moral effects of a fall of such unexampled rapidity, and the complete change of all relations in Germany, made it still more depressing. South Germany, hitherto the vassal realm of Austria, now acknowledged the rule of France. The German imperial dignity no longer possessed importance; and the whole system of the European states was overthrown. The smaller German States of the Rhine, were formed by the conqueror into what was called "the Confederation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... large provinces, or grants of land, to his dukes, earls, and noblemen; and each of these possessed nearly as much power, within his own district, as the king did in the rest of his dominions. But then the vassal, whether duke, earl, or lord, or whatever he was, was obliged to come with a certain number of men to assist the sovereign, when he was engaged in war; and in time of peace, he was bound to attend on his court when summoned, and do homage to him, that is, acknowledge that he was his master and ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... man owns a job on which another man must work in order to live, the job-owner is the master, and the job-taker is his vassal. Necessarily, the vassal occupies a position of servility. When he asks for an opportunity to work, he is asking for an opportunity to live. When he takes a job he is binding his life and his conduct under terms ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing



Words linked to "Vassal" :   liegeman, liege, follower



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