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Vassal   Listen
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



... on him kindly, as on a vassal true; Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due, "O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside The liege lord of ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... prior. His brother, the last Count of Ponthieu, joined France in an invasion of Normandy. He fell in an ambush at St. Aubin, and this man became count. For a time he was held prisoner by the duke, but afterwards he was freed, and received back his dominions as a vassal. His face is at once cruel and base. I told you the instructions Harold gave me, Beorn; the need for carrying them out has arrived, and I will try to make my escape without loss of time from this fortress to bear ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

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

... more remarkable than that of the sovereign to whom Christina ceded the throne. In the course of the ensuing five years Charles Gustavus, at the head of a chosen band of Swedish veterans, conquered Prussia, and compelled the Great Elector to acknowledge himself to be a Swedish vassal; invaded Poland, and commenced the partition of that republic; allied himself to Rakoczy, to the terror of the House of Austria, and attacked Denmark with such success that he crossed the Little Belt on the ice and laid siege to Copenhagen, which was only saved by the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... it was not unexpected, for it found the priest with his effects packed and ready for a considerable journey. A hurried farewell to his mother, and the life-weary Jose, combining innocence and misery in exaggerated proportions, and still a vassal of Rome, set out for the port of Cadiz. There, in company with the Apostolic Delegate and Envoy Extraordinary to the Republic of Colombia, he embarked on the West Indian trader Sarnia, bound for Cartagena, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... a vassal of the new god, though of course also plausibly rendering homage to the old, is reported a comet-like body, of Oct. 27, 1890, observed at Grahamstown, by Eddie. It may have looked comet-like, but it moved 100 degrees while visible, or one hundred degrees in three-quarters ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... this time in Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful. Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on the coins, that in every manner ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... Austria. Her complete subjugation being unfeasible, she had to be shut up rigorously to her immediate dominions on the eastern side of Central Europe, in order to leave the path clear for Bismarck, by war or subterfuge, to absorb, under a system of nominally vassal States, the whole of the rest of Germany into the system ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... 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 ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain; he that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to "Defender of the Faith," than ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... by the biting tongue of Frederic himself, who had jibed at her amours, compared her to Messalina, and called her "infame catin du Nord;" Maria Theresa of Austria, because she saw in him a rebellious vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and, above all, because he had robbed her of Silesia; Madame de Pompadour, because when she sent him a message of compliment, he answered, "Je ne la connais pas," forbade his ambassador to visit her, and in ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... Accordingly, Silva is preparing to go, in conjunction with the Portuguese troops from India, against the Dutch, to recover the Moluccas. He will also take the captive Ternatan king back to his own country, as he promises to become a vassal of Spain and to refuse intercourse with the Dutch. Silva has, however, but little money for this expedition, for the royal treasury is heavily in debt. The king writes to Silva (December 7, 1610) ordering him to investigate the complaint of the Indians ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... confines of this great and goodly camp the lists had been formed, and here from earliest dawn a great concourse had been gathering; villein and vassal, serf and freedman from town and village: noble lords and ladies fair from castle hall and perfumed bower, all were here, for to-day a witch was to die—to-day, from her tortured flesh the flame was to drive forth ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... down, and 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

... 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 held his land ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... miserable meditation over the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, and the constant erection of new obstacles in the course of his luckless love. And of Fanny's love he always has had a smouldering doubt: yet he remains her vassal, from the first, as he has told her—irrevocably her slave. He conceives himself an outcast on the wintry hillside, exiled from all ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron

... entered so reluctantly, because I foresaw its disastrous consequences, would be nothing but a reckless adventure, abandoned by myself because unsuccessful. If I allowed Napoleon to reinstate me in my rights, what would I be but his vassal? Not a king by the grace of God, but a king by the grace of Napoleon—not the ruler of a free and independent German state, but the governor of a French province—the despised oppressor of an enslaved people, robbed of their honor, independence, and nationality. ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the road. When I took the tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed in—a common dog, but sword in hand.—Where is the loft window? It ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... undoubtedly absurd to perish here, like some unreasonable adversary of the Borgias. Your device is rather outrageously horrific, Horace, like a bit out of your own romance—yes, egad, it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of The Vassal of Spalatro. Still I can understand that it is preferable to having fat and greasy fellows squander a shilling for the privilege of perching upon a box while I am being hanged. And I think I shall ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... electric chain around all France" and giving it a shock at every touch from the center; their confederation, installed and enthroned, is not only as a State within the State, but rather as a sovereign State in a vassal State; summoning their administrative bodies to their bar, judicial verdicts set aside through their intervention, private individuals searched, assessed and condemned through their verdicts. All this constitutes a steady, systematic defense of insubordination ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... recognising the mare, carried her and Bulukiya before their King Barakhiya. So he saluted him, and the King returned his greeting and seated him beside himself in a splendid pavilion, in the midst of his troops and champions and vassal Princes of the Jann ranged to right and left; after which he called for food and they ate their fill and pronounced the Alhamdolillah. Then they set on fruits, and when they had eaten thereof, King Barakhiya, whose estate was like that of King Sakhr, asked his guest, 'When didst thou leave King ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... catholic royal Majesty from the least vassal of your Majesty The Captain Pedro Sarmiento ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... protection of the rights, laws, and liberties of Scotland; the freedom of the church; the privileges of crown vassals; the independence of the courts; the 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 committed, ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... ruled by a petty king, who was also a priest. Then appear groups of cities, one of which exercised sway over a more or less extended district. The center of power was now in Erech, now in Ur, or Babylon, or some other city, whose king ruled supreme over numerous vassal kings. Among the first important names known to us are those of Sargon I. (3800 B.C.), king of Agade, a great conqueror and builder, and his son, Naram-sin. Another great builder was Gudea, king of Shirpurla. Most conspicuous of all is Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), king of Babylon, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the 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 ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous

... they had not been willing to receive him before his bulls came. In the royal court of justice, before which he appeared to be presented [to his see], he swore upon the gospels not to interfere with your Majesty's jurisdiction, to respect your royal patronage, and to be always your royal vassal. All this he has violated, three or four times; and during the ten months while he has governed the church he has not failed in each of them to annoy me and disturb the peace. The first occasion was, that an artilleryman had killed a slave-girl belonging ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... the tenant who accepted a fief to the lord who granted it was called vassalage. Every holder of land was the vassal of some lord. At the apex of the feudal pyramid stood the king, the supreme landlord, who was supposed to hold his land from God; below the king stood the greater lords (dukes, marquises, counts, and barons), with large estates; ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... other figures that fill every empty niche and deserted watch-tower. Through the lancet windows of the abbatial gateways the yeomanry of the vassal villages are peering; it is the weary time of the Hundred Years' War, and all France is watching, through sentry windows, for the approach of her dread enemy. On the shifting sands below, as on brass, how indelibly fixt are the names of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa [134] was the only place of Armenia [134a] which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms. The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the avarice of Sapor; but ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... 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 an ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... Dulcinea, lady of this captive heart, a grievous wrong hast thou done me to drive me forth with scorn, and with inexorable obduracy banish me from the presence of thy beauty. O lady, deign to hold in remembrance this heart, thy vassal, that thus in anguish pines for ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... a venial nature, Mr. Douglas besought the Bailie to us his interest to procure the enfranchisement of this his vassal, which Mr. Broadfoot, happy to oblige a good customer, promised should be obtained on the following day; and Duncan's emotions being rather clamorous, the party ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... 10, 1524, and addressed to the licentiates Acuna, Pedro Manuel, and Hernando de Barrientos, states that the King of Portugal has requested the removal of "one of our deputies, the astrologer Simon de Alcazaba, as he was formerly a vassal and is a native of that kingdom (Portugal)," as he is suspicious of him; and that another be appointed in his stead. Accordingly Carlos appoints one master Alcarez, although declaring that Alcazaba entered his service with the knowledge and consent of the Portuguese monarch. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... who maintained a kind of royal state in their own possessions, and kept high courts of judicature over life and limb in the whole extent of their hereditary fiefs. In the long English wars, from Crecy to Agincourt, the great body of them disappeared, and only here and there a great vassal was to be seen, distinguished in nothing from the other nobles, except in the loftiness of his titles and the reverence that still clung to the sound of his historic name. The second aristocracy arose among the descendants of the survivors of the English and Italian ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... River, flushed with the tribute of these vassal streams! thou art thyself a tributary, and hastenest even in the pride of conquest to confess thine own vassalage! But no superior stream exults in the homage of thy servile waters; the Ocean, the eternal Ocean, alone comes forward ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... the forest's king; How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring, Which he with such benignant royalty 5 Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; All nature seems his vassal proud to be, And cunning only for ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... the four comrades from their bark to the castle. Siegfried led a noble charger by the bridle, and stood by the stirrup till King Gunther had mounted, serving him as a vassal serves his lord. This Brunhild marked from where she stood. "A noble lord," thought she in her heart, "whom such a vassal serves." Then Siegfried mounted his own steed, and Hagen and Dankwart did the like. A fairer company ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... 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

... vassal of Philip of Mortham. Oswald Wycliffe induced him to shoot his lord at Marston Moor; and for this deed the vassal demanded all the gold and movables of his late master. Oswald, being a villain, tried to outwit Bertram, and even to murder him; but it turned out ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... past ten years the army has been drilled and equipped after the Prussian fashion, the finances placed on a tolerable footing, and practical independence of Turkey asserted. At the Vienna exhibition Roumania was the only one of the nominally-vassal states that did not display the star and crescent. Were the prince unrestrained by respect for Austrian and Prussian diplomacy, and free to lead his well-disciplined army of fifty thousand men into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... as you will; that whilst the devil hath need of his bond-servant he will come between with a miracle if need be to keep the villain breath of life in his vassal. Three bounds beyond the closing trap-jaws fetched us, pursued and pursuers, to the open camp field; and here the devil's miracle was wrought. Out of the forest fringe, out of the skirting of undergrowth, out of the very earth, as it seemed, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... respect to the National Assembly the use of it is their duty, and the nation is their authority. They were elected by the greatest body of men exercising the right of election the European world ever saw. They sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the vassal representatives of aristocratical ones. Feeling the proper dignity of their character they support it. Their Parliamentary language, whether for or against a question, is free, bold and manly, and extends to all the parts and circumstances ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... supplemented by further discoveries made by Dr. Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has found letters from Kharnmurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa, from which we learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites Kudur-Mabug and Eri-Aku, and had fled for refuge to the court of Kharnmurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out between ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... To the eyes the cause to examine — They the windows of the heart, Out through which in tears it glances. What is to be done? (O Heavens!) What is to be done? To drag him Now before the King were death; But to hide him from my master, That I cannot do, according To my duty as a vassal. Thus my loyalty and self-love Upon either side attack me; Each would win. But wherefore doubt? Is not loyalty a grander, Nobler thing than life, than honour? Then let loyalty live, no matter That he die; besides, he told me, If ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... forbid that 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 charter ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... wardship, by which no minor, heir, or heiress could have other guardian than the suzerain, and could not marry without his consent, was at all times a great source of wealth to the royal exchequer, and a correspondingly heavy tribute laid on the vassal. So profitable did the English kings find this law, that they speedily introduced it into Church affairs, every bishop's see or monastery being considered, at the death of the incumbent, as a minor, a ward, to be taken care of by the sovereign, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... Germany that Russia could not arm to defend itself, when Austria was preparing for a possible attack on Russia, has few, if any, parallels in history for bullying effrontery. It treated Russia as an inferior, almost a vassal, State. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... stood but yestermorn Above all compeers,—clothed with wealth and power, To day is poorer than his humblest hind. A whirlwind from the desert! All unwarn'd Its fury came. Earth like a vassal shook. Majestic trees flew hurtling through the air Like rootless reeds. There was no time for flight. Buried in household wrecks, all helpless lay Masses of quivering life. Job's eldest son That day held ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... against Veuillot that Augier had just aimed the introduction to his excellent comedy, Le Fils de Giboyer, and he made no secret of the fact that in the Deodat mentioned in the piece he had had this writer of holy abuse in his mind. Hello was in everything Veuillot's vassal. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... principles—a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,—what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and ...
— The Republic • Plato

... the man, the poorest wretch in life, The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife! Who has no will but by her high permission; Who has not sixpence but in her possession; Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell; Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell! ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Lord's relation to His disciples is given in the fact that He changes Simon's name. Jehovah, in the Old Testament, changes the names of Abraham and of Jacob. Babylonian kings in the Old Testament change the names of their vassal princes. Masters impose names on their slaves; and I suppose that even the marriage custom of the wife's assuming the name of the husband rests originally upon the same idea of absolute authority. That idea is conveyed in the fact that our Lord changes Peter's name, and so takes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... colonies, and finally the colonial officers whom it was 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 ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... cook, scullion, Cinderella; potwalloper^; maid of all work, servant of all work; laundress, bedmaker^; journeyman, charwoman &c (worker) 690; bearer, chokra^, gyp (Cambridge), hamal^, scout (Oxford). serf, vassal, slave, negro, helot; bondsman, bondswoman^; bondslave^; ame damnee [Fr.], odalisque, ryot^, adscriptus gleboe [Lat.]; villian^, villein; beadsman^, bedesman^; sizar^; pensioner, pensionary^; client; dependant, dependent; hanger ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... seldom loves, for their own sake, the fields and meadows, the landscape, or the noble animals which are to be converted into gold for his use. He comes to the country for his health or for change of air, but goes back to town to spend the fruit of his vassal's labor. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... the most observed, and also, among the pupils themselves, the most beloved. At the vicarage she was an easy first. When the three girls went out walking, she was always in the middle, with Esther and Mellicent hanging on an arm at either side. Robert was her sworn vassal, and Max and Oswald her respectful and, on the whole, obedient servants. Altogether, the prospect of playing second fiddle to this strange girl was by no means pleasant. Peggy tilted her chin, and spoke in ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... the treaty crowned the royal submissiveness towards the powerful vassal. It provided that in case of Charles's failure to observe all the stipulated conditions, his own subjects would be justified in taking arms against him at the duke's orders. A similar clause occurs in certain treaties between an earlier French king and his Flemish vassals, but always ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... think, then," he asked, "that you have brought me hither for nothing? There is the law. You are not altogether my slave, since you have kept your soul; but as you have freely called me, and I have come, you are my vassal. I have a half claim over you. The little children know that; I am astonished at your ignorance.... From midnight to three o'clock in the morning you belong to me, in the form of an animal, restless, roving, complaining, without help from God. This is what you owe to your strong ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... fortunes; on our swords Here met his death. With such a pledge of faith Here have we bought thee, Caesar; with his blood Seal we this treaty. Take the Pharian realm Sought by no bloodshed, take the rule of Nile, Take all that thou would'st give for Magnus' life: And hold him vassal worthy of thy camp To whom the fates against thy son-in-law Such power entrusted; nor hold thou the deed Lightly accomplished by the swordsman's stroke, And so the merit. Guest ancestral he Who was its victim; who, his sire expelled, Gave back to him the sceptre. For a deed ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... of God chanted a loud anthem—what must have been His sensations as He thought of them, now a devastated wreck, mouldering in dissolution and decay, the King of Terrors sitting in regal state, holding his high holiday over a vassal world! ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... Church, and State, and commerce, and compels all of them to go for slavery. Mr. Sumner, in his thrice repeated lecture, in New York, in May, 1855, declared, that, "notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the vassal of an oligarchy, whose single inspiration comes from slavery.". . . . . It "now dominates over the Republic, determines its national policy, disposes of its offices, and sways all to its absolute will." . . . ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Thus did he persuade Charlemagne to send a messenger to Marsile, commanding him to deliver up the keys of Saragossa, in all haste to become a Christian, and in person to come and, with all humility, pay homage as vassal to Charlemagne. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... mortally painful because, whilst I abhor all duplicity, I am obliged to dissemble. This makes me extremely desirous of resorting to some contrivance that will put me in a position in which I flatter myself to be able to profess myself publicly the vassal of his Catholic majesty, and, therefore, claim his protection, in whatever public or private measures I may devise to promote ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... Naimes arose: his beard and hair As white as drifted snow. In all the court No better vassal stood; and to the King: "Have you marked well the words Count Ganelon In answer spoke but now? His plan is wise; Follow it then. This King Marsile in war Is overcome, his strongholds all pulled down; By warlike engines are his walls destroyed, His cities burned, his men subdued;—when ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... unable to buy immunity, it is charitable to suppose he was entitled to it from innocence. A nobleman, with a few zecchini, was in little danger of the law, which confined its practice entirely to the lower orders. I knew a Sicilian prince, who most wantonly blew a vassal's brains out, merely because he put him in a passion. The case was not even inquired into. He sent half a dollar to the widow of the defunct (which, by the way, he borrowed from me, and never repaid), ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... the people of Anahuac, we summon you to the throne of Anahuac. Long may you live and justly may you rule, and may the glory be yours of beating back into the sea those foes who would destroy us. Hail to you, Guatemoc, Emperor of the Aztecs and of their vassal tribes.' And all the three hundred of the council of confirmation repeated in a voice of thunder, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... at the extreme ugliness of Lord B.'s countenance, and the nature of the proposal, retreated from the room, and tumbled down stairs precipitately; having no doubt that this barbaric chief, when at home, was in the habit of eating a joint of a tenant or vassal when his appetite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... halt To bless the sacred "bread and salt."[di][76] Alike must Wealth and Poverty Pass heedless and unheeded by, For Courtesy and Pity died With Hassan on the mountain side. His roof, that refuge unto men, Is Desolation's hungry den. The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour, 350 Since his turban was cleft by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... subjected under the stern rule of its conquerors. His suggestions are replete with wisdom, and a merciful policy, that would reconcile the interests of government with the prosperity and happiness of its humblest vassal. Thus, while his contemporaries gathered light from his suggestions as to the present condition of affairs, the historian of later times is no less indebted to him for information in respect to the past. His manuscript was freely consulted by Herrera and the reader, as he peruses the pages of the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... sixteenth century the Reformation, spreading throughout the North of Europe, undermined the basis of the Teutonic Order. The Grand Master of the time transformed himself into a Lutheran Prince holding the hereditary Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the King of the neighbouring Slavonic State of Poland. In 1611 the Duchy was amalgamated with the territory of Brandenburg farther west, and in 1647 the enlarged Prussian territories won their emancipation ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... 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] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... it looked to me like a foot-bath, but Perry insisted on examining it, and, removing the cover, found the bottom was a silver plate with this inscription: 'Presented by His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XIV., king of France and Navarre, to his devoted vassal and servitor, Melun du Guesclin, Sieur de Courance, Dec. 25, 1714.' Perry declared he recognized it as a veritable piece of that rare faience made by Pierre Clerissy for the Grand Monarch when he coined all his plate to pay the army in Flanders. The king subsequently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... fixed in wonderment upon the graybeard's face, stood spellbound. Now Ederyn was the page's name, an orphan lad whose lineage no man knew, but that he came of gentle blood all eyes could see, although as vassal 'twas his lot to wait upon the great ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... sad, thou of the sceptred hand? The rob'd in purple, and the high in state? Rome pours her myriads forth, a vassal band, And foreign powers are crouching at thy gate; Yet dost thou deeply sigh, as if ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... friend the Cowardly Lion, who is the valiant King of the Forest, but at the same time a faithful vassal of Princess Ozma. And this is the Hungry Tiger, the terror of the jungle, who longs to devour fat babies but is prevented by his conscience from doing so. These royal beasts are both warm friends of little Dorothy and ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... Mahmud of Ghazni, who between 997 and 1030 made many raids in which he sacked Kanauj, Muttra, Somnath and many other places but without acquiring them as permanent possessions. Only the Panjab became a Moslim province. In 1150 the rulers of Ghor, a vassal principality near Herat, revolted against Ghazni and occupied its territory, whence the chieftain commonly called Muhammad of Ghor descended on India and subdued Hindustan as well as the Panjab (1175-1206). One ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... disgusted With proofs of affection like these, I'm growing 'old, tawny and crusted,' Tho' my nature is easy to please. An Englishman's home is his castle, So I think that my friend Mary Ann Should respect, tho' she deem him her vassal, The rooms ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... to him, stretching between his present home and that where he desired to be, and it would be difficult for him to get away from the dominion that held him captive, unless by consent of the power of whom he was the vassal. So the more the thought of the mountains of Israel drew the Psalmist, the more there came into his mind the thought, 'How am I to be made able to reach that blessed soil?' And surely, if we saw, with anything like a worthy apprehension and vision, the greatness of that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Charles was threatened with a conspiracy against his power in Italy. Tassilo, the vassal Duke of Bavaria, aspired to independence and was induced by his wife, a daughter of King Didier, to make common cause with her nation; Areghis, the Lombard ruler of Benevento, had emphasised his independence by assuming the style and crown of a king. The two princes made ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... familiar in those days. France, unable formerly to keep Naples against Spain, had now to defend Lombardy against Spain, supported by Germany, Naples, and the Netherlands. Francis maintained the unequal struggle for four years, although his most powerful vassal, Bourbon, brought the enemy to the gates of Marseilles. The decisive action of the long Italian war was fought at Pavia in June 1525, where Francis was taken prisoner, and was compelled to purchase his ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... As to yourselves, be as you have hitherto been, faithful and true to me, and by the favour of Christ you will become the richest Spaniards that have ever come to the Indies; you will render the greatest services to your king that ever vassal rendered to his lord; and you will have the eternal glory and advantage of all that is here discovered, conquered, and converted ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... Siam; but the stout old chief, attended by trusty followers, boldly brought his own "hostage" thither; and Maha Mongkut, though secretly chafing, accepted the situation with a show of graciousness, and overlooked the absence of the younger vassal. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... of academic oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare that the only thing which kept him from throwing aside the worry and vexation of governmental duties and retiring to the much coveted leisure of home and hearth, was the oath of vassal loyalty constraining him to stand at his post until his imperial master released him of his own accord. And at the very height of his political triumphs he wrote to his sovereign: "I have always regretted that my talents did not allow me to testify my attachment ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... Gloucester, the commander of the rear-guard. The chieftain was 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... that fiery, self-sufficient vassal, "be stirring, sir Fool. I have orders to see you to the gates. There is a horse ready saddled for you. It is the Lord Cardinal's parting gift. Resolve me now, which will be the greater ass—the one that rides, or the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... to disclaim. And, as one mode of effecting this, it was proposed that the king should become an emperor. Some, indeed, alleged that an emperor, but its very idea, as received in the Chancery of Europe, presupposes a king paramount over vassal or tributary kings. But it is a sufficient answer to say that an emperor is a prince, united in his own person the thrones of several distinct kingdoms; and in effect we adopt that view of the case in giving the title of imperial to the parliament, or common assembly of the three ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Humbert that he must follow him in this war, he, the Dauphin, being arch-seneschal of Arles and Vienne. Next year, the arch-seneschal received an invitation from Philip of Valois to join him with his troops at Amiens as vassal of France. The Dauphin tried to back out of the dilemma between his two suitors by frivolous excuses to both, all the time determining to assist neither. In 1338 he came to Avignon, and the Pope gave him his palace at the bridge of the Sorgue ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... suited for sees [mitras] so remote—as the father confessor sets forth, and that boldly. In every Dominican there is a bishop, a governor, and an absolute monarch; nor will he acknowledge himself to be a vassal—as is shown by a fiscal reply that comes from Filipinas and will go to the court, in the terms of which is recognized the intention of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... to their boats, and rowing out to their ships, luckily escaped the storm. On the morning they came back in search of the bodies of those who had dropt. Among the dead were Haco of Steini, and Thorgisl Gloppa, both belonging to King Haco's household. There fell also a worthy vassal called Karlhoved, from Drontheim, and another vassal named Halkel, from Fiorde. Besides, there died three Masters of the Lights, Thorstein Bat, John Ballhoved, and Halward Buniard. It was impossible for the Norwegians to tell how ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson

... interfered sadly with the nation which was rising on the Atlantic seaboard, and of which Kentucky was a part. War was to be avoided, and above all a war into which we should have been dragged as the vassal of France; so Washington intended to wait, and he managed to make the Kentuckians wait too, a process by no means agreeable ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... of the master 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 of his ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... when he seized the dukedom cf Normandy, became virtually a vassal of the King of France, though it is doubtful whether he ever took the trouble to recognize the suzerainty of the throne. As sovereign, however, the King of France claimed the right of homage, which consisted, according to feudal usage, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... there 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 ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... VASSAL, in 1822 at Paris, third clerk of Maitre Desroches, an advocate, by whom were employed also Marest, Husson and Godeschal. [A Start ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... further, to him an object of hatred. In his eyes the distance between himself and the aristocrat is as the distance between truth and error, nay between good and evil, between honour and dishonour. The schoolmaster is the fanatic vassal of democracy. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... the 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... quite easy to understand how, this Tristram legend existing by hypothesis already or being created at the same time, the curious centripetal and agglutinative tendency of mediaeval romance should have brought it into connection with that of Arthur. The mere fact of Mark's being a vassal-king of Greater Britain would have been reason enough; but the parallel between the prowess of Lancelot and Tristram, and between their loves for the two queens, was altogether too tempting to be resisted. So Tristram ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... 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 watched ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... on a rock they stand, Who watch His eye, and hold His guiding hand! Not half so fixed amid her vassal hills, Rises the holy pile ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... soul was in his arm; and, as his foemen closed around, Vassal after vassal, wounded, yelling, fell and bit the ground; But when through the wood there rushed an hundred thronging to the fight, Charging through them, still defying, Roland safety sought ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... laugh), 'you will make me confess. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility which had a strong flavour of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vassal. Be easy, mother.' ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... oppression; 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 the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the young—. laird's frae this moment, if he likes to take him for a herezeld, [*This hard word is placed in the mouth of one of the aged tenants. In the old feudal tenures, the herezeld constituted the best horse or other animal in the vassal's lands, became the right of the superior. The only remnant of this custom is what is called the sasine, or a fee of certain estimated value, paid to the sheriff of the county, who gives possession ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... were made by the mother of Boabdil, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, with the concurrence of the party which still remained faithful to him. It was thereby proposed that Mahomet Abdallah, otherwise called Boabdil, should hold his crown as vassal to the Castilian sovereigns, paying an annual tribute and releasing seventy Christian captives annually for five years; that he should, moreover, pay a large sum upon the spot for his ransom, and at the same time give freedom to four hundred Christians ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... a rebel which she had had to subdue, not a vassal to command, like the glorious organ of Mme. Grisi, but her harsh and unmanageable notes had been tutored by a despotic drill into great beauty and pliancy. Like that of her sister in quality, it combined the two registers of contralto and soprano from low F to C above the lines, but the ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... 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 standards, in an evil ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... other which were mathematically incapable of meeting? That the young republic, conscious of her daily growing strength, should now seek refuge from her nobly won independence in the protectorate of Albert, who was himself the vassal of Philip, was an idea almost inconceivable to the Dutch mind. Yet so impossible was it for the archdukes to put themselves into human relations with this new and popular Government, that in the inmost recesses of their breasts ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... whom the wrong was to be wrought. As soon as they were all seated, the Emperor spoke and told them afresh what the messengers had said. 'But Marsile makes one condition,' continued Charles, 'which is that I must return to France, where he will come to me as my vassal. Now, does he swear falsely, or can I trust his oath?' 'Let us be very careful how we answer him,' cried the nobles with ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... to raise absolute thrones, and restore a central power, always so necessary to the cause of civilization. Feudalism had answered many useful ends in the dark ages. It had secured a reciprocity of duties between a lord and his vassal; it had restored loyalty, truth, and fidelity among semi-barbarians; it had favored the cultivation of the soil; it had raised up a hardy rural population; it had promoted chivalry, and had introduced into Europe the modern gentleman; it had ennobled friendship, and spread the graces of urbanity ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... would doubtless have been glad to scare away these undesired strangers. Owing to this, a collision between the two forces occurred; but so crushing was the defeat of the Indians that they resigned themselves submissively to the Spaniards, and henceforth became a vassal tribe, lending assistance to their white masters in both civil ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... Eulaeus escaped with his treasure to Samothrace, how Philometor's brother Euergetes was set up as king in Alexandria, how Antiochus took Memphis, and then allowed his elder nephew to continue to reign here as though he were his vassal and ward. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... upon the angel smile on the face of your little daughter Magdalen. An she be here, I would toss her arm-high for a kiss of her mouth, which I would rather touch than that of lady or leman. For I do ever profess myself her vassal and slave. Where have you hidden her, Malise? ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... words. King Boabdil, to show his prowess to 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 ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... paper was found in the same place, which read as follows: "Governor, guard thy city. Remove the scaffoldings from the walls, and do not trust anyone, for the enemy are very near thee." The father prior also took that message to the governor, alleging that because of his quality as a good vassal, he could not avoid giving him that annoyance. But the governor was not annoyed but instead thanked him again and again, and in his presence had an adjutant, one Don Joseph Zamora, summoned, and ordered the latter to remove the scaffolding ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... returned from the Mandla District have already been mentioned. In Bilaspur they have quite different ones, of which two, Joharia and Pailagia, are derived from methods of greeting. Johar is the salutation which a Rajput prince sends to a vassal or chief of inferior rank, and Pailagi or 'I fall at your feet' is that with which a member of a lower caste accosts a Brahman. How such names came to be adopted as subcastes cannot be explained. The caste ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every step a new language falls upon it, and every tongue with different intonation, for the high and the low, the prince, peer, vassal, and tradesman, the proud beauty, the decrepit crone, some fresh budding into the world, some standing near the grave, the gentle and the stern, the sombre and the gay, in short, every possible antithesis ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... affair was concluded, Cabral, continuing the exploration of the Malabar coast, arrived at Cochin, where the Rajah, a vassal of the Zamorin, hastened to conclude an alliance with the Portuguese, eagerly seizing this opportunity to declare himself independent. Although by this time his fleet was richly laden, Cabral made a visit to Cananore, where he entered into a treaty with the Rajah of the country; then, being ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... ancient family in France. She of humble birth. Her parents of no note at all. His ancestors all noble. And therefore she looked up to the high-born Bertram as to her master and to her dear lord, and dared not form any wish but to live his servant, and so living to die his vassal. So great the distance seemed to her between his height of dignity and her lowly fortunes, that she would day: 'It were all one that I should love a bright particular star, and think to wed it, Bertram is so ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... two friends and cousins, and reconstituting the surroundings and the atmosphere of both families. Families, however, are conceived and depicted in their most extended relations; figures are evoked of chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master; and with them go their "opposite numbers" (to borrow an army term) from chieftainess to cook. Chieftainesses are there unmistakably. One ex-beauty had retired from the Court of the Regent to Castle Townshend (Miss Somerville's personal ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... some secret grief were gnawing at his vitals. And, indeed, good cause existed for his sorrow; for, but a few days previously, he had lost his wife. They had buried the countess at midnight, as was the custom of the family, in the old, ancestral vault of the castle. Vassal and serf had waved their torches over the black throat of the grave, and the wail of women had gone up through the rocky arches. Still the count had been seen to shed no tear. An old warrior, schooled in the stern academy of military life, he had early learned to conquer his emotions; ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... Amiens; but the answer of England is perfectly intelligible,—You have not adhered to that treaty in any instance whatever, but have gone on annexing Italian provinces to France. You have just now made a vassal of Switzerland, and to all our remonstrances on the subject you have answered with utter scorn. While you violate your stipulations, how can you expect that we shall perform ours? But another obstruction to the surrender of Malta has been produced by the conduct ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... subordinate to the Viceroy. But the Emperor who succeeded Aurangzeb had none of their predecessors' greatness; and soon after Aurangzeb's death the Nizam of Hyderabad assumed independence, with the Nawab of the Carnatic as his vassal. ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... humble birth. Her parents of no note at all. His ancestors all noble. And therefore she looked up to the high-born Bertram as to her master and to her dear lord, and dared not form any wish but to live his servant, and, so living, to die his vassal. So great the distance seemed to her between his height of dignity and her lowly fortunes ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... again parcelled out among those who would engage to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned. Thus re-granted, the seigneur could not eject the habitant, but was allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "lods et ventes," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the habitant makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... 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 my government ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... though his prospects are apparently fair, the intelligent observer of Mexican politics cannot fail to have seen that the glare of the clerical eye is upon him, and that some faint indications on his part of a determination not to be the Church's vassal have already placed his supremacy in peril, and perhaps have caused conspiracies to be formed against him which shall prove more injurious to his fortunes than the operations of Liberal armies or the Messages ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... Madeline! sweet 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 will not ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... believing that it was better to trust them to a great extent, and instead of going and staying with them to watch, we sent our compliments and gifts, and told them we expected they would remember their treaty and the consequences of any breach of faith. After all was over not a slave or vassal was missing, and though there were not wanting idle tongues let loose by the unlimited supply of strong drink, and brawlings, and determinations to take the poison of their own accord in order to prove their innocence, not one ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... remarks about it. As for Mr Millar, if he noticed her silence and preoccupation, he certainly did not resent them, but gave to the few words she now and then put in, an eager attention that went far beyond their worth; and had she been a princess, and he but a humble vassal, he could not have addressed her with more ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... 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 ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... spleenful joy express'd; While on her wrinkled front, and eyebrow bent, Sat stedfast care, and lowering discontent. Thus she proceeds—"Attend, ye powers above! But know, 'tis madness to contest with Jove: Supreme he sits; and sees, in pride of sway. Your vassal godheads grudgingly obey: Fierce in the majesty of power controls; Shakes all the thrones of heaven, and bends the poles. Submiss, immortals! all he wills, obey: And thou, great Mars, begin and show the way. Behold Ascalaphus! behold ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

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

... 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 ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... speak with her at once. The Kaisar's consent I have, as he says, 'If we have one vassal who has common sense and honesty, let us make the most of him.' Ah! my son, I shall return to see ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause, leading to battle a vassal population, warlike as themselves. Borne down by numbers from without, wasted by corruption from within, New France fell at last; and out of her fall grew revolutions whose influence to this hour is felt through every ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... cruelties such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes, and were no more free to act without her consent than were the kings the Roman Republic and Empire allowed to exist within their dominions free to act without the consent of the proconsuls. What the proconsul of Syria was to the little potentates mentioned in the New Testament, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

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

... people have never forgotten and that is that in Dushan's reign Bulgaria was Serbia's vassal. The reconstruction simultaneously of Big Bulgaria and Great Serbia is impossible. And neither race has as yet admitted that a middle ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... 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

... Roger Bigod, "I will gladly go; as belongs to me by hereditary right, I will go in front of the host, before your face;" but without the king he positively declined to move. "By God, earl," cried the king, fairly roused by the obstinacy of his vassal, "you shall either go or hang;" to which the earl replied, with equal determination, "By the same token, O king, I ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... was obliged to raise a large sum of money for the provisioning and paying of his troops. His vassals, the nobles and barons of his principality, were obliged to furnish the men, it being the custom in those times that each vassal should bring to his lord, in case of war, as many soldiers as could be spared from among his own tenants and retainers—some fifty, some one hundred, and some two hundred, or even more, according to the extent and populousness of their ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of each other, Asto-huaraca, full of arrogance, sent to Inca Yupanqui to tell him that he could see the power of the Chancas and the position they now held. They were not like him coming from the poverty stricken Cuzco, and if he did not repent the past and become a tributary and vassal to the Chancas; Asto-huaraca would dye his lance in an Inca's blood. But Inca Yupanqui was not terrified by the embassy. He answered in this way to the messenger. "Go back brother and say to Asto-huaraca, your Sinchi, that Inca ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... Kramar, for instance, foresaw the present situation with remarkable perspicacity. In the Revue de Paris for February, 1899, he wrote on "The Future of Austria," declaring that her subject nationalities should be on guard lest she should become a vassal of Germany and a bridge ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... Although he might have bided his time to assemble his people and revenge himself, he determined to depart alone, and to hide himself and die exiled from his kingdom and state, in a province called Ciguay, of which the ruler was his vassal. 6. When the Christians became aware that he was missing, he could not hide himself from them. They made war on that ruler who sheltered him, where, after great slaughter, they found and captured him. When he was taken, they put him on a ship in chains, to bring him to Castile in fetters. The ship ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... for a while. "You are a fool, Adhelmar," said he, at last, "but you are a brave man, and you love as becomes a chevalier. It is a great pity that a flibbertigibbet wench with a tow-head should be the death of you. For my part, I am the King's vassal; I shall not break faith with him; but you are my guest and my kinsman. For that reason I am going to bed, and I shall sleep very soundly. It is likely I shall hear nothing of the night's doings,—ohime, no! not if you murder d'Andreghen in the court-yard!" ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

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

... temperamental. For a thousand years it took the form of a struggle 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, repudiated the Barbarian ideals of Teutonism. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... here mentioned, were 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 Macfarlane's MSS. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... and down in the crisp, dry snow and watched for Virginia to come, and as his mind leapt ahead he saw her enthroned in a mansion, with him as her faithful vassal—when he was not her lord and king. For the Huffs were proud, even now in their poverty, and Virginia was the proudest of them all; and in this, their first meeting, he must remember what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It should be his part to speak with humility ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

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

... cause her to shorten the dreary interval, and summon him to her presence at once. Just then some one opened the door, and his heart began to beat with anticipation; some one pronounced his name, and, going over, he saw the animated bag of bones—otherwise his lady-love's vassal and porter. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... in charge of them; and having entirely suppressed the slave-trade within his 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 threatened ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... the spectacle of nature, or the superb beasts that are to be converted into gold pieces for his use. The man of leisure comes to the country in search of a little air and health, then returns to the city to spend the fruit of his vassal's toil. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

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

... to exist. '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 ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... vassal streams, Like thee in modest beauty beams; So shines the diamond of the mine, And the rock-crystal of the brine; The gems of heaven, the earth and sea, Are blended, all, dear maid, ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... 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

... for, though he believed in Sylvia's affection, he was subject to acute, almost morbid, attacks of physical jealousy. To see other men admire her was torture, particularly as he had to efface himself and be treated by her father as a faithful vassal. ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... vague and uneasy jealousy had arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the future schemes of the Kalmuck Khan: and 10 very probable it is that, but for the war then raging, and the consequent prudence of conciliating a very important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from what would powerfully alienate him, even at that moment such measures would have been adopted as must forever have intercepted 15 the Kalmuck schemes. Slight as were the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... at least, the Sultan remained the vassal of the Susuhunan, in token of which he paid him public homage once each year at Ngawen, near Djokjakarta, where, in the presence of an immense concourse of natives, he was obliged to prostrate himself before the Susuhunan's throne as a public acknowledgment ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... not, indeed, devoid of a certain imaginative wonder at the marvels of the East; not without his moments of ardour and excitement; deeply impressed with the feeling of feudal loyalty, the sense of the bond between the suzerain and his vassal; deeply conscious of the need of discipline in great adventures; keeping in general a cool head, which could calculate the sum of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... profoundly erudite, subtle, and picturesque historian grovels before the man and subscribes himself "Of your Holy Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments posterity passes on once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable introduction we hear of "il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con confini della ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... 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 in one corner of Europe (Lapland, as well as among the Russian Yakuts) a different ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and Compiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to Joan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford. He was a poor reptile. He told her he would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... don't you think that you will have that frightful head cut off?" He replied, You ugly old -, I believe I shall." At his trial he affected great weakness and infirmities, but often broke into passions; particularly at the first witness, who was his vassal: he asked him how he dared to come thither! The man replied, to satisfy his conscience. Murray, the Pretender's secretary, was the chief evidence, who, in the course of his information, mentioned Lord Traquair's having conversed ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole



Words linked to "Vassal" :   follower, feudatory



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