"Abdicate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... miles away, than a dead soldier. He scowled in disgust, but she reached his hand under the table. She had given orders to Otaballo and then she had lain awake all night crying because he had carried them out. Her plan had been to get the kingdom all straightened out and at peace, and then to abdicate. But things had gone wrong and she told them a story of plots and counterplots, of strange men arrested at her very door with knives in their hands, of a bomb found in the palace, that held them breathless. Danbury fairly boiled over ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... about to add," I said coldly, "that, since I have lived at 'Pastimes,' I have not had my own way at all. I have not wanted it. Mrs Fane's character is stronger than mine. I have been content to abdicate in her favour. If you asked her opinion of me, she would probably tell you that I ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... system of religious opinion which men of culture have avowedly put away. And, moreover, the very priests must, I should think, be supposed to have put it away also. Else they would hardly be invited deliberately to abdicate their teaching functions in the very seats where teaching is of the weightiest and most ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... case. If the position of the religious instructor is to be maintained only by his holding one thing as true, and teaching another thing as to be received,—in the name of the GOD of Truth, either let all teaching cease, or let the fraudulent instructor abdicate willingly his office, before the moral indignation of an as yet uncorrupted people thrust him ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. "That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging Deity," was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of his situation, that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... all the Flavian generals was rather to threaten the city than to attack it. They realized that Vitellius had lost the best cohorts of his Guards, and now that all his forces were cut off they expected he would abdicate. But this prospect was spoilt first by Sabinus' precipitation and then by his cowardice, for, after very rashly taking arms, he failed to defend against three cohorts of Guards the strongly fortified castle on the Capitol, which ought to have been impregnable even to a large army. However, it ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... primitive church. They pronounced a formal exclusion from ecclesiastical functions against all prevaricating priests or married ones, as well as all those who had the cowardice to deliver up their authority for preaching, and abdicate their functions. Some interested persons thought this too severe. Those bishops persisted in their decision, and, by way of answer, they reprinted a translation of the celebrated treatise of St. Cyprian de Lapsis. On all sides, they reanimated religions ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... requiring names whereby to draw forth an army for diversion, but no man would answer. Report hereof being made to the Senate, the younger sort of the fathers grew so hot with the Consuls that they desired them to abdicate the magistracy, which they had ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... refrain was in every mouth—"humanity." The very songs of previous stages, the "Ca ira" and the "Carmagnole," were displaced by new and milder ones. With Paris in this mood, it was clear that the proscribed might return, and the Convention, for its intemperate severity, must abdicate. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of lesynge them selfe forsoke the shyp & gate them into the bote: he onely abode / and by chaunce was safe brought into the hauen / wherupon he chalengeth the vessell for his / where as the party defendant wyll lay against hym that he is abdicate or for- saken of his father / and so can nat by the law haue any ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox
... Rallis, even going so far as to say: "Sire, pray consider that you have a Government clothed with the full confidence of the nation. Let it carry out its policy. Else, you will incur undue responsibility." The King's answer was: "If you wish it, I will abdicate." [16] He would rather give up his crown than assume the responsibility of sanctioning a policy which his whole military training and experience told him was insane and suicidal: how justly, the event soon showed. The losses of men and ships which Gallipoli cost ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... oppose what is passing, if you desire that he should not seize upon all that you have. There must be no delays, no useless wishes; reckon only upon yourselves, unless you indeed have the stupidity to suppose that he will abdicate through shame of tyranny that which he holds by force of crime." In another part, he assails the First Consul on the nature of his precautions to secure his power. He charges him with the formation of a troop of Mamelukes, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... audience. But the Emperor Francis, who was standing by the side of his consort, looked with a somewhat sneering expression on the crowd below, and, turning to the empress, he said: "Perhaps my dear Viennese may consider Haydn on his easy-chair yonder their emperor, and I myself may abdicate and go home. They did not even look at us to-night, and are raising such a fuss now as though God Almighty had ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... must have known that the Kaiser would not object to his massacres of the Armenians and the strengthening of Turkish rule, for these only aided the purposes of Germany. But Abdul Hamid was forced to abdicate by a revolution of his own people before the Armenians were exterminated and before the Kaiser's dream was realized. By 1915, however, the "Great Assassin's" power was in the hands of Turks who held the same beliefs and sought to carry out the same plans ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... none of the monarchs of this dynasty [Page 125] calls for notice. The last emperor was compelled to abdicate; and thus, after a career of nearly three centuries bright with the light of genius and prolific of usages good and bad that set the fashion for after ages, this ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... by the subservience of Charles IV and his prime minister and favorite, Godoy, to the French, rose in March, 1808, swept away Godoy, forced the king to abdicate and placed his son Ferdinand upon the throne. It was believed that this change of rulers would check French influence in the Peninsula, but Ferdinand was forced by Napoleon into a position more servile than that occupied ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... greet Menes for me. Remember also that I know how to be thankful, which is the great secret of ruling. Tell Menes that I shall carry out every wish of his, unless he asks me, for example, to abdicate. Return to me when Thou hast rested, I will keep an ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Assemblies at the Luxembourg—I mean the Palace of the Bourbons—fatigue me. In short, whatever regret I may feel at parting from my honorable colleagues, and from my faithful constituents, I shall abdicate my functions whenever you are ready and willing to accept them. Have you not some property in ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... citizens, by order of the parliament; then, at the moment when the citizens were crying out against Monk—at the moment when the soldiers themselves were accusing their leader—Monk, finding himself certain of a majority, declared to the Rump Parliament that it must abdicate—be dissolved—and yield its place to a government which would not be a joke. Monk pronounced this declaration, supported by fifty thousand swords, to which, that same evening, were united, with shouts of delirious joy, the five hundred thousand inhabitants of the good city of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from the very basic principle of our educational system, from the law and spirit of our Constitution. Our form of Government, as we all know, is dual. Matters of education are relevant to the Province. The more the Province will abdicate its claims, and submit to the growing influence of the Federal powers, the greater will be the danger of losing the political equilibrium of Confederation. Unstable equilibrium, once disturbed, is hardly ever re-established. The centrifugal forces of the Province ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... young King broke his solemn promise, set up the standard of revolt, and was joined by nobles, ecclesiastical as well as lay, and by the restless Saxon rebels. By a trick he got his father into his power and forced him formally to abdicate, while he himself was crowned King by the papal legate. But the Emperor escaped, and with marvellous energy gathered adherents; but a renewal of the struggle was staved off by his own death after a few days' illness ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... with whose moderate political views I became acquainted later, used to join us. Loyal they all were, and our mother was so strongly attached to the house of Hohenzollern that I heard her request one of the younger men, when he sharply declared it was time to force the king to abdicate, either to moderate his speech or cease ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... taking his seat my father began: "Well now, daughter, you are the captain. Right here I abdicate. Anything you want done shall be done. What you say about things in the kitchen shall be law. I will furnish the raw materials—you and the girls must do the rest. We like to be bossed, don't we, Belle?" ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the worldlings who had failed to make the world workable should abdicate. "The organic thing called religion has in fact the organs that take hold on life. It can feed where the fastidious doubter finds no food; it can reproduce where the solitary sceptic boasts of being barren." In short, in religion alone ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... and although luck has been against me, cannot claim that I have used it well. Besides, I'm not robbing Gerald by agreeing to your plan; Gerald robbed himself and me." He paused and went on with some emotion: "Very well, I'm ready to abdicate, and thank you for trying to save my feelings by giving me ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... "Don't abdicate, dear aunt," replied Theodose. "God keep me from ever taking a step without you! You are the good genius of this family; I think only of the day when Thuillier will take his seat in the Chamber. If you let the house you will come into possession of your forty thousand francs ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... with Mary's hated religion to alienate entirely the love of her people. Her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was murdered. The queen was suspected of having some guilty knowledge of the affair. She was imprisoned and forced to abdicate in favor ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... case of Mr. KING who, on being offered a peerage if he would desist from his criticisms of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE and his Ministry, pointed out that other monarchs might abdicate, but that those who thought he would do so clearly knew ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... we imagine that we achieve the utmost that is possible; while he, who, from a distance, looks on and commands, believes that he requires only the possible. O ye kings! I had not thought it could have galled me thus. It is so sweet to reign!—and to abdicate? I know not how my father could do so; but ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the bile of Dr. Staines. "What, sir!" said he, "you could separate her and me by your authority, here in this very room; and yet, when her life is at stake, you abdicate! You could part her from a man who loved her with every drop of his heart,—and she said she loved him, or, at all events, preferred him to others,—and you cannot part her from a miserable corset, although ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... ratified by his son, who solemnly promised that all questions relating to his realm and its people should be settled in parliaments in which the commons should be included. Thereafter no statute could be legally passed without their consent. In 1327 Parliament showed its power by forcing Edward II to abdicate in favor of his son, and thereby established the principle that the representatives of the nation might even go so far as to depose their ruler, should he show himself clearly unfit for his high duties. About ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... up deliberately nearly all that has made life interesting and attractive to you ever since you can remember. Caroline, would you advise me to—to abdicate? You know ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Why should she abdicate? The human being was obviously susceptible to personality beyond all other things. And beauty moved that absurd creature preposterously. There, at least, the woman who chanced to be born with these superficial attractions, had a royal territory, ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... for a moment difficult to get rid of our habitual associations, and to feel that we are not a mere partnership, dissolvable whether by mutual consent or on the demand of one or more of its members, but a nation, which can never abdicate its right, and can never surrender it while virtue enough is left in the people to make it worth retaining. It would seem to be the will of God that from time to time the manhood of nations, like that of individuals, should be tried by great dangers or by great opportunities. If the manhood ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... incurred the resentment of Count Ricimer, one of the chief commanders of the barbarian troops who formed the military defence of Italy. At a distance from his Gothic allies, he was compelled to abdicate (October 16, 456), and Majorian was raised to fill ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... in the last article. From the 3rd of September all the royal decrees bear the significant words, "with the assent of our dearest cousin Henry Duke of Lancaster." He commenced his reign on the 29th of September in reality, when he forced Richard to abdicate; but officially, on the 1st of October, 1399. His first regnal act was to grant to himself all the "honours of descent" derived from his father; in other words, to revoke his own attainder. He was ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... made, Ernst and several servants set off in attendance on Master Gresham for the capital city of the Netherlands. It had been for some time known that the Emperor—Charles the Fifth— purposed to abdicate the throne in favour of his son Philip the Second, now titular King of England, as well as of several small kingdoms and provinces. The day fixed was the 25th of October of the year 1555. In the magnificent hall of the residence ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he deposes the ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... found that it was not at all popular in the country. A counter-revolution, headed by the statesman Stambulov, was immediately initiated, and on September 3 Prince Alexander reappeared in Sofia amidst tumultuous applause. Nevertheless his position was hopeless; the Emperor Alexander III forced him to abdicate, and on September 7, 1886, he left Bulgaria for good, to the regret of the majority of the people. He died in Austria, in 1893, in his thirty-seventh year. At his departure a regency was constituted, at the head of which ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... to enjoy the confidence of the Nation, and to procure for itself acceptance at the hands of the Church,—it will be found necessary that the work should be confided to Churchmen. The Church may never abdicate her function of being "a Witness and a Keeper of Holy Writ." Neither can she, without flagrant inconsistency and scandalous consequence, ally herself in the work of Revision with the Sects. Least of all may she associate with herself ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... this influence is that of our discredited Academy. The Manchester and Liverpool collection are merely weak reflections of the Chantrey Fund collection. Now, if the object of these cities be to adopt the standard of taste that obtains in Burlington House, to abdicate their own taste—if they have any—and to fortify themselves against all chance of acquiring a taste in art, it would clearly be better for the two corporations to hand over the task of acquiring pictures to the Academicians. ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... general government not to abdicate, by non user, the power vested in them of appropriating public money to great national objects of internal improvements, and declares the final result of the doctrine of abdicating powers arbitrarily designated as doubtful is but the degradation of the nation, the reducing itself ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... understood that this was only a pretext. Reform would be the entrance on power of the opposition, the entrance of the opposition would be war, would be the beginning of the end. Accordingly he had determined to abdicate as soon as the opposition assumed the reins of government; for he no longer would be himself supported by public opinion. The want of this support it was which finally caused him to abandon the throne without resistance. He could not have kept it without civil ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... could not pay much attention to the duties of government, and the power of the civil ministers and military chiefs grew accordingly. The case was like that of the Merovingian monarchs of France and the Mayors of the Palace, who in time succeeded to the throne. The mikados began to abdicate after short reigns, to shave off their hair to show that they renounced the world and its vanities, to become monks and spend the remainder of their days in the cloister. These short reigns helped the shoguns and ministers in their ambitious purposes, until in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ladyship was audible outside long enough for Mrs. Bailey to abdicate before she entered the room. They met on the stairs and spoke. Was that Mr. Torrens at the piano?—asked Gwen. Because if it was she mustn't stop him. She would cry off and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Burnet. There were good authorities brought, by which it appeared, that when a person did a thing upon which his leaving any office ought to follow, he was said to abdicate. But this was a critical dispute: And it scarce became the greatness of that assembly, or the importance of the matter.—Swift. It was a very ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... immortal gods, what is it, Romans, you would have? You desired tribunes; for the sake of peace we granted them. You were eager to have decemvirs; we consented to their creation. You grew weary of these decemvirs; we obliged them to abdicate. Your hatred pursued them when reduced to private men; and we suffered you to put to death, or banish, Patricians of the first rank in the republic. You insisted upon the restoration of the tribuneship; we yielded; we ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their posterity forever. These gentlemen may value themselves as much as they please on their Whig principles; but I never desire to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to understand the principles of the Revolution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... bishop. As this personage was usually elected from the house of the Duke of Savoy, Geneva had become little better than a dependency of that state. The first years of the sixteenth century had been turbulent. The bishop, John, had at one time been forced to abdicate his authority, but later had tried to resume it. The Archbishop of Vienne, Geneva's metropolitan, had then excommunicated the city and invited Duke Charles III of Savoy to punish it. The citizens rose under Bonivard, renounced the authority of the pope, expelled the bishop and broke ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... you of your self-distrust! You—reign? Come, come! You would be pale and wan; One of those timid, introspective kings Who are imprisoned lest they abdicate. ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... nothing for pity—nothing for love? Will ye leave a foreign Parliament to mitigate—will ye leave a native Parliament, gained in your despite, to redress these miseries—will ye for ever abdicate the duty and the joy of making the poor comfortable, and the peasant attached and happy? Do—if so you prefer; but know that if you do, you are a doomed race. Once more, Aristocracy of Ireland, we warn and entreat you to consider the State of the Peasantry, and to ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... would be too much to claim that higher thought makes men unselfish, it at least cracks the hard shell in which their selfishness abides. If a man disciplines himself to abdicate his personal point of view in thinking about the world he lives in, it makes easier a similar attitude in relation to ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... make laws which should be binding on a foreign queen, and in virtue of which, if she transgressed them, she could be punished with death? In fact these doubts were raised at the time.[259] Against them it was alleged that Mary, who had been forced to abdicate by her subjects and deprived of her dignity, could not be regarded any longer as a queen: while a deposed sovereign is bound by the laws of the land in which he resides. If she was still a queen, yet she was subject to the feudal supremacy of England, and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... despatch of the 9th December. Do not compel the Emperor to abdicate, but do not delay the departure of the troops; bring back all those who will not remain there. Most of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... returned in triumph with the appellation of the Deliverer of Italy. He chose that moment to signify to Avitus, that his reign was at an end; and the feeble emperor, at a distance from his Gothic allies, was compelled, after a short and unavailing struggle to abdicate the purple. By the clemency, however, or the contempt, of Ricimer, [28] he was permitted to descend from the throne to the more desirable station of bishop of Placentia: but the resentment of the senate was still unsatisfied; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... "This delay," she ejaculated, "this uncertainty by which, abroad, we are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and will be before Constantinople in no time! Then the Government will be fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would abdicate at once. Be bold!" "She feels," she reiterated, "she cannot, as she before said, remain the Sovereign of a country that is letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, the retarders of all liberty and civilisation that exists." When the Russians advanced to the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Emperor Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand. Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... nothing revolutionary in a mere border-skirmish, which leaves the field of woman's sway not an inch the narrower. It is another matter when M. Duruy calls on Hermione to come down from her pedestal of worship, and in the long run to abdicate. For equality of education would, of course, even if it did nothing else, make mince-meat of the spiritual pretensions of woman. It would be impossible to preserve a domestic Papacy with a more than papal weakness for ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... satisfying to all may never be reached; but to evade these questions is to abdicate the teacher's function. Many young people are led by the biologic teachings of the day to regard man as the utterly helpless product of his environment. Or they are so impressed with the obvious and immediate needs of whole masses for better food, better homes, greater opportunities ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... kept—are deserted by the sole occupation for which they have fitted themselves; and remain with undiminished activity but with no employment for it, unless perhaps a daughter or daughter-in-law is willing to abdicate in their favour the discharge of the same functions in her younger household. Surely a hard lot for the old age of those who have worthily discharged, as long as it was given to them to discharge, what the world accounts their only social duty. Of such women, and of those others to whom this duty ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... killed. Whether Mary was privy to the murder, or not, is a point still in dispute. Certain it is that she gave her hand in marriage to Bothwell, the prime author of the crime. A revolt of her subjects followed. She was compelled to abdicate: Murray was made regent, and her infant son, James VI., was crowned at Stirling (1567). Escaping from confinement at Lochleven, she was defeated at Langside, and obliged to fly to England ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... girls have a dull time of it till they are married, when 'Vive la liberte!' becomes their motto. In America, as everyone knows, girls early sign the declaration of independence, and enjoy their freedom with republican zest, but the young matrons usually abdicate with the first heir to the throne and go into a seclusion almost as close as a French nunnery, though by no means as quiet. Whether they like it or not, they are virtually put upon the shelf as soon as the wedding excitement is over, and most of them might exclaim, as did a very pretty woman ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Austria was the first person who informed the King of the Queen's conduct in Italy, that after the enquiry was set on foot a negotiation was entered into with the Queen, the basis of which was that she should abdicate the title of Queen, and that to this she had consented. He said that Brougham had acted a double part, for that he had acquiesced in the propriety of her acceding to those terms, and had promised that he would go over to her and confirm her in her resolution to agree to them; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... measures had brought on the church, but which it was, perhaps, not yet too late to rectify; and he concluded by admonishing her, that, if she valued her own fame, or the interests of her soul, she would compel this man of yesterday to abdicate the office, for which he had proved himself so incompetent, and return to his ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... of a family perceives his own wrinkles and grey hair, committing the care of his wife to his sons, or accompanied by her, let him repair to the woods and become a hermit.'—Manu, vi. 2. It was usual for kings, at a certain time of life, to abdicate the throne in favour of the heir-apparent, and pass the remainder of their ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... what cause moved, or for the adorning of what other suppositions, they frame in a manner innumerable differences and forms of bodies in the soul, there is none can say, unless it be that they remove, or rather wholly abdicate and destroy, the common and usual notions, to introduce other foreign and strange ones. For it is very absurd that, making all virtues and vices—and with them all arts, memories, fancies, passions, impulses, and assents—to be bodies, they should affirm that ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... to bless thy own. These flowers, that round us spring, may be transplanted: and Odo made to bloom with amaranths and myrtles, like this Serenia. Before thy people act the things, thou here hast heard. Let no man weep, that thou may'st laugh; no man toil too hard, that thou may'st idle be. Abdicate thy throne: but still retain the scepter. None need a king; but many ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Vigny, and other young men of genius, were just opening the assault on the citadel of classicisme. Conventional rules were set at defiance; the authorities that had so long held sway were summoned to abdicate; nature, truth, above all passion, were invoked as the sources of inspiration, the law-givers of the imagination, the sole arbiters of style. As usual, the movement extended beyond its legitimate sphere. Not only the forms, but the ideas, not only the traditions, but the novelties, of the eighteenth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... habits still re-asserted themselves, in spite of the slight check imposed on her by the remembrance that the house belonged to Elizabeth, that the many new luxuries and comforts, including freedom from debt, had come from Elizabeth's purse, and that Elizabeth, although she chose to abdicate her power, was really the sovereign of Strathleckie. But Elizabeth arrogated so little to herself, and was so wonderfully content to be second in the house, that Mrs. Heron was apt to forget the facts of the case, and to act as if she were mistress as much as she had ever been in ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... well-defined use. The people were not, at first, troubled to elect them—the King did that himself, and then as one good turn deserves another, the electors agreed to elect the successor the King designated, when death should compel him to abdicate. Then to fill in the time between elections, the electors did the business of the King. It will thus be seen that every elector was really a sort of King himself, governing his little State, amenable to no one ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... in every province (duet in D minor). Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs, appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the Arabs kneeling before the ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... the occurrences of that reign will be sufficient to convince us that Charles V. was not sincerely religious until age, infirmities, and misanthropy, had brought upon him the misfortunes which attended the last years of his life, and induced him to abdicate the crown, and retire to the solitudes of Yuste. It is already known that, at the beginning of Luther's rebellion against the Roman church, Charles resolved to avail himself of the terror which the ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... odd digression? May be that I by heaven's decrees Shall abdicate the bard's profession, And shall adopt some new caprice. Thus having braved Apollo's rage With humble prose I'll fill my page And a romance in ancient style Shall my declining years beguile; Nor shall ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... to the throne was the signal for intrigues and sanguinary broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been murdered in exile.... For long centuries the Government was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one infant sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as he approached man's estate. At one period, these Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a livelihood by selling their autographs! Nor did any great party in ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... only consented to abdicate because she felt sure of escape. With an infant king the regency of Murray promised to be a virtual sovereignty; and the old factions of Scotland woke again into life. The house of Hamilton, which stood next in succession to the throne, became the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... morning, when he arose, he observed from his window that the greater part had disappeared. A council was immediately summoned, and a proposal made that the King should flee by sea to Bordeaux; but the Duke of Exeter objected that to quit the kingdom in such circumstances was to abdicate the throne. Let them proceed to the army at Conway. There they might bid defiance to the enemy; or at all events, as the sea would still be open, might thence set sail to Guienne. His opinion prevailed; and at nightfall the King, in the disguise of a Franciscan ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... plunged into the old story about English selfishness, and greed, and duplicity. But the climax related to Spain, and it amounted to this: they agreed that the Bourbons of the Spanish throne should be made to abdicate, and Bonaparte's relations set up as sovereigns instead ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... humanity; who ask us to regard the female intellect as the clearer and the quicker, if not the stronger; who desire us to look up to the feminine moral sense as the purer and the nobler; and bid man abdicate his usurped sovereignty over Nature in favour of the female line. On the other hand, there are persons not to be outdone in all loyalty and just respect for womankind, but by nature hard of head and haters of delusion, however charming, who not only repudiate ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... looked on expectantly when the war started, because there was a general knowledge of the conditions existing in Europe and the undercurrent was felt by students of international affairs. But that Russia would revolt and the Czar abdicate, as he did in March, 1917, and the iron-ruled country would set up a government of its own—would join the circle of democracies—was not even hinted at. Neither was it intimated that Constantine I, King of Greece, would abdicate in favor ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... Mortimer shrunk from the odium of decreeing Edward's deposition, and the more prudent course was preferred of inducing the king to resign his power into his son's hands. An effort to persuade the captive monarch to abdicate before his estates, was defeated by his resolute refusal. Thereupon a committee of bishops, barons, and judges was sent to Kenilworth to receive his renunciation in the name of parliament. On January 20, Edward, clothed in black, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... comfortable and established Universe had fitted all the known facts—and then new facts had been learned that wouldn't fit it. The third planet of the Sol system had once been the center of the Universe, and then Terra, and Sol, and even the galaxy, had been forced to abdicate centricity. The atom had been indivisible—until somebody divided it. There had been intangible substance that had permeated the Universe, because it had been necessary for the transmission of light—until ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... abdicate his crown, and without the Pope's permission he cannot abdicate his wife! Is it possible that otherwise enlightened men have wallowed so long in this ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... days after, that nothing could be more mal-a-propos to the business of Government or hard upon him; that it was cruel to have this forced upon him at such a time and in such a manner; and as the question was put, it was hardly less than whether he should abdicate government. "If the troops are removed," he wrote, "the principal officers of the Crown, the friends of Government, and the importers of goods from England in defiance of the combination, who are considerable and numerous, must remove also," which would have been quite an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... nice, Quickly degen'rates into Vice; Change but the Person, Place, and Time, And what was Merit turns to Crime. Wisdom, which men with so much pain, With so much weariness attain, May in a little moment quit, And abdicate the throne of Wit, And leave, a vacant seat, the brain, For Folly to usurp and reign. Should you but discompose the tide, On which Ideas wont to ride, Ferment it with a yeasty Storm, Or with high Floods of Wine deform; Altho' Sir ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... environment of the young is constituted by the presence and action of the habits of thinking and feeling of civilized men. To ignore the directive influence of this present environment upon the young is simply to abdicate the educational function. A biologist has said: "The history of development in different animals. . . offers to us. . . a series of ingenious, determined, varied but more or less unsuccessful efforts to escape from the necessity of recapitulating, and to substitute for the ancestral method ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... the Great, king of Asturias, ascended the throne in 866, fought against and gained numerous victories over the Moors; the members of his family rose against him and compelled him to abdicate, but on a fresh incursion of the Moors he came forth from his retreat and triumphantly beat them back; died in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... other hand the home need not abdicate all of its old-time functions as a social center. A few years ago in attending a rural community conference at the University of Illinois I was interested to hear a farm woman, a graduate of that university, tell how she and her neighbors had held amateur dramatic entertainments ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... both excluded. By this act the absolutist party were deprived of power until they should be restored to it by the action of the new king, or by a revolution. The regency wished the new king to make a speedy choice between the two crowns; and it was anticipated that he would abdicate the Portuguese crown in favour of his seven-year-old daughter, Maria da Gloria. The absolutists on the other hand hoped that the king might by procrastination avoid the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... proceedings with deepest interest and concern and not a little admiration. But not only did Swallow refuse to abdicate but he seemed to take decided exceptions to the feminine method of appeal. He evidently did not like to be called "doggie," "pet," "dearie," and ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... worst fate of Rome is hanging over us; whether that of Sylla be in store for our despot, I know not. Should he, however, abdicate at the end of three years (Sylla's term), he will be hunted by the cries of a guilty conscience and by the curses of an outraged people, more intolerable than the pangs which tortured in his last moment the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... with you to explain what you are now in a position to see for yourself. I believe a second choice is considered a woman's privilege. Miss Carteret, as you observe, has just availed herself of this. And I am afraid that in consequence you will have to abdicate in my favour." ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... from Paris that Leopold is deadly sick of his Belgian crown, and impatient to abdicate, thinking that it is a better thing to be an English Prince, uncle to the Queen, with L50,000 a year, than to be monarch of a troublesome vulgar little kingdom which all its neighbours regard with an evil or a covetous eye. Louis Philippe is in a mighty fright ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the most condign animadversion, and the consequences might be legible for ever, were a gentleman, so conspicable in the town as you are, to evacuate the magistracy on account of it. But it is my balsamic advice, that rather than promulgate this matter, the two malcontents should abdicate, and that a precept should be placarded at this sederunt as if they were not here, but had resigned and evaded their places, precursive ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... taken you as far as you want to go, you decline to advance any further; even though you fully admit that the very same reasoning forbids you to stop where you are pleased to cry halt! But this is simply forcing your reason to abdicate in favour of your caprice. It is impossible to imagine that Hume, of all men in the world, could have rested satisfied with such an act of high-treason against the sovereignty of philosophy. We may rather conclude that the last word of the discussion, which ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... he stood there for some moments in anxious deliberation over his best course of proceeding. His main idea was to lie in wait somewhere for Dick, and try the result of an appeal to his better feelings to acknowledge his outcast parent and abdicate gracefully. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... have any hold on the mind of the French people. When I mentioned their name, it seemed to produce no emotion, one way or the other. But if the marshals and grandees, who have hold of the wires of administration at the point where they are centralized, chose to make Napoleon III abdicate, (as they made Napoleon I. abdicate at Fontainebleau,) and to set up a king of the House of Orleans in his place, they could probably do it; and they might choose to do it, if, by such blunders as the Mexican expedition, he seemed to be placing their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... and that they must still retain their power, till that great purpose were thoroughly effected: in other words, that they must be perpetual governors, and must continue to reform, till they were pleased to abdicate their authority. They formed an association among themselves, and swore that they would stand by each other with their lives and fortunes; they displaced all the chief officers of the crown, the justiciary, the chancellor, the treasurer; and advanced either themselves or ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... end of half an hour she heard the low tones of conversation change to the brisk notes of leave-taking. Her heart began to beat with fear, but not the kind of fear that makes people run away; rather the kind that makes them abdicate all reason and fan their emotions into a sort of ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... Virtue our Ancestors exerted in the Case of Chilperick their 18th King, whom they forced to abdicate the Kingdom, [Footnote: Regno se abdicare coegerunt.] and made him a Monk, judging him unworthy to sit at the Helm of so great an Empire, [Footnote: Propter inertiam.] by reason of his Sloth. Whereof Aimoinus, lib. 4. cap. 61. Sigibertus and Trithemius, anno 750. and Godfrey, ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... innocent; so the enquiry must be allowed to proceed quietly. If Obada wished to examine Paula he, the Kadi, had no objection; to preside over the court and to direct the trial was his business, and that he would not abdicate even for the Khaliff himself so long as Omar thought him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... abdicate, desert, leave, resign, abjure, discontinue, quit, retire from, cast off, forego, recant, retract, cease, forsake, relinquish, surrender, cede, forswear, renounce, vacate, depart from, give up, repudiate, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... S. Michele in Orto, consecrate And duly worshipped. Fair in holy state She listens to the tale each sinner tells: And among them that come to her, who ails The most, on him the most doth blessing wait. She bids the fiend men's bodies abdicate; Over the curse of blindness she prevails, And heals sick languors in the public squares. A multitude adores her reverently: Before her face two burning tapers are; Her voice is uttered upon paths afar. Yet through the Lesser Brethren's jealousy She ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... of bigotry awakened still more gothic thoughts in the King. He resolved to abdicate the crown in favor of my Brother. He used to talk, He would reserve for himself 10,000 crowns a year; and retire with the Queen and his Daughters to Wusterhausen. There, added he, I will pray to God; and manage the farming economy, while my wife and girls take ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... defended her against the world through thick and then; but a breach of another law, the offence of admitting all sorts of people to her house—this was sin without remission. The sins of those in power are always overlooked—once let them abdicate, and they shall pay the penalty. And what was it but ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... you love watching the different ways people have of entering a restaurant? There is the woman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held together by a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment; it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety. Then there are the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as if they were angels of Death entering a plague city. You see that type of Briton ...
— Reginald • Saki
... Philippe was overthrown in France, some disturbance occurred, and Leopold offered to abdicate; but his proposition was not accepted, and he wisely and skilfully led his government through all the troubles of that excitable period. He is a wise and prudent statesman, and as such has had a great ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... when developed has its drawbacks, which should make any feeling woman afraid to put her child out to nurse. Is she prepared to divide her mother's rights, or rather to abdicate them in favour of a stranger; to see her child loving another more than herself; to feel that the affection he retains for his own mother is a favour, while his love for his foster-mother is a duty; ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... old he felt the burden of government become heavier year by year, till at last he called together his high barons and peers to propose to abdicate the empire and the throne of France in favor of his ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the king to dismiss his obnoxious ministers, and replace them by a Liberal ministry who should introduce parliamentary reform. The king was in entire sympathy with his ministers. They were carrying out his own policy. With tears in his eyes he declared that he had rather abdicate the throne ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did not abdicate, and remained—although married—more than ever the widow of a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... assassinated at a ball, in 1792, and his son, Gustaf Adolf IV., came to the throne. His policy involved the nation in a war with the allies, and he lost Finland and Pomerania. He was so unpopular that he was compelled to abdicate, and his uncle, Charles XIII., was raised to the throne in 1809. He had no children, and the Prince of Holstein-Augustenburg was elected as his successor; but he was assassinated, and one of Napoleon's generals, ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... substitute for the Regency, but not so good. The King is well in body; and, unless he will abdicate, we cannot get the minority for the Regency. I think, upon the whole, the Governor- General will think the Report worth reading, and the remedy worth considering. It will bring little additional trouble ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... of Pelias professed a perfect willingness to abdicate the throne of Iolchos; but, before they retired, they requested Medea to do the same kindness for their father which she had already done for Aeson. She said she would. She told them the method was ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... still in love with her and tried to keep her in the kingdom; but the result was that Ludwig himself was forced to abdicate. He had given his throne for the light love of this beautiful but half-crazy woman. She would have no more to do with him; and as for him, he had to give place to his son Maximilian. Ludwig had lost a kingdom ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr |
