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Abdicate   Listen
verb
Abdicate  v. i.  To relinquish or renounce a throne, or other high office or dignity. "Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abdicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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, so long as she ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

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

... been witnessed by the present generation. Its horrors are described with poetical exaggeration in the Shu-king. When the efforts to stop the floods had proved futile for nine years, Yau wished to abdicate, and he selected a virtuous young man of the name of Shun as his successor. Among the legends told about this second model emperor is the story that he had a board before his palace on which every subject was permitted to note whatever faults he had to find with his government, and that by means ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... family secret, my lord duke," says Colonel Esmond: "poor Beatrix knew nothing of it: nor did my lady till a year ago. And I have as good a right to resign my title as your grace's mother to abdicate hers to you." ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... salon impertinence for the loss of a lead it either could not or would not take in Parliament. The descendants of those very fathers and mothers who had, in many cases, suffered incarceration, and death even, together, set to hating each other cordially, because these would not abdicate what those would not condescend to compete for. The noblesse cried out, that the bourgeoisie was usurping all its privileges; and the bourgeoisie retorted, that the time for privilege was past. The two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... Boxers to disperse to their homes and be law-abiding subjects, that they were to be destroyed if they should oppose the government troops in any way whatever. If this is true there is great hope for China. We sincerely hope that she will at once abdicate and allow the Emperor, Kwang Hsu, to resume control, for he is just the man that China needs to-day. Oh! I do wish that the Powers would demand his return to the throne! I am certain that the Powers can render no better ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 4, October, 1900 • Various

... word 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 ...
— 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

... people, goaded 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

... his last contribution to territorial legislation, but it suggested a far-reaching change in our colonial policy. It was the logical conclusion of popular sovereignty practically applied.[934] Congress was invited to abdicate all but the most meagre power in organizing new Territories. The task of framing an organic act for the government of a Territory was to be left to a convention chosen by adult male citizens who were in actual residence; but this organic law ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... Congress then, or what right has it now, to abdicate any power conferred upon it as trustee of the States? What right had Congress then, or has it now, to shrink from the performance of a duty because the mere counters spread on the table may be swept off, when they have ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

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

... 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 of his son, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... driven him out of Greece;(831) not once imagining that they would ever invade his dominions. Hannibal, who was now restored to favour, was for ever assuring him, that the war would soon be removed into Asia, and that he would soon see the enemy at his gates: that he must resolve, either to abdicate his throne, or oppose vigorously a people who grasped at the empire of the world. This discourse awakened, in some little measure, the king out of his lethargy, and prompted him to make some weak efforts. But, as his conduct was unsteady, after sustaining ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... denies everything through fear or distrust, and that the tyrannized and enslaved peoples are the only ones whose duty it is never to ask for anything. A people that hates its government ought to ask for nothing but that it abdicate its power." ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... upon the woman as the higher type of 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, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

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

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

... France was playing her part in public affairs, all Europe was surprised by another woman, whose actions were without parallel and whose case seems to be the opposite of the one just cited. Marie de' Medici left Italy to become a queen, and now a queen is seen to abdicate that she may go to Rome to live. Christine, Queen of Sweden, a most enlightened woman and the daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus who had brought about the triumph of the Protestant arms in Germany, relinquished her royal robes in the year 1654, announced her ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... frankly before them, inviting them as frankly to express their opinion upon it, with the result that he was fully confirmed in the opinion which he had formed. The day after the close of the conference he definitely announced to Umu his intention to abdicate and quit the valley; at the same time asking that officer's advice as to the best and most desirable mode of procedure in so ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... youth had so far forgotten gratitude as to frankly announce his intention of 'knockin' Keene's lights out' if he were further interfered with. To the journalist his 'lights' were indispensable; in no sense of the word did he possess too many of them; so it was clear that he must abdicate his tutorial functions. Alice implored her brother to come ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... an account. He has not, however, given them light enough or afforded them sufficient ground for a fishing bill in Chancery. Yet he says, "If you call upon me in a Chancery way, or by Common Law, I really will abdicate all forms, and give you some account." In consequence of this the Company did demand from him an account, regularly, and as fully and formally as if they had demanded it in a court of justice. He positively refused to give them any account whatever; and they have never, to this very day in which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... old prince heard his son speak thus, he was filled with admiration for the youth's sagacity; so, conceiving that Kadzutoyo had given reliable proof of wisdom and prudence, he resolved to abdicate;[83] and Kadzutoyo was proclaimed Prince of Tosa ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... embassy from the Arabs, he impressed upon them the wisdom and magnanimity of being lenient to the conquered. Kaotsong died in 683, and the Empress Wou retained power until the year 704, when, at the age of eighty, she was compelled to abdicate. Her independent rule was marked by as much vigor and success as during the life of Kaotsong. She vanquished the Tibetans and a new Tartar race known as the Khitans, who appeared on the northern borders of Shensi. She placed her son in confinement ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

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

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

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

... laws relating to money. A strong party among the Lords was obstinate. Mulgrave spoke at great length against the pretensions of the plebeians. He told his brethren that, if they gave way, they would abdicate that authority which had belonged to the baronage of England ever since the foundation of the monarchy, and that they would have nothing left of their old greatness except their coronets and ermines. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

... feof of Courland was, in consequence of the annihilation of Poland, incorporated with the Russian empire, Peter, the last duke, the son of Biron, being compelled to abdicate, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

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

... less amount of concession would have preserved his throne to Leopold II. As regarded his own power, he had no objection to agree to all that was asked of him, but he could not make up his mind to go against the head of his house and the head of his religion. The last proposal made to him was to abdicate in favor of his son, whom, if allied with Piedmont, the Tuscans would have consented to accept as their sovereign. But the grand duke felt that this would in fact be doing in an indirect manner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... throughout the country as the most unscrupulous and adroit politician the Revolution had thrown up. This person, who is known to have been gravely implicated in many assassinations, and who was the instrument used in 1912 by Yuan Shih-kai to persuade the Manchu Imperial Family to abdicate, had in a brief four years accumulated a vast fortune by the manipulations he had indulged in as Director-General of The Bank of Communications, an institution which, because it disposed of all the railway receipts, was always ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... Spain; or rather to Paris. Don FRANCOIS D'ASSISSI has, it appears, suddenly discovered that his wife is not Queen of Spain so much as she was. Much less so. So, he has found her company rather expensive than agreeable; and proposes to abdicate it. Not so very much of an ass, is he? Bravo for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... did not like it, though she gave in at last, and tried to make the best of it; but then she—Camilla—as you call her—met the old monster, Lord Tyrrell, made up a quarrel, because Mrs. Poynsett would not abdicate, and broke it off." ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... readiness to obey it, by summoning the people according to command, and 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 not the courage ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

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

... 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 name ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... only slave in its empire? My privacy invaded, my actions censured, my friends insulted? But I will get rid of the whole together.—Be you witnesses," and he took the star, insignia of office, from his breast, and threw it on the table. "I renounce my office, I abdicate my power—assume ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... crown; but he was 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, Bernadotte, was chosen crown prince, and in 1818 ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

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

... world, and it must needs be such. The Almighty gave me intelligence to direct my life. When He speaks He reveals Himself to me as to an intelligent being: and He expects that I receive His word intelligently. Were I to abdicate my reason in the acceptance of His truths, I would do my Maker as great an injury as myself. All the rest of creation offers Him an homage of pure life, of instinct or feeling; man alone can, and must, offer a higher, nobler and more acceptable ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... 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 ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

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

... 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 need ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... results which the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte produced without intention on his part, was the uprising against Spanish oppression in South America. When Napoleon compelled Ferdinand to abdicate the crown of Spain in favor of Joseph Bonaparte, the loyalty and spirit of the Spaniards were aroused, and the people refused to submit to a monarch imposed on them by treachery and supported by foreign bayonets. In the provinces not occupied by the French, juntas were established which assumed ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

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

... Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V, we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades of life those pleasures which are denied ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... deserved to be considered, and selected as his successor, Phraa-tes, the eldest of the thirty. Not content with nominating him, or perhaps doubtful whether the nomination would be accepted by the Megistanes, he proceeded further to abdicate in his favor, whereupon Phraates became king. The transaction proved a most unhappy one. Phraates, jealous of some of his brothers, who were the sons of a princess married to Orodes, whereas his own mother was only a concubine, removed them by ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... go and 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 important ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

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

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

... 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 ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position, it was harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. "If you please, Sir," she said, hurriedly, with an increasing colour and no stops, "we're not always pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte

... agents of 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, admitted the delegates to his presence. Utterly unmanned by misfortune, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... king dying without issue, his adopted son, the present king, ascended the throne. During his minority his father acted as regent—a position the latter found to suit him so well that, by-and-by, when his son became of age he refused to abdicate the throne in favor of its lawful occupant, threw off all semblance of allegiance, and assumed a high-handed and arrogant bearing, especially exhibited towards the queen and her family, with whom the regent was at bitter feud. To compass their destruction was then his first care, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... 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, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Princes should hand over the command of their forces to the Prussian King, but he knew that the King of Hanover would never consent to this, and probably the King of Saxony would also refuse; he might also require the reigning Kings to abdicate in place of their sons; or he might leave them with considerable freedom, but cripple their power by taking away part of their territory. These solutions seemed to him undesirable because they would leave dynasties, who would naturally be hostile, jealous, and suspicious, with ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... Khalif Abassid Motewekkel in Egypt, praying to be made his deputy in the Sudan in general and in Songhois in particular. The Abassid consented, requiring the king of Songhois to abdicate for three days and to place the power in his hands. On the fourth day Motewekkel solemnly proclaimed Askia Mohammed the representative of the sultan in Sudan. He accompanied this by placing a green fez and white turban upon his head and returning ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... she too says. "Use your reason to the full to examine my credentials; study prophecy, history, the Fathers—study my claims in any realm in which your intellect is competent—and then see if it is not after all supremely reasonable for Reason to abdicate that particular throne on which she has sat so long and to seat Faith there instead? Certainly follow your Reason and use your private judgment, for at present you have no other guide; and then, please God, aided by Faith, Reason will itself ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... 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 ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... take him away to a place of safety; as soon as it appeared, the people threw themselves upon the carriage and broke it up. When the noise reached the palace the old king burst into tears: "My people no longer love me!" cried he; "I will no longer reign over them. I shall abdicate in favor of my son." The queen's mind was occupied with no other thought than the safety of Godoy; she thought it assured by this renunciation of the throne, and willingly set her hands to it. The act ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... belonging to him by all moral right. When Philip d'Avranche was killed, I set to work to do for your child what had been done by another for Philip d'Avranche. I have made him my heir. When he is of age I shall abdicate from the duchy in his favour. This deed, countersigned by the Powers that dispossessed his father, secures to him the duchy when he is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 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' ...
— 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

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

... 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 he no longer ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

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

... 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 better than those by whom it was brought ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... express his astonishment. He wrote, two days after, that nothing could be more mal—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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... is stated to have said that he was working to give Maximilian the chance to abdicate honorably; but the favor in which he was held at court makes such ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... 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 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of sorrow, the eldest Pandav, after reigning thirty-six years, decided to abdicate in favor of Arjuna's grandson, and to start on a pilgrimage for Mount Meru, or Indra's heaven. As the Hindu universe consists of seven concentric rings, each of which is separated by a liquid from the next continent, he had ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... and gracefully taking the crown from her own fair curls, she placed it on the silvery locks of her mother; "I abdicate in your favor, and, sweetheart, I thank you for placing our dynasty on the throne. Mary, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

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

... the Guildhall became the arena of many an important incident connected with the political events of the times. At a later period, when, in 1689, the Government of James II. had become so intolerable that he was forced to abdicate, Guildhall was the spot where the Lords of Parliament met and agreed on a declaration in favour of the assumption of regal authority by the Prince of Orange, afterwards ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

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

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

... him the Golden Fleece, for the sake of which this perilous expedition had been undertaken. But the old king, who had never expected that Jason would return alive, basely refused to fulfil his part of the compact, and declined to abdicate the throne. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... worship in all the dioceses, according to the principles of the 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 ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... simply that the buttercup is at home, and that with the close of her bondage comes a grace and a naturalness that take her out of the realms of bread-and-butter. However difficult it may be for her maturer rivals to abdicate, it is the buttercup in fact who gives the tone to the holidays. There is a subtle contagion about pleasure, and it is from her that we catch the sense of largeness and liberty and physical enjoyment that gives a new zest to life. She laughs at our moans about sunshine ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... roused 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 you see in her poor ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... so distasteful as it might be." He met my darkening eyes with serenity. "Since Thursday night I have not been so certain of my wife's dowry. If there are two Princesses, twins, they must govern jointly, or one may abdicate in favor of the other. Her Serene Highness the Princess Hildegarde is the one who will be most likely to relinquish her claims to Hohenphalia. If your friend is proved to be her sister—" ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

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

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

... to, give rope enough, give a loose to; tolerate; relax; misrule. go beyond the length of one's tether; have one's swing, have one's fling; act without instructions, act without authority, act outside of one's authority; act on one's own responsibility, usurp authority. dethrone, depose; abdicate. Adj. lax, loose; slack; remiss &c. (careless) 460; weak. relaxed; licensed; reinless[obs3], unbridled; anarchical; unauthorized ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... and there was wanting, also, something of his cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room for the lady between himself and the driver, if she ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... 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 ...
— The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke • Leonard Cox

... in order to be able to look with approbation, from an utilitarian point of view, on any amount of homicide or robbery. It was the very same Robespierre that, while as yet diocesan judge at Arras, felt constrained to abdicate because, 'behold, one day comes a culprit whose crime merits hanging, and strict-minded, strait-laced Max's conscience will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam to die,' who, shortly after, when sufficiently imbued with the utilitarian spirit, was fully ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... as she handed Mary her quart of meal and the change for her hard-earned shilling, that she had spoiled her own fortunes, and that she would, ere night, be called upon to abdicate her stool behind the counter in favour of that humble customer; and yet so it was. Mr Benjamin could not forgive her dereliction from honesty; and the more he had trusted her, the greater was the shock to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

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

... but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate! Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's rule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

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

... 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 both ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

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

... number of the strolling player's habits, and the supper on returning home was one of them, as was his habit of delaying his return until the last footlight in the boulevard theatres was extinguished. To retire without supping, at the hour when all other artists supped, would have been to abdicate, to abandon the struggle, and he would ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... first Rome, next Italy, then the neighbouring states, and at last the whole world. Never has the Church despaired, even when, beaten and despoiled, she seemed to be at the last gasp. Never will she abdicate, never will she renounce the promises of the Christ, for she believes in a boundless future and declares herself to be both indestructible and eternal. Grant her but a pebble on which to rest her head, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... that the khan, or emperor, was absent. His cousin had risen against him, and had been joined by most of the ameers, who accused the khan of having broken the laws of the Yassak, and had called upon him to abdicate. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy. God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex life, and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Others shall be thy gentlemen and shall represent all courtesy and worldly life for thee; others shall do the great and resounding actions also. Thou shalt lie close hid ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... better, a thousand times better, that Edith should have been forced to abdicate than that Lucia should have taken herself out of the way in this fashion; a fashion so hideously suggestive of social suicide; that she should be living within four miles of her fastidious and refined relations in a fifth-rate ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... he was to punishing the 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 worthy to hold ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... proposes——" she began, cryptically. Then he deliberated, and sulkily submitted: "But I may not even propose to abdicate. Augustus has put himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my hideous death. And in consequence I might keep on abdicating from now to the crack of doom, and the only course left open to him would be to treat ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... the Duchess in her old friend's ear, "does it not seem to you that there is something suspicious in this business? Don't you suspect an intrigue on the part of the King's brothers to get the poor man to abdicate? He is well known as a good father. They may well have wished to throw ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France

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

... wrote Titus Livius. Undoubtedly it would be better were man not compelled to change: but what! because he is born ignorant, because he exists only on condition of gradual self-instruction, must he abjure the light, abdicate his reason, and abandon himself to fortune? Perfect health is better than convalescence: should the sick man, therefore, refuse to be cured? Reform, reform! cried, ages since, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Reform, reform! cried our fathers, fifty years ago; and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... "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 ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... of my Lady dwells At 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. ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... their various political subdivisions. Local self-government is one of our most precious possessions. It is the greatest contributing factor to the stability strength liberty, and progress of the Nation. It ought not to be in ringed by assault or undermined by purchase. It ought not to abdicate its power through weakness or resign its authority through favor. It does not at all follow that because abuses exist it is the concern of the Federal Government to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... concerning her of Almighty God. This fiction of old age was discredited, so was the bitterness of deposition, the mournful fiction of being passed by and relegated to the second place. Her place was her own. Her standing ground in the universal order, a freehold, absolute and inalienable. She could not abdicate her throne, neither could any wrest it away from her. She perceived that not self-effacement, but self-development, not dissolution, but evolution, was the service required of her. And, as divinely designed contribution to that end was every joy, every sorrow, laid upon her, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

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

... 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, ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... remembering that the highest reality is supra-temporal, and that the destiny which God has designed for us has not merely a contingent realisation, but is in a sense already accomplished. There are, in fact, two ways in which we may abdicate our birthright, and surrender the prize of our high calling: we may count ourselves already to have apprehended, which must be a grievous delusion, or we may resign it as unattainable, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

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

... no finer example of the humility of true greatness than KING CONSTANTINE'S decision to abdicate. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various

... final and full authority. Here he overreached himself, for, once out, he was out for good. On July 19th, at six o'clock in the morning, after an all-night conference, the Emperor was persuaded to abdicate. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... 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

... 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

... the world beyond, which bows itself, and will for ever bow, before the myrtle crown and the stainless sceptre of womanhood. But, alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... what I'd make it. What is the good of young men of leisure if they don't do anything for the country? Too fine to do what Hamilton did and Jay did! I wish you could have heard my father talk about it. Abdicate their birthright for ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

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

... pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined to lick ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... soldier son had gone forth and never returned, or come back maimed and stricken in the pride of his youth. Everywhere was the voice of pity and sorrow, but nowhere that of reproach. The deepest instincts of the nation told it that it must fight and win, or for ever abdicate its position in the world. Through dark days which brought out the virtues of our race as nothing has done in our generation, we struggled grimly on until the light had fully broken once again. And of all gifts that God has given to Britain ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... if I had committed a crime? But I obey you blindly. Let me have a letter quickly, for if you have been mysterious, I have returned you mystery for mystery, and I must at last throw off my disguise, show you the poet that I am, and abdicate my borrowed glory. ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... little self again and made a start, it's easy enough to manage your affairs—in as far as they need any management of mine—from a distance. This beginning again is triumphant. I congratulate you! You're your own best physician. You know how to treat your case to a marvel. So I abdicate." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... grieve to see that my hopes have failed, not so much for myself as for the country. I have not found death on the field of battle as I ardently desired; perhaps my person is the only obstacle to obtaining juster terms. I abdicate the crown in favour of my son, Victor Emmanuel.' And turning to the Duke of Savoy he ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... of crisis we have considered that our nation needs the closest union of all its forces for the attainment of victory. In agreement with the Imperial Duma, we have recognized that for the good of our land we should abdicate the throne of the Russian state and lay down ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... 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 this time ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... reformation of the state and for the redress of grievances; and 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 History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... 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 ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... by the warnings of veteran statesmen, consummate financiers, and doctrinaires of every school. Only in those great crises when all that is left to wisdom is a choice of calamities, as in 1848 and 1871, does Demos abdicate; recognize for a moment that all men are not born, much less trained to remain, free and equal, and entreat the pilots by hereditary profession to see the ship of State ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... 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 personal interests ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... for a constitution and a rising at Alessandria impelled Victor Emmanuel I. to abdicate in favor of his brother, Charles Felix, who was favorable to Austria and her policy. Prince Charles Albert,—a distant cousin,—who had liberal views, held the regency for a few months; but Charles Felix, on his return ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... thankful to think she had not! His death had come about by chance. Her commands to her people had been that he was not to be allowed to leave the castle; she had resolved to detain him, to hide and hold him a captive, to persuade or in some way compel him to abdicate in his brother's favour. She could not now say just how she had intended to deal with him, but it was never her intention to murder him. Her commands had been misunderstood, and she could not be blamed for his death, however much she was ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... definition of literature includes this necessity. If writers are bound to express what they have really known, felt and suffered, that very obligation imperiously declares they shall not quit their own point of view for the point of view of others. To imitate is to abdicate. We are in no need of more male writers; we are in need of genuine female experience. The prejudices, notions, passions and conventionalisms of men are amply illustrated; let us have the same fulness with respect to women. Unhappily the ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... of the Protector; appointed to succeed him; was unequal to the task, and compelled to abdicate, April 26, 1659; retired into private life; went after the Restoration for a time abroad; returned under a feigned name, and lived and died ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the 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," ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon

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

... the public does not see the preparations, ugly as they always are, the painted supers, the claqueurs hired to applaud, the stage carpenters, and all that lies behind the scenes. You are still among the audience. Abdicate, there is still time, before you set your foot on the lowest step of the throne for which so many ambitious spirits are contending, and do not sell your honor, as I do, for a livelihood." Etienne's eyes filled with ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. The military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade. There is something ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... their homes again. In 1813, while the Americans were fighting on the ocean and on Lake Erie, Napoleon was driven out of Germany. A few weeks before the Battle of Lundy's Lane, Napoleon was compelled to abdicate. Soon after the news of the Peace of Ghent with Great Britain was received in the United States, in 1815, Napoleon broke loose from Elba; and a few months later he was again a prisoner ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart

... accustomed to the long enjoyment of those luxuries, which become necessaries to the wealthy; habituated to attendance as I had been; and, even amongst the dissipated and idle, notorious for extravagance the most unbounded and indolence the most inveterate; how was I at once to change my habits, to abdicate my rank and power, to encounter the evils of poverty? I was not compelled to make such sacrifices; for though Ellinor's transient passion had prompted her to threaten me with a public discovery, yet I knew that she would as soon cut off her own right hand as execute her threats. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

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

... and completely would this change come. Man, as well as woman, must "consent to be governed" by the laws of being. If man really could "share his sovereignty," there might be some show of reason in the Suffrage claim that he should do so. But unless he can abdicate the very essentials of his sex condition, he cannot abdicate his sovereignty. His laws are dead letters whenever more men than those who passed them and approve them choose that they shall be dead. He would have no material outside ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... most amiable men. Stop myself— could I do it? As well say to the poet who exhausts himself, and whose genius is consuming his health, 'Pause in the midst of the inspiration which carries you away!' No! I could not; I—I! abdicate this royalty which I exercised, and return, ruined, ashamed, mocked, to the state of a plebeian—unknown; give this triumph to my rivals, whom I had until then defied, ruled, crushed! No, no, I could not! not ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

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

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

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

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

... including the vintage would not be over till somewhat late in the autumn. We find Martial, however, imploring a schoolmaster to remember that the heat of July was not favorable to learning, and suggesting that he should abdicate his seat till the fifteenth of October brought a season more convenient for study. Rome indeed was probably deserted in the later summer and autumn by the wealthier class, who were doubtless disposed ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

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

... Alexander VI, and the return of the Duke of Urbino. This application of the dramatic method to their own recent history, which had been indeed dramatic, shows the high development of graphic and artistic power, which is also shown by the other arts of the time. Ladies did not then abdicate their prerogative to judge and condemn the propriety of artistic products offered to them. Isabella declared the Cassaria "lascivious and immoral beyond words," and forbade her ladies to attend the performance of it at the marriage of Lucrezia ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... in days agone, had a 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... reason the talker favored the reading of criticism, especially the kind of criticism that quoted. He would even go so far as to say that there was no just and honest criticism without quotation. The critic was bound to make out his case, or else abdicate his function, and he could not make out his case, either for or against an author, without calling him to testify. Therefore, he was in favor of quotational criticism, for fairness' sake, as well as for his pleasure; and it was for the extension of it ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... fill it. If your son be another extraordinary man, he will fill it when his turn comes. But if that son be, as, alas, he most probably will be, like Umberto, quite ordinary, then let parental love triumph over pride of dynasty: advise your boy to abdicate at the earliest possible moment. A great king—what better? But it is ill that a throne be sat on by one whose legs dangle uncertainly towards the dais, and ill that a crown settle down over the tip of the nose. And the very fact that for quite inadequate kings men's hands ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... system so anomalous and uncertain the main object of transportation as a method of penal discipline and repression was in danger of being quite overlooked. Yet the state could not entirely abdicate its functions, although it surrendered to a great extent the care of criminals to private persons. It had established a code of penalties for the coercion of the ill-conducted, while it kept the worst perforce in its own hands. The master was always at liberty to appeal to the strong arm of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... 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 ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... said calmly, with an adorable confidence. 'Papa is worth forty millions. Would you not abdicate?' ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

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

... as concerns his title to renown. The creative achievement is far more precious and important than any possible criticism of it. This does not mean that in dealing with such a poet the critic is in duty bound to abdicate his lower function and to let his scruples melt away in the warm water of a friendly partisanship; it means only that he will be best occupied, speaking generally, in a conscientious attempt to see the man as ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... the treacherous slaughter of the sons of Usnech by King Conchobar of Ulster. Chief among them was Fergus, who, moreover, had a personal grievance against Conchobar. For, while Fergus was king of Ulster, he had courted the widow Ness and, in order to win her, promised to abdicate for the term of one year in favour of her son Conchobar. But when the term had elapsed, the youth refused to relinquish the throne, and Fergus in anger entered the service of Medb of Connacht. There he was loaded with favours, became the counsellor of the realm and, as ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown



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



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