Dynasty

“ My lord, you know news travels slowly to the quarters Of the Ladies-in-Waiting, and my curiosity is eager on this most solemn day, when our Empress is to restore the throne of the bright dynasty of the Mings and to take on her the regency of the Empire. ”

“ If we study the monarchical countries we will find that usually a dynasty is created by a person who is capable of controlling the force of the entire country and overthrowing other persons opposed to him, working towards his goal with an undaunted spirit. If this man is capable of ruling the nation and if he is a rare genius of the day, and the conditions of the country are suited for a monarchical government, he as a rule creates a new dynasty and his descendants inherit the same from generation to generation. ”

“ Will they be lords indeed, and give us laws—dukes indeed, and give us guiding—princes indeed, and give us beginning, of truer dynasty, which shall not be soiled by covetousness, nor disordered by iniquity? ”

“ When the ruling dynasty changed, and he had himself become an outlaw and a rebel, he supported the cause of his exiled monarch with such skill and valour that his name and death are recorded as heroic. ”

“ So gradually was this change of dynasty effected, so skilfully was the new throne founded on well-consolidated authority, warlike renown, good government, and religious faith, that as far as we can learn from history, not a single voice was raised against the aspiring mayor, when his warriors, more majorum, raised him on the shield, and bore him thrice through the joyful throng ”

“ In our own age, when a new dynasty is desirous of obliterating the prescriptive title of a deposed line of sovereigns, it takes its designation from the people, instead of the territory. Thus we have Emperors and Kings of the French, and a King of the Belgians. ”

“ It cannot be taken from the dynastic history for the simple reason that the official history of a dynasty is not published until the dynasty has come to an end. There is, indeed, a faithful record kept of all the actions of each reigning emperor in turn; good and evil are set down alike, without fear or favour, for no emperor is ever allowed to get a glimpse of the document by which posterity will judge him. ”

“ Such was the avowed intention of this great general; but in his inner heart he nursed one greater and more daring scheme, which was nothing less than to acquire territory and found a power, that, together with the army, which by his bravery, tact, and lavish generosity adored him, he might be enabled to throw off the yoke of that empire he was pretending to extend, and thus found a regal dynasty of his own. ”

“ Not a dynasty that is trembling out its little span of days now, but represents in its shattered tottering throne some great hero, some great heroic movement, that has won the gratitude of the medieval world. ”

“ What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be national; that is to say, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but by reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic; be composed of future and be sympathetic.
All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon; and why the second absolutely insisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House of Orleans. ”

“ The stock of the last dynasty was extinct, and every one who could collect a few supporters set himself up to rule over the rest, so that there were several calling themselves kings at once, and fighting with each other for the mastery. ”

“ Now, it is not always easy to obtain a dynasty, although the first man of genius or the first adventurer met with is sufficient to make a king. You have in the first case Bonaparte, and in the second Iturbide. But the first family come across is not sufficient to form a dynasty, for there is necessarily a certain amount of antiquity required as a race, and the wrinkle of centuries cannot be improvised. ”

“ Then the dynasty, clothed in the divinity which hedges a king, could enjoy greater stability and security: the ruler himself, reminded ever of his consecrated character, of the duties and the higher responsibility which lay upon him, would make through regard for the prescriptions of religion a more moderate use of an authority in itself unlimited. ”

“ There can be no doubt that a monarchy lasting about six centuries and a half, and ruled by at least two or three different dynasties, is per se a thing far more probable than one ruled by one and the same dynasty for more than thirteen centuries. ”

“ He represents what we might call a dynasty of power based on wealth. He is like a king, and his heir represents a financial crown prince. Like all other kings, he wishes to preserve his dynasty intact, and to assure himself of its succession. Consequently he demands the right of selecting what he feels shall prove a proper consort for his heir. ”

“ While the nation overwhelmed with acclamation the king come to retake possession of England, while unanimity was recording its verdict, while the people were bowing their salutation to the monarchy, while the dynasty was rising anew amidst a glorious and triumphant recantation, at the moment when the past was becoming the future, and the future becoming the past, that nobleman remained refractory. ”

“ I look around me, and I see a settled government—an established authority—a born Briton on the throne—the very Highland mountaineers, upon whom alone the trust of the exiled family reposed, assembled into regiments which act under the orders of the existing dynasty. ”

“ If he has able sons or male relatives, if he has ruled wisely and if the conditions of the [Page 54]
country have been such as to favor monarchical rule, he may be able to establish a dynasty which will during a long period successfully govern the country. ”

“ In the dark ages of European history, his reign affords a solitary resting-place between two dark periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriving the advantage of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had founded an empire which they were unworthy and unequal to maintain. ”

“ They are the legitimate dynasty, reigning by right as well as by force, inheritors of the line that comes down from Burke to the last stage of evolution and selection, who have set up the reign of imperishable moral forces for an intermittent Providence, the play of passion, and the blind will of man. Their doctrine proceeds as logically from the scientific as from the political experience of the country. ”

“ The direct issue of the Emperors of the present dynasty and their descendants in the male line for ever are entitled to wear a yellow girdle in token of their relationship to the Imperial family, each generation becoming a degree lower in rank, but always retaining this distinctive badge. ”

“ He too belongs to a dynasty which will last as long as there is such a thing as property in land and dwellings. When that is done away with, and we return to the state of villanage, holding our tenement-houses, all to be of the same pattern, of the State, that is to say, of the Tammany Ring which is to take the place of the feudal lord,—the office of Register of Deeds will, I presume, become useless, and the dynasty will be deposed. ”

“ We are all agreed with our whole hearts, to obey Heaven and walk righteously, and to use our utmost exertions, to restore our native hills and rivers to the 'Beng' dynasty, that its heir may sit on the Imperial Thone, for ever and ever. ”

“ UR present Volume opens upon a new and brilliant phase of English History. After a bloodless Revolution, a new dynasty, whose title to power is founded in the choice of the People, succeeds the arbitrary and senseless misgovernment of the House of Stuart. The vigorous attempts of the exiled Royal Family to regain their lost throne are, one after another, crushed out ”

“ The Emperors of the East, by a self-deluding process, which preserved their dignity and flattered their pride, professed still to consider themselves the lords of the Roman Empire, and took particular pains to acknowledge the kings and potentates, who established themselves in the various portions of it, as their representatives and lieutenants. They lost no time in sending the title of Patrician and the ensigns of royal rank to the successful founders of a new dynasty, and had gained their object if they received the new ruler’s thanks in return. ”

“ But if we remember the evident concentration of the whole forces of the nation in the vast sepulchre of each monarch of the fourth dynasty, and the many records that show the diffused activity of the later line, we begin to form a fairer judgment. ”

“ Originally set up in the reign of Elizabeth, the Parliamentary oath was maintained in the interest of disputed dynasties, though it was notoriously taken by hundreds of men who were perfectly ready to overthrow, if they could, the dynasty to which they swore allegiance. ”

“ The dynasty is worn out, and the King, with all his amiability and kindness of heart, is weak in character and is at the mercy of designing men, as has appeared increasingly since the strong sway of the Queen was withdrawn. I believe him to be at heart, according to his lights, a patriotic sovereign. ”

“ The founder of the dynasty, for example, is credited with a reign of sixty years, two other rulers with reigns of fifty-five years, and a fourth with fifty years. But the average duration of the reigns in the dynasty is only six years in excess of that for the First Dynasty, which also consisted of eleven kings. And, in view of the sixty-one years credited to Rîm-Sin in the newly recovered Larsa List, which is a contemporaneous document and not a later compilation, we may regard the traditional length of the dynasty as perhaps approximately correct. ”

“ The victors, for their part, became assimilated so rapidly with the vanquished, that at the close of a generation or so the conquering dynasty was regarded legitimate and national one, loyally attached to the traditions and religion of its adopted country. ”

“ In every case those people rallied to the dynasty heartily, and were ready to serve it with genuine readiness; not like the low people, who when they had shouted a greeting ran back with all speed to their pigs and their oxen. ”

“ Not only every dynasty, but every king of whom anything is known, should be familiar. The general course of the civilisation, the foreign influences which affected the country, and the conditions at different periods, should be clearly in mind. ”

“ In English politics, soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, the conditions brought about civil peace under a new dynasty, which it was the function of the statesmanship of the dynasty to maintain. At the same time the spirit of science had entered on a new life. ”

“ The Normans came over, lance in hand, burning and trampling down every thing before them, and cutting off the Saxon dynasty and the Saxon nobles at the edge of the sword; but the right of petition remained untouched. ”

“ Therefore, the grants being by the king, for his heirs and successors, and the tenures being of the king, his heirs and successors, and the reservation being to the king, his heirs and successors, are so far from proving that we were to be part of an empire, as one state, subject to the supreme authority of the English or British state, and subject to its protection, that they do not so much as prove that we are annexed to the English crown. ”

“ In connection with the ancestor-worship, which is the only form of worship performed by the upper classes, the Emperor's oath on his accession is interesting. "We, the successor to the prosperous throne of our Predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear to the Imperial Founder of our House, and to our other Imperial Ancestors, that in pursuance of a great policy, co-extensive with the Heaven and with the Earth, we shall maintain, and secure from decline, the ancient form of government. ”

“ In the ancient monarchy which the Orient had created, the dynastic principle was so strong that the State was considered by inherent right the personal property of the sovereign, who might expand it, contract it, divide it among his sons and relatives, bequeathing his kingdom and his subjects as a land-owner disposes of his estate and his cattle. ”

“ It can imagine an empire in which the Emperor holds authority only by dynastic right. Only as a matter of historic succession is it necessary that he should have kings and dukes and arch-dukes and bishops as his august colleagues and subordinates. ”

“ The nobles were divided into princes, prelates, barons of the kingdom, and magnates, whose rights, though in some trifling respects different, were yet so much akin as to permit their being treated as political equals. Next to them, yet claiming the essential privileges of nobility, came the king's chief retainers, with the holders of fiefs under the princes and prelates, and the principal retainers of the magnates; and finally, a humbler class followed, who, corresponding to our territorial but untitled aristocracy, are now content to bear the appellation of eidelmen, or gentry. ”

“ In this country were no plots and schemings about succession. Here the King's son came to the throne under the will of the people. This country was never disturbed by struggles to get a good ruler. This country always had a good ruler, that is the will of the people.
What a miserable spectacle France, great France, chivalric France presented now! How many pretenders were there to the throne?--to the presidential chair? There were the Legitimists, and the Orleanists, and the Napoleons, two branches of Napoleons, and a dozen aspirants to the presidency! ”

“ The imperial crown was always in theory elective, but in the earlier Middle Ages it was elective in much the same sense as the crowns of other feudal kingdoms, that is to say, the consent of the nobles and people, latterly of the chief nobles only, was required to the elevation of a sovereign, while practically it was hereditary, that is to say, the son or other near relative of the last sovereign was usually chosen to succeed him. ”