Royal blood

“ Now, son, from divers causes, as equally from ignorance, a marshal is often puzzled how to rank lords of royal blood who are poor, and others not of royal blood who are rich, also ladies of royal blood wedded to knights, and poor ladies marrying those of royal blood. The lady of royal blood shall keep her rank, the lady of low blood and degree shall take her husband’s rank. ”

“ Reluctance to shed any human blood on the ground. Reluctance to allow human blood to fall on the ground. The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the ground. ”

“ How many are there of thy race, Must have been from thee to Fergus! Noble the races mix with thy blood, Such as now we cannot number. The schools [240] would weary with our tale, Numbering the kings from whom thou’rt sprung. The blood of Arthur [241] is in thy bosom, Precious is that which fills thy veins; The blood of Cuan, the blood of Conn, [242] Two wise men, glory of the race. The blood of Grant in thy apple-red cheek, The blood of Neil, the fierce and mighty. Fierce and gentle, at all times, Is the story of the royal race. The history. [140] ”

“ A good illustration is the popular use of the term “blood royal,” which of course does not mean that an individual of the blood royal necessarily occupies a throne but that he or she is in the line of succession to it. Similarly, persons of “ennobled blood” are not necessarily peers but in the line of descent to peerages, to which they may or may not succeed. ”

“ When the people had assembled round, a herald commanded silence, and thus signified the royal will.
'To prevent the needless destruction of gentle blood by fighting after the manner of mortal battles, the King decrees that no man, upon pain of death, shall take into the lists any halberd, short sword, or knife; that no one shall ride more than one course, with a sharp spear, against his antagonist; that if he choose, he may defend himself on foot ”

“ Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. ”

“ Meantime the noble king, brandishing his broad-sword, dashes along the French line as though to overwhelm it with his mighty blows, while many a wound sheds blood on his arms and many a cruel dint sinks into his helmet. ”

“ So saying he farewelled them fondly and mounting his horse departed to his palace; and no sooner had he seated himself upon his throne than he summoned the Grand Wazir and commanded him saying, "Do thou send this instant and bind in heaviest bonds those vile women, the sisters of my Queen; for their ill deeds have at last come to light and they deserve to die the death of murtherers. Let the Sworder forthright make sharp his sword; for the ground thirsteth for their blood. Go see thyself that they are beheaded without stay or delay: await not other order, but instantly obey my commandment." ”

“ To gain information of the feelings of the dissenting bodies, and discover what terms would be most acceptable to them, to track down and bring in the fierce and desperate men from whom trouble might be anticipated, to discover if possible the connection that existed between the sects and those in high places, these were objects of the highest importance. They needed such a man as Blood. And it seemed worth while to Charles to tame this fierce bird of prey to his service to achieve such ends as he contemplated. Some such thought evidently occurred to the king during the examination. ”

“ Yet more convincing than all, in the line of such proofs that it is restitution, and not vengeance, that is sought by the pursuit of blood in the mission of the goel, is the fact that in various countries, when a man has died a natural death, it is the custom to seek blood, or life, from those immediately about him ”

“ One of the horrible temporal Kings will be told by his adherents, as the ultimate in praise, that he has shed more of human blood of Innocent Ecclesiastics than anyone else could have spilled of wine. This King will commit incredible crimes against the Church. Human blood will flow in the public streets and temples, like water after an impetuous rain, coloring the nearby rivers red with blood. ”

“ Then he took sword in hand and said: “We three have always served our prince bravely. We were like the same flesh and blood. The others are dead, and it is my duty not to survive them!”
And he thrust his sword into his throat and died.
The Duke sighed incessantly, and commanded that they be given a splendid burial. A brave hero values his honor more than his life. The chancellor knew this, and that was why he purposely arranged to incite the three heroes to kill themselves by means of the two peaches. ”

“ If I became prince tomorrow, I would first ask the king for a eudiometer. No instrument is more necessary to a prince. If I were him, I would also seek to draw life-giving air more from flourishing plantations than from saltpeter.
4. Gold and silver are the blood of the nation state. Accumulations of blood in both the heart and head reveal weaknesses in both. The stronger the heart, the more vigorously and freely it pushes the blood to the outer parts. Every limb is warm and vibrant, and the blood flows swiftly and strongly back to the heart. ”

“ Now, the whole truth is, blood is like wine, the older it is, the stronger and clearer it grows. If it warn't for that, we Yankees, that had forefathers in the Revolutionary war, have as good a right to brag about our pure blood, as the greatest and oldest line of proud England. ”

“ On these grounds it seems not unprofitable nor uninteresting to contemplate again and in a new light the life and works of the man who has been generally conceded the bad eminence of being the most daring and successful of English rascals, Thomas Blood, courtesy-colonel of conspiracy and crown-stealer. The scene of his activity was that brilliant and obscure period we know as the Restoration, those years during which his most gracious Majesty, King Charles the Second, of far from blessed memory, presided over the destinies of the English race. ”

“ It would seem to be because of such cramping, that no one of the modern students of myth and folk-lore, of primitive ideas and customs, and of man’s origin and history, has brought into their true prominence, if indeed he has even noticed them in passing, the universally dominating primitive convictions: that the blood is the life; that the heart, as the blood-fountain, is the very soul of every personality; that blood-transfer is soul-transfer; that blood-sharing, human, or divine-human, secures an inter-union of natures ”

“ Armed with a scimitar the king then cuts open the man's back, extracts his heart, and having taken a bite out of it, spits it out and gives it to be burned. The councillors meantime hold the victim's body so that the blood from the wound spouts against the king's breast and belly, and, pouring through the hole in the iron stool, is collected by the chiefs in their hands, who rub their breasts and beards with it, while they shout, “Great is the king and the rites of the state!” After that the corpse is skinned, cut up, and cooked with the flesh of an ox, a dog, a hen, and some other animals. ”

“ Under the Mosaic ritual, the forms and the symbolisms of sacrifice were various. But through them all, where blood was an element,—in the sin-offering, in the trespass-offering, in the burnt-offering, in the peace-offering,—blood always represented life, never death. Death was essential to its securing; but, when secured, blood was life. Death, as the inevitable wages of sin, had already passed unto all men ”

“ One of us must be killed, and her blood put in a kettle, and have added to it the blood of one of these doves flying about here. When this blood is well mixed, it must be heated, and with this blood the whole body of the king must be anointed. ”

“ Was blood, his own. 'Well, blood is dirt,' I said.
'Blood's dirt,' he laughed, looking away,
Far off to where his wound had bled
And almost merged for ever into clay.
'The world is washing out its stains,' he said.
'It doesn't like our cheeks so red:
Young blood's its great objection. ”

“ And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. ”

“ He was too much a youth to mind wet garments.
The man on the opposite side sent secret glances across at him: they were full of pride, of a man's idolatry of a scion of his own blood. He was thinking of the blood of that family—blood never to be forced or hurried: death rather than being commanded: rage at being ordered: mingled of Scotch and Irish and Anglo-Saxon—with the Kentucky wildness and insolence added. Blood that often wallowed in the old mires of humanity ”

“ If I yield not my blood there will be mortal war between you and the knights of the castle to-morrow, and many [Pg 208] men must die that one woman may not bleed. If I die to heal the sick lady I shall gain renown and do God's will, and surely one harm is better than many. ”

“ The king wanted to be bled, and the surgeon was sent for. He came, and began to bind up the king's arm, while they placed a bason to receive the blood. The surgeon took the fatal lancet out of his turban, and was just going to open the vein, when, accidentally casting his eye on the bason, he read these words that were engraved upon it. Never begin anything till you have first reflected what will be the end of it. He instantly fell into a deep study, and said within himself, 'If I bleed the king with this lancet, he is a dead man. ”

“ The blood weeps from my heart. Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.
I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart—to the seat o’ the brain; And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. Coriolanus, Act I., Sc. I.
The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flow’d in vanity, till now; Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea, Where it shall mingle with the state of floods, And flow henceforth in formal majesty. Henry IV—2d, Act V., Sc. ”

“ Carry fresh, warm, invigorating blood in your veins to inject into the veins of the world. This is far safer and nobler than sticking the lance into the swollen veins of the world, to draw forth its putrid blood for your own use. ”

“ Blood must flow, for blood alone can cleanse. Blood alone can cleanse.”
A young soldier was caught as he climbed the stairs of a small house. He was brought into the street and told to kneel. “I have heard of your Jesus and his forgiveness,” he said; “now I know.” He knelt with a sort of dignity, the dignity that death brings to the brave, and his head fell.
His words struck through the blood fever to the heart of the man in black. For a second he closed his eyes and when he opened them again he saw with his old clearness. He knew that blood is blood and shame came over him. ”

“ One who had resided in both Syria and Upper Egypt told me, that in Syria, in the rite of blood-friendship, the blood is taken from the arm as the symbol of strength; while in portions of Africa where the legs are counted stronger than the arms, through the training of the people as runners rather than as burden-bearers, the leg supplies the blood for this rite (See reference to Stanley and Mirambo’s celebration of this rite at pages 18-20, supra) . ”

“ The tears were blood; and whatever openings the humor knew, from them flows copious bleeding; the mouth and the distended nostrils overflow; the sweat is red; the veins flow full in all the limbs; the whole body is as if it were a wound.)
The detestable Charles IX of France sank under this disorder, thus described by Mezeray ("Histoire de France," vol. iii, p. 306) : "La nature fit d'étranges efforts pendant les deux dernières semaines de la vie de la roi. II s'agitait et se remuait sans cesse; le sang lui rejailliait par les pores et partout les conduits de son corps. ”

“ AND after this I saw, beholding, the body plenteously bleeding in seeming of [1] the Scourging, as thus:—The fair skin was broken full deep into the tender flesh with sharp smiting all about the sweet body. So plenteously the hot blood ran out that there was neither seen skin nor wound, but as it were all blood. And when it came where it should have fallen down, then it vanished. Notwithstanding, the bleeding continued awhile: till it might be seen and considered. ”

“ But this is, if it were possible, only a more unselfish and a more trustful mode than the other, of covenanting by blood; of pledging the life, by pledging the blood, to one who is already trusted absolutely. And this mode of proffering the covenant of blood, or of pledging one’s self in devotedness by the giving of one’s blood, is still a custom in the East; as it has been in both the East and the West, from time immemorial. ”

“ In order, therefore, to relinquish its seat of origin, and enter constricted and colder places, and move in opposition to its bent, [261] the blood has need not only of violence but of an impeller, such as is the heart alone, and after the fashion described already. ”

“ They are constantly summoned up to the king’s kraals, as if for war, although there is no enemy to fight with, and thus they come to fight among themselves, and blood is shed, and there is distress and moaning in the land ”

“ War being decided upon by the prince in council, the assembled chiefs, after sprinkling their banners with blood, proceed to take a solemn oath, by dipping their creeses in a vessel of water, and afterwards dancing around the bloody banner, with frantic gesture and a strange contortion of the body and limbs, so as to give the extended creese a tremulous motion. Each severally imprecates the vengeance of the Deity against his person, if he violates his vow. ”

“ The term "gentle blood," as now understood, means only that some persons have the fortunate circumstance of refined parentage or ancestry; but in the Middle Ages, when the pride of gentle blood was one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the prevailing feudal society, it was seriously believed that through the whole extent of the aristocratic classes there ran one blood, distinguishable from the blood of all other persons. ”