Royal dynasty

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ I am descending the throne; I confirm all the benefits of my fathers, while releasing you from your oaths to the Monarchy."
Say if that end would not have surpassed all that is most wonderful in that dynasty! Say if ever a magnificent enough temple could have been raised to its memory! Compare that end with that which the decrepit sons of Henry IV. would make, stubbornly pinning themselves to a throne swamped by democracy, trying to preserve their power with the aid of measures of police, measures of violence, methods of corruption, and dragging on for a few short moments a degraded existence! ”

“ 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. ”

“ We understand that in the failure of them, all rights to our said crown, and succession to our dominions, which might at any time whatsoever belong and appertain to them, be and remain transferred to our most dear and most beloved grandson the Duke of Berry, and to his children and descendants, being males born in lawful marriage; and successively, in failure of them, to those of the Princes of our Royal House, and their descendants, who in right of their birth, or by the order established since the foundation of our monarchy, ought to succeed to our crown. ”

“ It can never have been said with truth, therefore, in any period of history, in any nation, even in the east, that the people exist for kings. Every where it has been established, that kings exist only for the people. A dynasty created under circumstances, that have created so many new interests, being itself interested in the maintenance of the rights and properties of all, can alone be natural and legitimate, and in possession of strength and confidence, the two leading characters in all government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No less than thirteen princes, who had inherited or usurped the titles of sovereignty, acknowledged him as their lord. Under none of the khalifs of any dynasty had the burdens of the people seemed so light. The necessaries of life were cheaper than they had been within the memory of man. ”

“ In the course of years, continual wars had removed a multitude of petty kings or chieftains from the scene; a consolidation of countries had taken place; actual sovereignty, grounded on the law of force, on possession, or on federal compacts, had raised a few of the old dynasts above the rank of their fellows; the other nobles, and families of royal lineage, had for the most part submitted to the law of the comitatus, swelling the ranks, adorning the court, and increasing the power of princes who had risen upon their degradation ”

“ 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. ”

“ For are not the conditions fulfilled by which our dynasty shall cease? A thousand years, my father, has it striven to affirm itself; and it is written that in the magic hour it shall achieve its apotheosis, it shall be effaced, in obedience to Universal Law. Yet be of good courage, O my father, for it perishes only to achieve re-embodiment in an ampler notation. In the hour this little treatise upon human life is wrought, the archives of our dynasty are as seed scattered broadcast upon [327] the four winds for the service of all the peoples in the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The king's courts and the king's officers pushed their jurisdiction into a widening realm, until the king's authority had become supreme, in fact as well as in name. Even the measureless misery of a hundred years of war with English kings brought power, in the end, to the crown, by weakening the greater lords, and by bringing into existence a fixed military force. A. D. 1337-1453. Hundred Years War. Happy accidents, shrewd marriages, and cunning intrigues gathered the great dukedoms, one by one, into the royal domain, and the solidarity of modern France was attained. 16th-17th centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These words appear in Chapter XXVI., in the Second Part:
"It passes as unquestionable, in a certain party, that a revolution of the nature of our own can end only by a change of dynasty; others, more moderate, say by a change in the order of right of succession to the Crown."
As I was finishing my work, appeared the ordinance of [Pg 7] the 5th of September 1816 [11] : this measure dispersed the few Royalists assembled to reconstruct the Legitimate Monarchy. ”

“ The geologist, in those tables of stone which form his records, finds no example of dynasties once passed away again returning. There has been no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to have glorified man for its inhabitant; but it is to be the dynasty—"the kingdom"—not of glorified man made in the image of God, but of God himself in the form of man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to any advantages which the imperial crown may bring, we think that our sovereign, the King of France, who is raised to the throne by the hereditary nobility of his royal blood, is high above an Emperor who owes his elevation to an election which may be refused. ”

“ Power is diffused from the courts of kings; and instead of the spirit of independence and opposition to the royal authority which characterized former centuries, we find the courtiers’ arts more prevalent now than the pride of local grandeur. The great vassals of the Crown are no longer the rivals of their nominal superior, but submissively receive his [360] awards, or endeavour to obtain the sanction of his name to exactions which they would formerly have practised in their own. Monarchy, in fact, becomes the spirit of the age, and nobility sinks willingly into the subordinate rank. ”

“ 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 Eastern equivalents for these sub ordinate titles are khedive, emir, khan, and bey.
IV. Titles of Nobility. The titles of the greater nobility are prince, duke, marquis, earl or count, viscount, and baron, and most of them exist in all European empires and kingdoms. In the United Kingdom there are no princes outside the royal family. In Russia there are no dukes except the imperial grand -dukes and neither marquises nor viscounts. In Germany there are no viscounts. ”

“ Pray, assure the empress, from me, that, notwithstanding the councils which have shook the throne of her father and mother, I shall remain here, ready to save the sacred persons of the king and queen, and of her brothers and sisters; and, that I have also left ships at Leghorn, to save the lives of the Great Duke and her imperial majesty's sister: for all must be a republic, if the emperor does not act with expedition and vigour. "Down, down with the French!" ought to be placed in the council-room of every country in the world: and, may Almighty God give right thoughts to every sovereign! ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no dynasty now surviving equally ancient—there is but one which can join in the boast which up to a few decades ago the Guelphs could make:—that on the throne on which it was planted centuries ago it has retained its hold to the present generation. That other dynasty is the family, Slav by descent, of the Obotrite Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg—the same race whom our Alfred the Great speaks of as "Apdrede." ”

“ They are in themselves more than sufficient to cause the gravest injury to the State, and if we continue to treat the Prince with leniency, how shall we justify ourselves hereafter in the eyes of our glorious ancestors? We shall incur no small blame in the eyes of posterity, and when the day comes for the Emperor to take over charge of the Government there can be no doubt that he would be likely to fail, under such conditions, to shed lustre, by his reign, on the Dynasty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the sovereign princes stood in a subordinate relation to the Emperor, still their electoral rights and immunities thereby acquired and maintained, were a full compensation. Moreover, the highest nobility belonged exclusively to the Agnates of the royal houses, so that in the enjoyment of their distinguished privileges, they could look upon themselves as equal with the highest and even superior to them in some sense, since, as spiritual electors, they might take precedence of all others, and, as branches of the sacred hierarchy, hold an honorable and uncontested rank. ”