"Man-at-arms" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... call them thieves and pillagers; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... platform wherefrom he was to preach, the women sat squatted on their heels, and amongst them Guillaumette Dyonis, who was blind from birth. She was the child of an artisan who had been killed by the Burgundians in the woods of Boulogne-la-Grande. Her mother had been carried off by a Burgundian man-at-arms, and none knew what had become of her. Guillaumette was fifteen or sixteen years of age. She lived at "The Innocents" on what she made by spinning wool, at which trade there was not a better worker to be found in all the town. She went and came in the ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... been seen to flinch. Merenra, now nomarch of Bubastis, but whilom commander over Israel at Pa-Ramesu, paused one noon with his train at the well. The governor glanced at the soldier, glanced again, shrugged his shoulders and rode away. The man-at-arms winced, and often thereafter stood in abstracted contemplation of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Captain sunk back in an exhausted condition, altogether unable to resist the sense of the ludicrous which, as a modern man-at-arms, he connected with the idea of these ancient weapons of war. It was a long time ere he recovered his senses; and, in the meantime, we leave him in the care of the Daughters of the Mist; nurses as kind and attentive, in reality, as they were wild ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... tailors, a wearer of handsome rings, shirt-studs, mustachios, long hair, and the like; nor could he help, in his costume or his nature, being picturesque and generous and splendid. He was always greatly delighted with that Scotch man-at-arms in Quentin Durward, who twists off an inch or two of his gold chain to treat a friend and pay for a bottle. He would give a comrade a ring or a fine jewelled pin, if he had no money. Silver dressing-cases and brocade morning-gowns were in him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gossip astir, and has a deep eye into millstones. Why, ho, there! Alwyn—I say, Nicholas Alwyn!—who would have thought to see thee with that bow, a good half-ell taller than thyself? Methought thou wert too sober and studious for such man-at-arms ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bottom of the steps they found a man-at-arms placed at the door of a cabin. He challenged them as they approached, but being speedily convinced that the vessel was in their hands, and that his employer and party were all conquered, he made a virtue of necessity, and laid ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... great death-scenes. Even to this day every French school-boy, if he knows no other poetry, knows these verses by heart. In the eleventh century they wrung the heart of every man-at-arms in Europe, whose school was the field of battle and the hand-to-hand fight. No modern singer ever enjoys such power over an audience as Taillefer exercised over these men who were actors as well as listeners. In the melee at Roncesvalles, overborne by innumerable ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... Mabel had time to wonder whether she was forgotten, when the hymn began to sound, pealing on her ears up the pass, and she had not had time for more than an earnest thanksgiving, and a few steps down the rocky pathway, before a horse's tread was heard, and a man-at-arms came towards her leading a slender, beautiful Arab horse. "All well! the young lord and all. The Saracens, surprised, fled without ever guessing the number of their foes. The Sheik made prisoner in his tent. Ay, and a greater still, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to blows we shall miss no less Stephen Hopkins's doughty arm," replied Bradford. "But sith both are gone, we had better leave the Elder in charge of the settlement along with Master Allerton, John Howland, who is a stout man-at-arms, John Alden, Gilbert Winslow, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... exclaimed Julia—"Oh ye Gods! and safe too! I can help myself now! and in an instant she was seated behind the stout man-at-arms, and clinging with both hands ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... and Sir Lancelot admonish them, even as I tell ye, and when they had hearkened to their words those who were within, and had thought to depart, when they knew what was the mind of those knights, sware that never a knight nor squire, nor man-at-arms would give himself up, or forsake that good castle. Morien's counsel seemed to them good, and although he were not fair to look upon yet when he stood upon his feet it seemed to them that had he the chance he might put to the rout a whole army! Each man there gave his surety to abide ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... left them cold and speechless, when into the chamber stepped the Count of Aquila with a man-at-arms on either side of him, marking him a prisoner. With a swift, comprehensive glance that took in the entire group about the throne—and without manifesting the slightest surprise at Lodi's presence—Francesco stood still ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... and white, rising out of greenery and looking down on a long wooden bridge and the broad rapid river; and there is an old schloss which has been made into a guard-house, with battlements and frescoes and heraldic devices in gold and colours, and a man-at-arms carved in stone standing life-size in his niche and bearing his date 1530. A little farther on, but close at hand, is a cloister with beautiful marble columns and tombs, and a colossal wood-carved Calvary, and ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... shall make a hive for bees, And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms; A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are old ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... one on each side of the house. Their father's elder brother had been a man-at-arms, having preferred a stirring life to the Forest, and had fought in the last surges of the Wars of the Roses. Having become disabled and infirm, he had taken advantage of a corrody, or right of maintenance, as being of kin to a benefactor of Hyde Abbey at Winchester, to which Birkenholt some ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him in his fall, and, for the completion of his disgrace, Lady Margaret Bellenden, not perfectly aware that it was one of her warriors who was furnishing so much entertainment, came up in time to see her diminutive man-at-arms stripped of his lion's hide,—of the buff-coat, that is, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr Rogers; "but unless you can well choose your spot those shots of ours would do very little more than make a sore place under the creature's hide. He's like an old-fashioned man-at-arms in ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... massive character of the exterior walls. A fountain rose in the centre of the quadrangle which was surrounded by arcades. Ranged round this fountain, in a circle, were twenty saddled steeds of the highest race, each held by a groom, and each attended by a man-at-arms. All pressed their hands to their hearts as the Emir entered, but with a gravity of countenance which was never for a moment disturbed. Whether their presence were habitual, or only for the occasion, it was unquestionably impressive. Here the travellers ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... pageant was Sir William Walworth's bower, which was hung with the shields of all lord mayors who had been Fishmongers. Upon a tomb within the bower was laid the effigy in knightly armour of Sir William, the slayer of Wat Tyler. Five mounted knights attended the car, and a mounted man-at-arms bore Wat Tyler's head upon a dagger. In attendance were six trumpeters and twenty-four halberdiers, arrayed in light blue silk, emblazoned with the Fishmongers' arms on the breast and Walworth's on the back. Then followed an angel with golden wings and crown, riding on ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and a brawny Kentish man-at-arms ranged up beside him, his cloak thrown over his left arm, and his sword in his ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... of it—and then up to the north chamber, above the Great Hall of Pevensey Castle, where De Aquila lay in winter. He sat on his bed like a little white falcon, turning his head swiftly from one to the other as we told our tale. Jehan the Crab, an old sour man-at-arms, guarded the stairway, but De Aquila bade him wait at the stair-foot, and let down both leather curtains over the door. It was Jehan whom De Aquila had sent to us with the horses, and only Jehan had loaded ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... The man-at-arms retired. Around the table the knights were struggling into an upright position in their seats and twirling their moustaches. Agravaine alone made no movement. He had been through this sort of thing so often. What were distressed damsels ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... horse and man rolled over together. And Lodovico sent one hundred ducats to the soldier of Mirandola, because he fought so well. Another day a single-handed contest between a Milanese and a Mantuan man-at-arms was held in the courtyard of the castle, and won by the Mantuan, and Lodovico gave him a satin vest with a gold fringe and skirt of silver cloth, and the Marquis of Mantua and others made him fine presents."[38] Then came the horse-races for the pallium, which ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... a tableau full of instruction upon human life. The man-at-arms, the priest, and the physician, all three standing before their master, who was seated in his arm-chair, were casting pallid glances about them, each presenting one of those ideas which end by possessing the whole man on the verge of the tomb. Strongly ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... main defence, the nets fully ten feet high and very strong—a defence suggestive of the old gladiatorial fight between the Retiarius, or net and trident-bearer, and the Secutor, or sword and shield-carrying man-at-arms. ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battle lines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face, and say, We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... soldiers, despatched importunate messages to Sonoy, and to other patriot generals nearest to them, soliciting reinforcements. Their messengers came back almost empty-handed. They brought a little powder and a great many promises, but not a single man-at-arms, not a ducat, not a piece of artillery. The most influential commanders, moreover, advised an honourable capitulation, if it were ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... matchless works of art and, taking their inspiration from the famous Bayeux Tapestry, attributed to Queen Matilda, they represented the story of the Norman Conquest. They had been ordered in the fourteenth century by the descendant of a man-at-arms in William the Conqueror's train; were executed by Jehan Gosset, a famous Arras weaver; and were discovered, five hundred years later, in an old Breton manor-house. On hearing of this, the colonel had struck a bargain for fifty thousand francs. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... after the first impulse of relief and satisfaction, felt differently. Tignonville's gorge rose against the sense of compulsion, of inferiority. To be driven forward after this fashion, whether he would or no, to be placed at the back of every base- born man-at-arms, to have no clearer knowledge of what had happened or of what was passing, or of the peril from which they fled, than the women among whom he rode—these things kindled anew the sullen fire of hate. North of the Loire there ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... woodland, ranging the forest with eye quick to see the beauty of earth and sky, and ear open to the thousand voices around him; or, busied at his anvil, hearkening to the wondrous tales of travel and strange adventure told by wandering knight and man-at-arms the while, with skilful hand, he mended broken mail or dented casque; and thereafter, upon the mossy sward, would make trial of their strength and valour, whereby he both took and gave right lusty knocks; ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... humble a demeanour as he could assume, Felix doffed his cap and began to speak to the guard at the gateway of the entrenchment. The nearest man-at-arms immediately raised his spear and struck him with the butt. The unexpected blow fell on his left shoulder, and with such force as to render it powerless. Before he could utter a remonstrance, a second had seized his boar-spear, snapped the handle across ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would we not give for a half-an-hour ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... conduct a woman, aye, and a most noble one, unto her prison. The very men, rude, stern, as they mostly were, shared this feeling; they guarded her with lowered heads and knitted brows; and if either officer or man-at-arms had to address her, it was with an involuntary yet genuine movement and manner of respect that little accorded with their present relative position. The crowds looked first at the cavalcade and marvelled, then at the prisoner, and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... the Duke, and Fitzosborn, standing forth, spoke thus: "Never, my lord, were men so zealous as those you see here. They will serve you as truly beyond sea as in Normandy. Push forward, and spare them not. He who has hitherto furnished one man-at-arms, will equip two; he who has led twenty knights, will bring forty. I myself offer you sixty ships ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... spoken Francis Drake, to the gentlemen adventurers who had risked life and goods in this enterprise, and to the soldiers and mariners gathered in the waist; then listened in silence to the story of disaster. Nor Robert Baldry nor Henry Sedley was there to make report, but a grizzled man-at-arms told of the trap beyond the tunal into which Baldry had been betrayed. "How did the Dons come to know, Sir John? We'll take our oath that the trench was newly dug, and sure no such devil's battery as opened on us was planted there before this night! 'Twas a traitor or a spy ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... able to hide his feelings from his friends so much as he would have wished. The stoical soldier, the impassive man-at-arms, overcome by fear and sad presentiments, had yielded, for a few moments, to human weakness. When, therefore, he had silenced his heart and calmed the agitation of his nerves, turning towards his lackey, a silent servant, always listening, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... permission, mother," answered the Princess, "I would rather say he was hasty in giving belief to it. Methinks the evidence of a Varangian, granting him to be ever so stout a man-at-arms, is but a frail guarantee against the honour of your son-in-law—the approved bravery and fidelity of the captain of your guards—the deep sense, virtue, and profound wisdom, of the greatest ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... smoothly, and the new-made knights were in danger of being spoilt by the favour of the ladies of the court, when a sudden stop was put to all their pleasures. One day a man-at-arms riding a jaded horse appeared at the palace gateway, and demanded to be led into the presence of ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... this resolve that they would turn back and the army was now about to depart, there came to King Richard a certain man-at-arms, who was well acquainted with the country, for indeed, he had travelled on foot as a pilgrim from the coast to Jerusalem, and this not once only but twice or thrice. This man said, "My lord King, if you are minded to see the Holy City, you can do so at little pains. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... turbulence, A woman weeping for her murder'd mate Was cared as much for as a summer shower: One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm, Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him: Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms, Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl; Half whistling and half singing a coarse song, He drove the dust against her veilless eyes: Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm Before an ever-fancied arrow, made The long way smoke beneath him in his fear; At which her palfrey whinnying lifted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... neighbours: he was grasping and overbearing, and had often cowed others out of their due: he was very cross-grained, both at home and abroad: his wife had fled from his hand, neither did his sons find it good to abide with him: therewithal he was wealthy of goods, a strong man and a deft man-at-arms. When his sons and his wife departed from him, and none other of the Dalesmen cared to abide with him, he went down into the Plain, and got thence men to be with him for hire, men who were not well seen to in their own land. These to the number of twelve abode with him, and did ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... solemn vow to his dying mother that he would not become a soldier, and the dear lady died happy in the belief that she had snatched her son from the war-dragon which had bereft her of a husband. The vow lay heavy on the boy's heart daring many a year, for he was a born man-at-arms, but he had kept it, and meant to keep it, though not exactly according to the tenets of William Penn. Somehow, his mother's beautiful face, wanly exquisite in that unearthly light which foreshadows the merging ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword to slay it, the voice of his own sister Margaret ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... appear diminished, for it was learned afterward that there were more than one hundred thousand warriors engaged, and, with a host of followers and servants, the total aggregated at least eighty thousand more. And, indeed, the Spaniards mourned the death of many a brave cavalier and stout man-at-arms. In all the fighting the young Inca, in full war-gear of gold and silver, mounted on a captured horse, with a Spanish lance in his hand, had played a hero's ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the husbandman with simple pride, "it pleases me better to know that my homestead is nightly watched by a brave and gallant man-at-arms, who, I trust, will permit no marauding Norsemen or thieving wolf to come near ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... radiance, befitting the things that dwell alone, and are all of other times, for she too is but a ghost, a thing of the past, and her light is but the light of memory; into the empty crannies blow the same winds that once refreshed the souls of maiden and man-at-arms, only the yellow flower that grew in its gardens now grows upon its walls. And however the mind, or even the spirit of man may change, the heart remains the same, and an effort to read the hearts of our forefathers will help us to know the heart of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... personal labour under great discouragements. He lived and died a plain citizen. He had less to show for his life-work than the others, perhaps; but in those swaddling days of the colony's history his task was greater. Morel de la Durantaye, the man-at-arms, well born and bred, took his seigneurial rank as a matter of course, and his duties without much seriousness. His seigneury had his attention only when opportunities for some more exciting field of action failed to present themselves. Interesting ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... obtained and prepared, in the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks, on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the battlelines, men have vied with each other to do their part and do it well. They can look any man-at-arms in the face and say, "We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Rissaldar-Major even to some Sahibs of his acquaintance—that wonderful old man-at-arms, horseman, shikarri, athlete, gentleman. (Yet how strange and sad to see him out of his splendid uniform, in sandals, dhotie, untrammelled shirt-tails, dingy old cotton coat and loose puggri, undistinguishable from a school-master, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquired with comparative ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the man-at-arms to support his ponderous panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most important branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... men, we are told, are the blindest of all. Did not Koenigsmarck prove it? As for myself, not even in that respect can I be ranked with Koenigsmarck. I am a mere man-at-arms, whose love-making is a ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... it for granted that Robin would, in the end, consent to become of the house of Gamewell. Already Squire George looked upon him as heir to the hall and its acres; even as slowly did Warrenton, the shrewd and faithful man-at-arms. Truth to tell, the old servant did not regard the prospect with too ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... chariots; also two horses and riders for them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses; also, he was bound to furnish two heavy-armed soldiers, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were light-armed, and four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the military order ...
— Critias • Plato
... Secretary Prince Otto. The sort of hen-coop stuck on behind is to be the abode of the Court Physician, Dr John Marsh—whom, by the way, you'll have to knight—and with whom is to be billeted the Court Jester, Man-at-Arms, Man-of-all-work and general retainer, little Buxley. So, you see, it's all cut and dry, though of course it will take some little time to finish the palace in all its multitudinous details. Meanwhile I have been sent to sound ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... up on her feet, and the old man-at-arms reached out his hand to her, and she took it and came her ways up the stair, but found herself but feeble. But the priest (forsooth he was chaplain of the castle) helped her on the other side. But when she stood on the level stones by the water-gate, she turned ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... stout carle," he said to the foot-boy, who went forward and immediately returned with a strapping man-at-arms. ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... instant they had him down and bound and prisoner, one man against a thousand; and they fastened him behind a man-at-arms, on the crupper, to take him into Sant' Angelo alive. But a soldier, whose brother he had slain a moment earlier, followed stealthily on foot and sought the joint in the back of the armour, and ran in his pike quickly, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... I answered lightly, "you must not make so much of it. It would never have sorted with my inclinations to have turned man-at-arms. This ring, Madonna, that once has served you, I beg that you will keep, for it ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... a fluttering of luminous images and actions! In a few short minutes of loosed subconsciousness I have sat in the halls of kings, above the salt and below the salt, been fool and jester, man-at-arms, clerk and monk; and I have been ruler above all at the head of the table—temporal power in my own sword arm, in the thickness of my castle walls, and the numbers of my fighting men; spiritual power likewise mine by token of the fact that cowled ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... skill in horsemanship advance, Town-folk my strength, a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make. How far they shot awry! the true cause is, Stella looked on; and from her heavenly face Sent forth the beams which made ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... them comes a man-at-arms who closes the door and stands against the wall beside it. MARK holds a parchment in his hand, and, without noticing the barons, walks agitatedly to the front of the stage. DENOVALIN goes behind the table and places himself between it and ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... camp, and, advancing with caution, slept the next night in the fields along with the soldiers. But the casualties of the campaign were not yet exhausted. His war-horse, which was picketed beside him, like that of an ordinary man-at-arms, struck the King with his foot and hurt him in the side. A tumult arose in the camp, but Edward, regardless of pain, appeased it by mounting his horse, riding through the cantonments, and showing the soldiers ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... queen? Sometimes I think that I have the story wrong; for what queen in those days would have assented to a proposition so democratic as that a man-at-arms (a "pawn" in the language of the unromantic) could rise by his own exertions to the dignity of Royalty itself? But if she were a waiting-maid in love with the king's own man-at-arms, then it would be natural that she should set no limit to her ambitions ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... engaging person he proved to be; an odd compound of gentleness and acerbity, of kindliness and rancor; a quiet, guileless, stubborn, violent old man-at-arms, who would not be interrupted while he was eating. He was both scornful and contemptuous ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of Brawny Kim, master armourer of Carlinwark, was not the lad to take such an insult meekly, even from a man-at-arms riding on horseback. He threw his bow into the nearest thicket, and seizing the most convenient ammunition, which chanced to be in great plenty that day upon the braes of Balmaghie, pursued his insulter along the glade with such excellent aim and good effect that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the King that a strange man without a squire or even a man-at-arms was sitting before the Palace under an olive tree. The King's face grew dark as he heard their tale, for he loved to keep his gardens for his own pleasure. 'Sanson,' he called to one of his guards, 'go and find out who this stranger ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... arrived, and, as he expected, they bore a message from the King. As he approached, a knight clad in full armour rode forward, preceded by a man-at-arms, and, bending low over his horse's neck, presented to him a parchment packet, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... of the Hundred Knights rushed at Sir Key and overthrew him in return, and took his horse and gave it to King Lot. And when Sir Griflet saw Sir Key's mischance, he set his spear in rest, and riding at a mighty man-at-arms, he cast him down headlong and caught his horse and led it straightway ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... whereof the captain, called Brandebourg [or Brembro, probably Bremborough], had with him a plenty of soldiers of the Countess of Montfort. 'Brandebourg,' said Robert, 'have ye within there never a man-at-arms, or two or three, who would fain cross swords with other three for love of their ladies?' Brandebourg answered that their ladies would not have them lose their lives in so miserable an affair as single combat, whereby one gained the name of fool rather than ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... dreadful business we find little to show what part the peasantry took in the affair, beyond that of mere suffering. The man-at-arms lorded it in France; the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... halberdier,' says he, 'is an ancient and honourable one. Sometimes,' says he, 'the man-at-arms at the door has saved the castle while the plumed knights were cake-walking in the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... a movable fortification; the peasantry or serfs who went along with them to battle, half-naked and half-fed, with rude and trifling arms, were looked upon as mere dross in comparison with the men-at-arms. One man-at-arms was considered equal to ten or even twenty of them; and when knights were not engaged in encountering each other, it was deemed as a sort of amusement for a few of them, with their heavy horses and armour, to ride down multitudes of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... enough. When you have got to the bottom knot, let yourself drop gently, and the rest you must manage for yourself. You will probably find a carriage somewhere in the neighborhood, and friends looking out for you. But I know nothing about that.—I need not remind you that there is a man-at-arms to the right of the tower. You will take care, of course, to choose a dark night, and wait till the sentinel is asleep. You must take your ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... of Pierre's life were spent in service as page to Ligny; after which the count made him a man-at-arms in his own company and a gentleman of his household. This meant that the page, Pierre, had become a knight, and was thenceforth to be ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... man-at-arms gruff and sullen, and herself retired ill at ease between fears of, and for, the unwelcome guest whose strange powers of fascination had rendered her, in his ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the King of France, is signed by thirty Breton knights, among whom is a Geoffrey Guinemer. A Mathelin Guinemer, squire, is mentioned in an act received at Bourges in 1418; while in 1464, an Yvon Guynemer, man-at-arms, is promoted to full pay, and he already spells ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... the space that divides us from the skies. The painful shock of this fall rushed through their veins like strange blood, hissing as it seemed, and full of scorching sparks. Their pain was like an electric discharge. The loud, heavy step of a man-at-arms sounded on the stairs with the iron clank of his sword, his cuirass, and spurs; a soldier presently ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... "ways" of an Adriatic builder, the galley in which we have seen him at anchor in the Golden Horn. Leaving an order for the employment of a sailing-master and crew when the vessel was complete, he departed next for Rome. At Padua he procured the harness of a man-at-arms of the period, and recruited a company of condottieri— mercenary soldiers of every nationality. With all his sacerdotal authority, Nicholas V., the Holy Father, was sorely tried in keeping his States. The freebooters ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... champion man-at-arms, a fine boxer, and a younger, stronger man, I should merely experience humiliation and defeat. What could ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... towards Scotland and Wales was provided for, and the rate of wages payable to his retinue and soldiers was fixed. Every duke was to receive 13s. 4d., every earl 6s. 8d., every baron 4s., and every knight 2s., every esquire being a man-at-arms 12d., every archer 6d. each day; whilst for every thirty men-at-arms a reward was assigned of one hundred marks a quarter; together ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler |
