Matilda, resting her claim to the throne upon her legitimate descent from Henry I, who had himself usurped the thronepossessing her father's courage and daring, with some of his crueltyhaughty, vindictivefurnishes one of the most striking portraits of the proud lady of the feudal period, who shrank from no danger by reason of her sex, but made the homage of chivalry to woman a powerful instrument for enforcing her absolute will.

Crescentius, having usurped power in Rome and expelled the Pope, is defeated, captured, and put to death by Otho III.

That action craves no counsel, Since what you rightly are, will more command, Than best usurped shape.

The Moravedi were "really a dynasty of priests," as the celebrated Magi, who usurped the throne of Cyrus.

This distinction is fast dying out,the naval term superseding the mercantile,just as in America the title "captain" has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, "master," which is now used only in law-papers.

They sold indulgences, they invented pious frauds, they were covetous under pretence of poverty, they had become luxurious in their lives, they slandered the regular clergy, they usurped the prerogatives of parish priests, they enriched their convents, they accommodated themselves to the wishes of the great, and were marked by those peculiarities of which the Jesuits were accused in the time of Pascal.

They are accused by all historians of avarice, venality, dissoluteness, and ignorance; and it was their incapacity, their disregard of duties, and indifference to the spiritual interests of their flocks that led to the immense popularity of the Mendicant friars, until they, in their turn, became perhaps a greater scandal than the parish priests whose functions they had usurped.

There is not a false doctrine in religion, nor an antichristian form of worship, nor a usurped prerogative of the Pope and clergy, which the unrestrained perusal of the Scriptures does not expose.

But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects.

The Normans, at last, observing the regular government which Henry, notwithstanding his usurped title, had been able to establish in England, applied to him, that he might use his authority for the suppression of these disorders, and they thereby afforded him a pretence for interposing in the affairs of Normandy.

His only son, William, had now reached his eighteenth year, and the king, from the facility with which he himself had usurped the crown, dreading that a like revolution might subvert his family, had taken care to have him recognized successor by the states of the kingdom, and had carried him over to Normandy, that he might receive the homage of the barons of that duchy.

The aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive in the feudal governments, had now risen to its utmost height, during the reign of a prince, who, though endowed with vigour and abilities, had usurped the throne without the pretence of a title, and who was necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence, to which he himself had been beholden for his sovereignty.

So every where they rule and tyrannize, For their usurped kingdomes maintenaunce, The whiles we silly maides, whom they dispize

Protestantism was only tolerated, and the country distracted rather than impoverished by the civil war of the Fronde, with its intrigues and ever-shifting parties,a giddy maze, which nobody now cares to unravel; a sort of dance of death, in which figured cardinals, princes, nobles, bishops, judges, and generals,when "Bacchus, Momus, and Moloch" alternately usurped dominion.

He was generally regarded as simply fortunate from the name he bore and the power he usurped, but with no striking intellectual gifts,nothing that would warrant his supreme audacity.

He had to fight against the combined influences of rank, fashion, and intellect,against an enlightened public opinion; for it could not be forgotten that his power was usurped, and sustained by brute force and the ignorant masses.

And here was his greatness, which endeared him to the American heart,that he usurped no authority, offended no one, and claimed nothing, when most men, armed as he was with almost unlimited authority, would have been reserved, arrogant, and dictatorial.

undue; unlawful &c (illegal) 964; unconstitutional; illicit; unauthorized, unwarranted, disallowed, unallowed^, unsanctioned, unjustified; unentitled^, disentitled, unqualified, disqualified; unprivileged, unchartered. illegitimate, bastard, spurious, supposititious, false; usurped.

The government of your chief city has been usurped by armed strangers; your Legislature has been dissolved by the unlawful arrest of its members; freedom of the press and of speech have been suppressed; words have been declared offences by an arbitrary desire of the Federal Executive, and citizens ordered to be tried by military commission for what they may dare to speak.

Such a repute cannot be usurped.

As being persons with whom interest usurped the force of justice, they all took account of persons rather than of causes.

But Epictetus sternly tells him that the philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name of Stoic was usurped.

She whom you insult, who has usurped my name, is an idol carved by yourself, in your own image, not in mine.

After having dared a second time to found the Empire of the Caesars, it quickly sees its sovereignty replaced by feudal rights, and all its rights usurped by the nobles, and has to struggle for many centuries to recover its rights one by one.

It is true that the Carlovingian warriors obtained a handsome and rich reward for these long and sanguinary efforts, for at last they seized upon the provinces and districts which had been originally entrusted to their charge, and the origin of their feudal possession was soon so far forgotten, that their descendants pretended that they held the lands, which they had really usurped regardless of their oath, from heaven and their swords.