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Castle   Listen
noun
Castle  n.  
1.
A fortified residence, especially that of a prince or nobleman; a fortress. "The house of every one is to him castle and fortress, as well for his defense againts injury and violence, as for his repose." "Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn." Note: Originally the mediaeval castle was a single strong tower or keep, with a palisaded inclosure around it and inferior buidings, such as stables and the like, and surrounded by a moat; then such a keep or donjon, with courtyards or baileys and accessory buildings of greater elaboration a great hall and a chapel, all surrounded by defensive walls and a moat, with a drawbridge, etc. Afterwards the name was retained by large dwellings that had formerly been fortresses, or by those which replaced ancient fortresses. A Donjon or Keep, an irregular building containing the dwelling of the lord and his family; B C Large round towers ferming part of the donjon and of the exterior; D Square tower, separating the two inner courts and forming part of the donjon; E Chapel, whose apse forms a half-round tower, F, on the exterior walls; G H Round towers on the exterior walls; K Postern gate, reached from outside by a removable fight of steps or inclined plane for hoisting in stores, and leading to a court, L (see small digagram) whose pavement is on a level with the sill of the postern, but below the level of the larger court, with which it communicates by a separately fortified gateway; M Turret, containing spiral stairway to all the stories of the great tower, B, and serving also as a station for signal fire, banner, etc.; N Turret with stairway for tower, C; O Echauguettes; P P P Battlemants consisting of merlons and crenels alternately, the merlons being pierced by loopholes; Q Q Machicolations (those at Q defend the postern K); R Outwork defending the approach, which is a road ascending the hill and passing under all four faces of the castle; S S Wall of the outer bailey. The road of approach enters the bailey at T and passes thence into the castle by the main entrance gateway (which is in the wall between, and defended by the towers, C H) and over two drawbridges and through fortified passages to the inner court.
2.
Any strong, imposing, and stately mansion.
3.
A small tower, as on a ship, or an elephant's back.
4.
A piece, made to represent a castle, used in the game of chess; a rook.
Castle in the air, a visionary project; a baseless scheme; an air castle; sometimes called a castle in Spain (F. Château en Espagne).
Synonyms: Fortress; fortification; citadel; stronghold. See Fortress.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Castle" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the county of Leicester, in an obscure town, in the north-west borders thereof, called Diseworth, seven miles south of the town of Derby, one mile from Castle-Donnington, a town of great rudeness, wherein it is not remembered that any of the farmers thereof did ever educate any of their sons to learning, only my grandfather sent his younger son to Cambridge, whose name was Robert Lilly, and died Vicar of ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... in lodgings is the low sagging half-timbered building that one finds in the country towns of England. It has leaned against the street and dispensed hospitality for three hundred years. It is as old a citizen as the castle on the hill. It is an inn where Tom Jones might have spent the night, or any of the rascals out of Smollett. Behind the wicket there sits a shrewish female with a cold eye towards your defects, and behind her ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... with the corps of pages and the corps of youths, entered the boats waiting for them to return, drawn by teams of four swift horses, to Memphis, to await within the impregnable fortress of the White Castle the restoration ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the town that to the hillside clings On terraced slopes, the castle, nobly planned And noble in its ruined greatness, flings Its double challenge to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... only a few hundred yards distant, is the height, Kulat er Rubad. It is crowned with the ruins of an old castle-fortress called (together with the peak on which it stands) the "watch-tower of Gilead." The view from the dismantled ramparts is not excelled in this part of the world. It, indeed, rivals the view from the celebrated peak south ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

... prowling enemies, much in the same way that the old feudal lords surrounded the ramparts of their castles with broad moats and flooded the intervening space with a deep canal of water, in order to check the advance of enemy raiders. The surrounding shores of the beaver's castle are nearly always wooded with poplars, as it is upon the bark of that tree that the beaver depends most for his food; though at times, other hardwoods contribute to his feast as well as ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... and composed a celebrated treatise on the Freedom of the Seas; who at thirty years of age was an honorary councillor of Rotterdam. Afterward, when, as a partisan of Barneveldt, he was persecuted, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and shut up in the castle of Loewestein, he wrote his treatise on the Rights of Peace and War, which for a long time was the code of all the publicists of Europe. He was rescued in a marvellous way by his wife, who managed to be carried into the prison inside a chest supposed to be full ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... from his great discovery and his developing the practice of vaccination, has not much incident in it. He was born on May 17, 1749, the son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England, the same Berkeley in whose castle, Edward II., the vanquished at Banockburn, was murdered in 1327. Jenner's mother's name was Head. Edward went to school at Wotton-under-Edge and at Cirencester, and began to study medicine with a Mr. Ludlow, a surgeon at Sodbury near Bristol. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... made a round of the principal of those mansions. The first visit was to a castle in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which the prince has modernized into a magnificent villa. Here all is constructed to the taste of a statesman only eager to escape the tumult of the capital, and pining to refresh himself with cooling shades and crystal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... fortress called Castel Nuovo. On the 21st of May, the mine was sprung; a passage was opened over the prostrate ramparts, and the assailants, rushing in with Gonsalvo and Navarro at their head, before the garrison had time to secure the drawbridge, applied their ladders to the walls of the castle, and succeeded in carrying the place by escalade, after a desperate struggle, in which the greater part of the French were slaughtered. An immense booty was found in the castle. The Angevin party had made it a place of deposit for their most valuable effects, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... apparent from his face that much passed before his mind, in that little second, of days when, at Dover Castle not long since, he had been a part—and no small part—of the intrigue well planned by Louis of France, and well executed by the Duchess of Orleans assisted by the fair Louise, now Duchess of Portsmouth, in which his own purse and power had waxed mightily. Whatever his lordship thought, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... ground hast thou for this thy hope? for a hope without a ground is like a castle built in the air, that will never be able to do thee any good, but will prove like unto that spoken of in Job 8, "Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be" like "a spider's web. He shall lean upon his house, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... There was a future to be settled, but she would not trouble herself about that just now. There was breakfast to get; and the sun shone, and a snow-bird was chirping outside of the door. She noticed how the tea-kettle hummed, and how well the new curtain, with the castle and waterfall on it, fitted the window. She thought that she would scour the closet at night, and surprise her father by finishing those list slippers; She kissed him when she had tied on the red hood, and said good-by to ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... a lovely castle a very rich man called Bluebeard. A short distance off lived an old gentleman with two lovely daughters, named Fatima and Annie. Bluebeard visited their house, and at length proposed to Fatima, was accepted by her, and they were married with great splendour. He took her ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... distressed, poor Lady Elizabeth returned. She had seen Colonel Goldsworthy, and heard Dr. Warren, -with the other two physicians, had left the house too far to be recalled they were gone over to the Castle, to the Prince ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... horizontal bands of white (top, double width) and red with a three-towered red castle in the center of the white band; hanging from the castle gate is a gold key centered in the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... ninety years ago. British experts cherish Lord Falkland's fame as the sire of their most knightly cavalier, and in their eyes its lustre shines undimmed, though his Excellency, foiled of marine booty, enriched himself by seizing the lands of his untried prisoners in Dublin Castle. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... discoursed: 'True life of man Is life within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth; But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness: like a boy is he, A boy that clambers round some castle's wall In search of nests, the outward wall of seven, Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where royal maids discourse with lyre and lute, Much less its central church, and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.' Thus Hilda spake; And ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... he went; and his excursions for the purposes of hawking and hunting were the wonder of all the country around, so magnificent were the caparisons of his steeds and the dresses of his retainers. Day and night his castle was open all the year round to comers of every degree. He made it a rule to regale even the poorest beggar with wine and hippocrass. Every day an ox was roasted whole in his spacious kitchens, besides sheep, pigs, and poultry sufficient to feed five hundred persons. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... first—a rococo castle sprawling over a whole city block, and with accommodations in its "halls, galleries, loges, verandas, terraces, outlying garden promenades and beer rooms" (I quote the official guide) for eight thousand drinkers. A lordly and impressive establishment ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright

... full use of the sands a spade is necessary and a pail important. The favorite thing to make is a castle and a moat, and although the water rarely is willing to stay in the moat it is well to pour some in. The castle may also have a wall round it and all kinds of other buildings within the wall. Abbeys are also made, and great houses with carefully arranged gardens, and villages, and churches. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... his all, but was plotting as one who would save his all. The task of the knight of old upon whom was the burden of rescuing some lovely maiden from imprisonment in a seemingly impregnable fortress, was but child's play compared to the task before Earl, who must scale the walls of the castle of despair and batter down doors that laughed at the feebleness of steel if he would claim Eunice for his own again. He was face to face with the dreadful fact that nothing but the solution of the long standing race problem of America could release to him the one ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... of the "Pegasus," shelled her helpless opponent. After that the German ship drew off, leaving the "Pegasus" in a sinking condition and with 26 men killed and 53 wounded. Our photograph, which has just been received here, shows the "Pegasus'" wounded being transhipped to the Union Castle liner "Gascon," serving as a hospital-ship to take ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various

... at Shoreham, Medenham turned the car northward at Bramber, with its stone-roofed cottages gilded with lichen, its tiny gardens gay with flowers, and the ruins of its twelfth-century castle frowning from the crest of an elm-clothed hill. Two miles to the northwest they came upon ancient Steyning, now a sleepy country town, but of greater importance than Bath or Birmingham or Southampton in the days of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... splendid. As the ascent is slowly continued, charming views disclose themselves, and on each side of the road the eye discerns some new beauty to dwell upon. At the Col Geneparo, to the right are the ruins of the castle of the Colonnas di Leca, rising boldly above the sea and surrounded and protected by magnificent natural battlements and pinnacles. Six miles from Porto, after having passed the Cols of Geneparo and Mezzano, both about ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black

... Egypt. While he was at Cairo, intelligence was received of the landing of Buonaparte in that country, when the just indignation of the natives vented itself upon all Europeans, and, amongst others, on Horneman, who was arrested and confined in the castle. He was relieved upon the victorious entry of the French commander, who immediately set him at liberty, and very liberally offered him money, and every other supply which might contribute to the success of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... bold traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the king. Give him sea-room in never so small a vessel, and like a witch in a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the devil. Of all callings his is the most desperate, for he will not leave off his thieving, though he be in a narrow ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... not an extravagant dream. Yet the chances were at times terribly against its fulfilment. But I never despaired, and fully believed that if Providence should grant me life and continued health, THE CASTLE WOULD BE BUILT. In the darkest hours I kept a bright lookout ahead, far ahead for the cheerful and safe harbor which imagination had so often portrayed. And the dream has been realized almost precisely as it appeared to me in my youthful days; ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... very still while the Commissioner was delving into the heart of the mass of evidence. The pigeons could be heard on the roof of the old, castle-like building, cooing and fretting. The clerks were droning everywhere, scarcely pretending to earn their salaries. Each little sound echoed hollow and loud from the bare, stone-flagged floors, the plastered walls, and the iron-joisted ceiling. The impalpable, perpetual ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... motives of the colony and of arousing the Archbishop to action. Warwick threw his influence on the side of Massachusetts, being always forward, as Winthrop said, "to do good to our colony"; and the colony itself, fearing attack, began to fortify Castle Island in the harbor and to prepare for defense. Endecott, in wrath, defaced the royal ensign at Salem, and so intense was the excitement and so determined the attitude of the Puritans that, had the Crown attempted to send over a Governor-General or to seize the ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... should say that five miles English were about equal to one mile German; but they vary considerably. Having spent a night in the exceedingly neat city of Schwerin beside its pleasant waters, and under the protection of the cannon in the antiquated castle overhead, I set out for a walk of twenty miles onward to Ludwigslust. The road was a pleasant one, firm and dry, with trim grass edgings and sylvan seats on either side. The country itself was flat and dull, enlivened only now and then by a fir plantation or a pretty ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... Jasper Ewold. "Sir Knight, slip your lance in the ring of the castle walls—but having no lance and this being no castle, well, Sir Knight in chaparejos—that is to say, Sir Chaps—let me inform you"—here Jasper Ewold threw back his shoulders and tossed his mane of hair, his ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... From the firing of the first gun, to the last time the enemy cried out he had surrendered, was exactly 22 minutes by the watch. She proved to be His Britannic Majesty's sloop of war Penguin, mounting six 32 pound carronades, two long 12's, a 12 pound carronade on the top-gallant fore-castle, with swivels on the capstern in the tops. She had a spare port forward, so as to fight both her long guns a side. She sailed from England in September last. She was shorter upon deck than this ship, by two feet, but she had a greater ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... off. Undeterred by this he issued from his prison a fierce attack upon Laud and the hierarchy, for which he was again fined, pilloried, and branded on both cheeks with the letters S.L. (seditious libeller). Removed to Carnarvon Castle he remained there until liberated in 1641 by the Long Parliament. He soon after became a member of the House, and joined with extreme, but not inexcusable, rancour in the prosecution of Laud. After this he turned his attention ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... day passed? Why, 'tis a true castle of indolence, is Mont Dor-les-Bains; "a pleasing land of sleepy-head," where every one follows the bent of his own fancy, and where the only serious occupation is, to forget all care and to do nothing. After ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... any rate, he had treated it tenderly as such and kept it for the last. He would apply to Rowland Slocum. Long ago, when Richard was an urchin making pot-hooks in the lane, the man used occasionally to pat him on the head and give him pennies. This was not a foundation on which to rear a very lofty castle; but this ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... journey Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer, with their two boys, reached Heronhurst, where they met with the affectionate welcome usually given by Sir George and Lady Vernon to all so nearly related to them. The castle was full of visitors, amongst whom were Lady Digby and her two eldest daughters, and many young people—personages grandmamma never forgot in the holidays, however unimportant they may appear in the eyes of some. Children liked to come to Heronhurst, for there was always so much ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... the waterfall was split in two, and rushed down in twin streams, bubbling, tumbling, hissing, plunging into the lake, which whirled furiously around the spit of land on which the castle stood, clear of ice for a distance of a hundred feet from the shore, a foaming maelstrom in which no boat that was ever built could have endured an instant, but must have been twisted and flung back like the fantastically shaped ice pinnacles along ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... At the gate, her castle under, Pilgrim sad, he knocked; Straight, as with a word of thunder Was the gate unlocked: "She you seek, with rites most solemn Is betrothed to heaven; Yesterday, beneath that column, She to Christ ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... portrait in Dhoon Castle; you were not in residence at the time. Mirza, Lady Lashmore, was evidently a very beautiful woman. What was ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... very little of modern literature, in fact, next to nothing, should be the sole critic and reporter whom I have happened to meet upon Mrs. Lee's work. But so it was: accident had thrown the book in his way during one of his annual visits to London, and a second time at Lowther Castle. He paid to Mrs. Lee a compliment which certainly he paid to no other of her contemporaries, viz., that of reading her book very nearly to the end; and he spoke of it repeatedly as distinguished for ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... pamphlet, printed under the title of "Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the people." After this he consolidated two other of his lectures, and published them under the title of "The Plot Discovered." Two detached lectures were given at the Corn Market, and one at a room in Castle Green. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... followed by six days in support, when we lived in dug-outs in some trenches between Loos and the famous Colliery slag heap, known as the "Double Crassier." Battalion Headquarters were at an exceptionally fine dug-out known as "Elvaston Castle," which had been dug by the 2nd Sherwood Foresters. Here, in addition to ordinary work, we amused ourselves at times by cutting the vetches which were thriving on some parts of the area, and sending them back for the transport animals. It was here also that a certain ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... them large; and this country is thinly inhabited, except the aforesaid coast, and the people are smaller; and there is great fishery of cod as on the other coast. There has not been seen there either village, or town, or castle, except a great enclosure of wood, which was seen in the gulf of the Castles; and the aforesaid people dwell in little cabins and huts, covered with the bark of trees, which they make to live in during the time of the fisheries, which commences in ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... island for several days, staying at the monastery, unwilling to go away, and yet frustrated in every attempt I made to enter the castle. On the fourth day, at sunrise, I was awakened suddenly by the deep tolling of the castle bell. I dressed hastily, and hurried up there; but I was thrust from the door, and forbidden to enter. I learned the truth, ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... power with which to deal; when Farragut damned the torpedoes in Mobile Bay, and Dewey did likewise in Manila Bay; when Sampson and Schley triumphed at Santiago, and Hobson accepted the seemingly fatal chance under the guns of Morro Castle—through all the years, I say, and through all that they have brought in the way of armed strife, the nation never for one moment has ever doubted the United ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... giant who kept the bridge leading to a castle in which a lady was besieged. Sir Lybius, one of the knights of the Round Table, did battle with him, slew him, and liberated the lady.—Libeaux ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... peculiarly it was furnished. Every corner of the little square room contained a monument of symmetrical design, all different, but each some three or four feet high, and all built of books, as a child might build a fairy castle out of his wooden blocks. A closer inspection showed that all the volumes were copies of the same book bound in "half morocco"! The explanation came later when I was incidentally informed that "Willie had tried canvassing, but most ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... cried she, "thy wife will I be." Then she dressed herself, and they went together to the nearest village. When they got there, she said to him, "Now go to the nobleman who owns the land here, and beg him for a place where we may build us a hut." So he went right up to the nobleman's castle and entered his reception-room, and said, "Glory be to God!"—"For ever and ever!" replied the nobleman. "What dost thou want here, Ivan?"—"I have come, sir, to beg of thee a place where I may build me a hut."—"A place for a hut, eh? Good, very good. Go home, and I'll speak to my overseer, and ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous

... by Christ, essentially involves in it walking in conformity to his image; and all such comers must be perfectly and eternally saved. Why then, O child of God, should you suffer under Giant Despair, in his doubting, fearing castle.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... homely wives of local millionaires; she professed a horror of the vulgarities with which she was surrounded, hated and loathed her lord and master's flamboyant home, which she described as something between a feudal castle and a picture-palace; and openly despised her husband's friends and ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... deed a bolt from the blue. The first intimation that the general public got of the rising was the sudden spread of the wildest rumours—"Dublin Castle has just been taken by the Irish Volunteers," "The Post Office has been captured by the Sinn Feiners," "Soldiers and police are being shot at sight," "Larkin's Citizen Army are firing on women and children," but, ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard

... to render the hut a castle of refuge as well as a home, its builder had perched it close to the edge of a nearly inaccessible cliff overhanging one of those brawling torrents which carry the melting snows of the great rocky range into one of ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... see the locks to keep the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them, all ready, I suppose, to open them if they are wanted. We were awake with the owl next morning, and a walking away before eight, we went to see the castle,—which was built, the man told us, by Seizer, so called, I conclude, from seizing everything he could lay his hands upon. The man said moreover that he had invaded Britain and conquered it, upon which I told him, that ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... that, where they dwelt in the pits; in earth and in stocks they hid them like badgers, in wood and in wilderness, in heath and in fen, so that well nigh no man might find any Briton, except they were in castle, or in burgh inclosed fast. When they heard of this word, that Constantin was in the land, then came out of the mountains many thousand men; they leapt out of the wood as if it were deer. Many hundred thousand marched toward London, by street and by ...
— Brut • Layamon

... produced so many men of talent—the county of Cork; the family resided in the neighborhood of Castletown Roche, four or five miles from Doneraile, five or six miles from Mallow—now a railroad station—and nearly the same distance from the ruins of Kilcolman Castle, whose every mouldering stone is hallowed by the memory of the poet Spenser and his dear friend, "the Shepherd of the Ocean," Sir Walter Raleigh. There can be little doubt that Edmund—a portion of whose young ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... sharpeneth the apprehension. You said nothing so well, Sir Knight, I will be sworn, when you held drunken vespers with the bluff Hermit.—But to go on. The merry-men of the forest set off the building of a cottage with the burning of a castle,—the thatching of a choir against the robbing of a church,—the setting free a poor prisoner against the murder of a proud sheriff; or, to come nearer to our point, the deliverance of a Saxon franklin against ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... above, that of Richmond; and between both, on the west of London, rise the noble buildings of Westminster, most remarkable for the courts of justice, the parliament, and St. Peter's church, enriched with the royal tombs. At the distance of twenty miles from London is the castle of Windsor, a most delightful retreat of the Kings of England, as well as famous for several of their tombs, and for the ceremonial of the Order of the Garter. This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks: the sight of them, and their noise, are vastly agreeable to ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... times, to civilized life; they got their grace of the king, and entered the king's service; but the craving after the greenwood was upon them. They dreaded and hated the four stone walls of a Norman castle, and, like Robin Hood, slipt back to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... Castle, on the Gold Coast, the ceremony was witnessed on the ninth of October, 1844, by an Englishman, who has described it as follows: "To-night the annual custom of driving the evil spirit, Abonsam, out of the town has taken place. As soon as ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... not have been desired. The morning had been hazy, but as the sun shone out the fog had gradually risen, until now there remained but a suspicion of it, floating like a plume, above the frowning walls of Edinburgh Castle, and twining a fairy wreath round the unfinished columns of the national monument upon the Calton Hill. The broad stretch of the Prince's Street Gardens, which occupy the valley between the old ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... his family the glory of his achievement, a coat of arms was assigned him, in which the royal arms—the castle and lion—were quartered with his proper bearings, which were a group of islands surrounded by waves. To these arms ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... in the darkness of night, For the moon is swept from the starless heaven, And the latest line of lowering light That lingered on the stormy even, A dim-seen line, half cloud, half wave, Hath sunk into the weltering grave. Castle-Oban is dark without and within, And downwards to the fearful din, Where Ocean with his thunder shocks Stuns the green foundation rocks, Through the green abyss that mocks his eye, Oft hath the eerie watchman sent A shuddering look, a shivering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... above the village and the little river amid the vineyards, and obtained a beautiful picture; hill and dale, clustered village and lofty spire, and imposingly, confronting us at every turn, the fine faade of the castle of Andlau, built of grey granite, and flanked at either end with massive towers. More picturesque, but less majestic are the neighbouring ruins of Spesburg, mere tumbling walls wreathed with greenery, and many ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... seen him fight where men and horses have bit the dust in hundreds; and that, in my opinion, speaks out for the man and warrior; he who cannot, then, fight like a soldier, had better tilt at home in the castle-yard, and there win ladies' smiles, but not the commendation of the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... the M.P.s, Lording it o'er cab, 'bus, lodging-house, and grave-yard, Of the good times when every Anglo Saxon's House was his castle. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Tokio. There, the Tycoon reigns in undisturbed sovereignty. Here, he appears as a humble servant of his rightful master—really his prisoner. The late Tycoon, after the last battle, fought at this place, fled to his castle at Osaka, where, though he might have held out for an indefinite period, he preferred to surrender. Two of his Ministers came to him and represented that he must not only think of himself, but of the party who supported the Shogunate, and that as he had betrayed ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... of Coltness had been in exile as a Presbyterian, and on his return found his lands in the possession of the Earl of Arran. He brought his case to Penn. Penn went to Arran. "What is this, friend James, that I hear of thee?" he said. "Thou hast taken possession of Coltness's castle. Thou knowest that it is not thine." "That estate," Arran explained, "I paid a great price for. I received no other reward for my expensive and troublesome embassy to France, except this estate." "All very well, friend James," said Penn, "but of this assure thyself, that ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... Atlantis was sinking into the depths of the sea.... Not as a ship sinks, but piecemeal, her walls and towers crumbling and toppling as a child's sand-castle crumbles under the attack of the lapping waves. Down they crashed, carrying their freight of black, clinging, human ants, while from the sea's depths a wave, a mile high, rose and battered the fragments to destruction. From the crater of the volcano a huge ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... centuries the Lordship of the English Kings over Ireland was largely nominal. It was only when the religious quarrels of the sixteenth century became acute that the Tudors—already alarmed at the action of the Irish Parliament in recognising and crowning a pretender in Dublin Castle—found themselves compelled to ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... it." Jerry did not appear specially impressed by such overwhelming forbearance. "To begin with, the Macys spend their summers at Severn Beach. The Farnhams have a regular castle at Tanglewood, a resort about ten miles from Severn Beach. It is needless to say that Row-ena and I do not exchange visits. I am happy to say I never saw her at Severn Beach. Think what ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... and one league from the Loire, in a small and deep valley, between marshy swamps and a forest of large holm-oaks, far from any highroad, the traveller suddenly comes upon a royal, nay, a magic castle. It might be said that, compelled by some wonderful lamp, a genie of the East had carried it off during one of the "thousand and one nights," and had brought it from the country of the sun to hide it in the land ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... violence of the struggle through which Christendom passed, town and village, valley and castle, had ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... exhausted mind it was plain that there was need here for explanations. An Irishman's croquet lawn is his castle, and strangers cannot plunge on to it unannounced through hedges without being prepared to ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... you do brew good ale at Hernshaw Castle. Ye needn't go to deny that; for, Lord knows, 't is no sin; and a poor fellow may be jolly, yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... peremptorily, "I am glad to see you all each evening about my fireside, but I will have no arguing nor quarreling, understand that. A man's house is his castle." ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... to escape, speaks loudly of the desperation to which they were driven. My guide gave me a few of the hand-cuffs that our officers removed from some of the emaciated prisoners when Richmond was taken. The doors of Castle Thunder and Libby were opened, and the hand-cuffs were placed on their cruel keepers, who had made a boast of killing as many Yankees in these prisons as their troops were killing ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... you may see what's very rare, The world turn'd upside down; A tree and castle in the air, A man walk ...
— The World Turned Upside Down - No News, and Strange News • Anonymous

... At that time there was a wide desert called Vosagus [the Vosges] in which there lay a castle long since in ruins. And ancient tradition called it Anagrates [Anegray]. When the holy man reached this place, in spite of its wild isolation, its rudeness, and the rocks, he settled there with his companions, content with meagre support, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... is the plain of Runnemede, where the great battle between John and the Barons was fought; and in the centre of the river is the little fishing island, where Magna Charta was signed. At the extremity of the valley is Windsor Castle, rising up in all the pomp of its massive towers. We recollect the scene as Windsor was. Whatever Mr. Wyattville may have done for its internal improvement, and for its adaptation to the purposes of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various

... was produced, the next forenoon, when a youth and a girl, in a one-horse wagon, with a big dog and a small trunk, arrived at Lord Betterson's "castle." ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... repent that I did not let Charles buy Vernon Castle, when we were obliged to sell it; but it was a trying circumstance, especially as the sale took place exactly at the time of his marriage; and everybody ought to respect the delicacy of those feelings which could not endure that my husband's dignity should be lessened by his younger ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... luxuriant crops, can be made to believe it was a barren waste seven years ago—hardly worth fencing or cultivating. This great change, so far beyond the power of human belief, has been effected by lime, plaster and guano. The railroad from Frenchtown to New Castle, passes through this farm, four miles from the latter place. It is well worthy a visit from any one anxious to make personal observations of the effects of "bought manures," upon a soil too poor to support a ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... Carey, an official of such eminence in Dublin Castle that nothing short of the case of Prince Michael would have brought him on such a journey in the middle of the night. But the case of Prince Michael, as it happened, was complicated by legalism as well as lawlessness. ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... luncheon. And a grand luncheon it was, for it happened that day to be the princess's birth-day, and three of her cousins were coming to dine with her, and they were going to have such a plum-pudding—so very big; and there was to be an elephant and castle, made of sugar, all over gilding, at the top. But, somehow, when the princess sat down to her luncheon, she did not look happy, notwithstanding her birth-day, and her three cousins, and the great plum-pudding they ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... ride a horse, or leap a horse, or run afoot, or hollo, with any woman in England seven years younger, but not a day older, because I won't undervalue myself, being now 74 years of age." Nor should be left unrecorded the high-born Scottish damsel whose tradition still remains at the Castle of Huntingtower, in Scotland, where two adjacent pinnacles still mark the Maiden's Leap. She sprang from battlement to battlement, a distance of nine feet and four inches, and eloped with her lover. Were a young lady to go through one ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... them, and proved his ruin; but Timoleon took a very different course. He made proclamation that any Syracusan who chose might come with a crowbar and take part in the destruction of the despot's castle. When they had all assembled, in order to mark that day and that proclamation as the real beginning of liberty, they not only destroyed and subverted the castle, but also the houses and tombs of the despots. Timoleon at once had the place levelled, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing—besides my travelling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer—some books, and my railway-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of carriage than from any thought ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... more clear to him than it is to any other young man who reads violence as heroism and eccentricity as genius. Of England he spoke with something like stupefaction—as a child cowering in a dark wood tells of the ogre who has slain his father and carried his mother away to a drear captivity in his castle built of bones—so he spoke of England. He saw an English-man stalking hideously forward with a princess tucked under each arm, while their brothers and their knights were netted in enchantment and slept heedless of the wrongs done to ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... Dooley continued, "he's a citizen iv England an' he has a castle that's as big as a hotel, on'y nobody goes there excipt thim that's ast, an' not all of those, an' he owns a newspaper an' th' editor iv it's the Prince iv Wales an' th' rayporthers is all jooks an' th' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... said, "Look! did not I tell you so? Here is a pillow stuffed with paper. And now your ladyship can move, I am sure; permit me to give you my hand to rise. You will have to travel for some distance, as far as Hexton Castle to-night. Will you have your coach? Your woman shall attend you if you ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... is as pleasing to the eye, has the same fitness and harmony, as a hut in the woods; and I should think an artist might have the same pleasure in copying it into his picture as he would in copying a pioneer's log cabin. So with Windsor Castle, which has the beauty of a ledge of rocks, and crowns the hill like a vast natural formation. The warm, simple interior, too, of these castles and palaces, the honest oak without paint or varnish, the rich wood carvings, the ripe human tone and atmosphere,—how it all contrasts, for instance, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... Russia, however, he was known (by name only, for he avoided Slavonic society) as Prince Pavlo Alexis. This plain was his; half the Government of Tver was his; the great Volga rolled through his possessions; sixty miles behind him a grim stone castle bore his name, and a tract of land as vast as Yorkshire was peopled by humble-minded persons who cringed at ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... very pleasant and picturesque, the land being more broken, elevated, and diversified than in the lower portions of Canada West; and the Burlington Heights, so important a position in the war of 1812, show to great advantage. Here is one of the few attempts at castle-building in Canada called Dundurn Castle, the residence of Sir Allan Macnab. It is beautifully situated, and, although not perhaps very suitable to a new country, it is a great ornament to the vicinity of Hamilton, embowered as it is in the natural forest. Near it, however, is a vast ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... in forcing his way into another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary—that would depend upon the testimony—but in any event it was a criminal, illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his castle and—to quote from that most famous of orators and statesmen—Edmund Burke—"the wind might enter, the rain might enter, but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter the house of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... associations are with a very recent past," answered Cecilia. "The tower, in remote times, formed the keep of a castle belonging to the most ancient and once the most powerful family in these parts. The owners were barons who took active share in the Wars of the Roses. The last of them sided with Richard III., and after the battle of Bosworth ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... capital of Surrey, on the Wey, 30 m. SW. of London, a quaint old town with several interesting buildings, and the ruins of a Norman castle; is noted for its "Surrey wheats" and live-stock markets; and has corn, paper, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of the sudden appearance of a hot spring in the Lake of Thun, and Gregory of Tours notes that the land-slip in 563 at the foot of the Dent du Midi, above the point where the Rhine enters the Lake of Geneva, was a dreadful event. Not only was the Castle of Tauretunum overwhelmed, but the blocking of the Rhine caused a deluge felt as far as Geneva. The pious prince of the Church explained this as a portent of another catastrophe, the pest, which ravaged Gaul ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... is individualised; one is beautiful, another brutal, and so on through the seven. A greyhound and spaniel in the foreground are superbly painted, the background is excellent, and a realistic touch is given by the corpses which dangle unheeded from the trees outside the castle-gate. A ruined, but fortunately not restored, "Annunciation" in S. Fermo, has a simple, slender figure of the Virgin sitting by her white bed, and the angel, with great sweeping, rushing wings and bowed, child-like head with fair hair, is ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... broad-shouldered lad, with a good-natured mindless face, and prodigious wooden shoes like clumsy canoes—even the cowboy knows that I am to be Madame Lenoble of Cotenoir. Cotenoir is the Windsor Castle of this district; Beaubocage is only Frogmore. Yes, dear, the bond is signed and sealed. Even if I did not love M. Lenoble, I have bound myself to marry him; but I do love him, and thank him with all my heart for having given a definite end and aim to my life. Don't ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... were really beautiful. He went up to the Castle, whence he saw a great part of the Old Town, and all Prince's-street, lighted up in the most splendid manner. He crossed the Earth-mound into Prince's-street. Walking down Prince's-street, he saw a crowd of people gathered before the large illuminated window of a confectioner's ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... could be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island, and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a wild virgin pine forest, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... friend, whom the present Lord Lovel had assassinated, that he might enjoy his title and estate. The wounded man confessed the fact; and Sir Philip gave him his life, and only carried off his sword as a trophy of his victory. Both the victor and the vanquished were conveyed to Lord Graham's castle, where the Lord Lovel now lies in great danger. He is desirous to settle his worldly affairs, and to make his peace with God and man. Sir Philip Harclay says there is a male heir of the house of Lovel, for whom he claims the title and estate; but he ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... descended the narrow and swift current of East River, rounded Castle Garden, and reached her pier before eight o'clock. Shoulder to shoulder with the other passengers, Helwyse descended the gangplank. The official who took his ticket eyed him so closely that there was the beginning ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs— 30 ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... rambled by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from watering place to watering place. She crossed the New Forest, and visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was approaching, returned well and cheerful to London. There she visited her old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nobody to talk to. I learned it on the hill-side with the sheep, and in the meadows with the cattle. At college I thought I was nearly cured of it; but now, in my comparative solitude at the castle, it seems to ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of Otranto; so he must go at any rate; and (as no difference in the treatment of different characters ever occurred to any body) of course Charles must go along with him. Away they went to an expensive school, which Julian's insubordination on the instant could not brook—and, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Past the grey old castle that looked seawards over the estuary, past the little white town of Llangarmon, with its ancient walls and fortified gates, past the quay where the fishing smacks were lying idly at anchor and a pleasure-steamer was unloading its ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... Marie Touchet, who asked nothing, the manor of Belleville, an estate close to Vincennes which carried no title; and thither she went whenever the king hunted and spent the night at the castle. It was in this gloomy fortress that Charles IX. passed the greater part of his last years, ending his life there, according to some historians, as Louis ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... nearer to the happy island—it was an island we were bound for, I knew well! Already I could see the island-people waving hands on the crowded quay, whence the little houses ran up the hill to the castle, crowning all with its towers and battlements. Once more we should ride together, a merry procession, clattering up the steep street and through the grim gateway; and then we should have arrived, then we should all dine together, then we should have ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... to say now in reference to this little Novel, but that the principal incident on which it turns, was narrated to him one morning at breakfast by his worthy friend, Mr. Train, of Castle Douglas, in Galloway, whose kind assistance he has so often had occasion to acknowledge in the course of these prefaces; and that the military friend who is alluded to as having furnished him with some information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the sons ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Castle" :   rook, chess, go, mansion, Buckingham Palace, munition, castle in the air, turret, fortification, chessman, Balmoral Castle, great hall, mansion house, move, keep, air castle, donjon, chess game, hall, castle in Spain, manse, residence, chess move, chess piece, dungeon, castling, palace



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