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Legitimacy   /lədʒˈɪtəməsi/  /lɪdʒˈɪtəməsi/   Listen
Legitimacy

noun
1.
Lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law.
2.
Undisputed credibility.  Synonyms: authenticity, genuineness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Legitimacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Whether the Regent of Sweden intends to make himself king is a moot point. All the world knows that the young prince is not legitimate, altho born under circumstances which render it, legally speaking, impossible to question his legitimacy. I consider a war between Britain and France is inevitable. I have not proof, but some very leading circumstances. Britain will, I think, suspend her blow until she can strike very hard, unless, indeed, they should think it advisable to seize the moment of indignation against late ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... cardinal's still declining to take any but deacon's orders, notwithstanding his high dignity in the church, suggested to him the suspicion that his kinsman aimed at the crown itself, through a marriage with the princess Mary, of whose legitimacy he had shown himself so strenuous a champion. What foundation there might be for such an idea it is difficult ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... protest, when some at least might have been safe beyond the walls of Rome—their acceptance of honors, as by the cardinals of Limoges, Poitou, and Aigrefeuille—the homage of all—might seem to annul all possible irregularity in the election, to confirm irrefragably the legitimacy of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... is legitimate for one science it is legitimate for all; the fundamental axiom on which it rests, the constancy of the order of nature, being the common foundation of all scientific thought. Indeed, if there can be grades in legitimacy, certain branches of science have the advantage over astronomy, in so far as their retrospective prophecies are not only susceptible of verification, but are sometimes ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... deprecation of their use by the unfree and dependent class. This is more particularly true as regards certain luxuries, the use of which by the dependent class would detract sensibly from the comfort or pleasure of their masters, or which are held to be of doubtful legitimacy on other grounds. In the apprehension of the great conservative middle class of Western civilisation the use of these various stimulants is obnoxious to at least one, if not both, of these objections; and it is a fact ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... to which admission should be free. In similar lectures the great military problems might be discussed from the standpoint of military philosophy, and the hearers might gain some insight into the legitimacy of war, its relations to politics, the co-operation of material and imponderable forces, the importance of free personality under the pressure of necessary phenomena, sharp contradictions and violent opposition, as well as into the ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... parties which might avert existing and future trouble. Her efforts were in vain, notwithstanding the efforts of Germany, which for months endeavored to induce Austria-Hungary to comply with Italy's suggestions, thereby recognizing the propriety and legitimacy of the Italian attitude. Therefore Italy found herself compelled by the force of events to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the constitution of these tyrannies, we find abundant proofs of their despotic nature. The succession from father to son was always uncertain. Legitimacy of birth was hardly respected. The last La Scalas were bastards. The house of Aragon in Naples descended from a bastard. Gabriello Visconti shared with his half-brothers the heritage of Gian Galeazzo. The line of the Medici was continued by princes of more than doubtful origin. Suspicion rested ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... applied to Dryden,) that he produced those two very singular plays, the First and Second Parts of the "Conquest of Granada." In these models of the pure heroic drama, the ruling sentiments of love and honour are carried to the most passionate extravagance. And, to maintain the legitimacy of this style of composition, our author, ever ready to vindicate with his pen to be right, that which his timid critics murmured at as wrong, threw the gauntlet down before the admirers of the ancient English ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... "bare our sins in His body upon the tree." "Herein is love," said John, "not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." He "loved me," said Paul, "and gave Himself for me." It is open, doubtless, to question the legitimacy of these apostolic deductions, and to fall back upon Matthew Arnold's Aberglaube; but who, it has been well said, "are most likely to have correctly apprehended the significance which Jesus attached to His death, men like John and Peter and Paul, or an equal number of scholars in our time, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... away from his original purpose, and converted him, from a benevolent ruler, into a harsh, suspicious, unfeeling despot. There could be nothing done for Russian serfs while their sovereign was crusading it for the benefit of the Bourbons in particular and of legitimacy in general. "God is in heaven, and the Czar is afar off!" words once common with the suffering serfs, were of peculiar force when the Czar, who believed himself to be the chosen instrument of Heaven, was at Paris or Vienna, laboring for the settlement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... uncle would fail. And then, though he loved the one Ralph nearly as well as he did the other,—though he must have known that Ralph the base-born was in all respects a better man than his own brother, more of a man than the legitimate heir,—still to his feelings that legitimacy was everything. He too was a Newton of Newton; but it may be truly said of him that there was nothing selfish in his feelings. To be the younger brother of Newton of Newton, and parson of the parish which bore ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly prevailed upon his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt his conscience greatly eased after this action—which, too, he could always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of form, so far as the property ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... v. p. 315. The chastity of an empress should not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is astonishing, that the witness should write and live under a prince whose legitimacy he dared to attack. We must suppose that his history was a party libel, privately read and circulated by the Pagans. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is not averse to brand the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... along the entire unbroken line of continuous evolution, being reproduction (Unity) and legitimate modification (Variety); or, in other words, modified repetition. It is upon the indisputable evidence of such normal evolution in the system of musical structure, that our conviction of the legitimacy and permanence of ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... looked surprised in his turn. "It had to do with his marriage and his daughter's legitimacy," he slowly replied. "Surely my sister imparted this to the Penzance police inspector, when ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... marriage? Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her own terms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy—that is, the property-rights—of her children. If she had no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for an existence. And then the subject became Religion, which was the Archfiend's deadliest weapon. Government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... not the destruction of forms; is not the giant arm of revolution, striking the hours of human progress by the crash of falling thrones. But its great work is construction—is in changing the very spirit of institutions—and it asserts its legitimacy and bases its claims upon the Christian doctrine ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... increased, are not abhorred, but are favored. This we see every day."[504] The church decided all recognition and promotion, and disposed of all rewards of ambition. The monarchical and autocratic tendency in it was the correct process for attaining the purposes by which it was animated. Its legitimacy as an organization for realizing faiths and desires which prevailed in society is beyond question. It drew towards itself all the talent of the age except what was military. It crushed all dissenters and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... said the Viceroy, satisfied at last. "Don Francisco de Guzman, Alvarado that was, thy birth and legitimacy are clear and undoubted. There by your side stands the woman you have loved. If you wish her now I shall be honored to call ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... Provincial leadership made no effort to settle the lands in what some called "the disputed territory" until after the later agreement at Stanwix; in fact, they discouraged it.[37] The simple desire for legitimacy gives us very little to go on in the light of more than adequate documentation of the justice ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... escapes and of contempt of court, in the principles of evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction between the temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of attainder and forfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in the presumption of legitimacy, in the learning of the law of prerogative, in the inalienable character of the Crown, this mastership ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain

... sense that he was watched, that craft was employed to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy to a journey so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no fearful sort. He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league, and felt that there was a certain legitimacy ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... grumbling slanders on the legitimacy of the student body. "One of those little angels shoots me, it's just a cute little prank, and we oughtn't to frown on the little darling when it's just trying to express its dear little personality, or we might give it complexes, or something," he ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... being circulated throughout France discrediting the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux, the posthumous son of the Duc de Berri. He had been born seven months after his father's death, at dead of night, with no doctor in attendance, nor any responsible witnesses to attest that he was heir to the crown. Louis Philippe ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... sexual equality in matters of divorce, the legal assimilation of legitimate and illegitimate children, the recognition of unions outside marriage,—a recognition already legally established under certain circumstances in Sweden, in such a way as to confer the rights of legitimacy on the child,—and she is even prepared to advise women under some conditions to become mothers outside marriage, though only when there are obstacles to legal marriage, and as the outcome of deliberate will and resolution. In these and many similar proposals in detail, set forth in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... frequently said that the Baconian method had been known long before Bacon, and had been practiced by his predecessors with much greater success than by himself or his immediate followers, it was his chief merit to have proclaimed it, and to have established its legitimacy against all gainsayers. M. Fischer has some very good remarks on Bacon's method of induction, particularly on the instantiae praerogativae which, as he points out, though they show the weakness of his system, exhibit at the same time the strength ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... full of cruelty,' that does not invalidate the principles of morality, as our modern blood-and-thunder young man affects to believe. For that the principles of right and justice have not yet been discovered in barbarous countries no more destroys their universality and legitimacy than the principles of the differential calculus are affected by the primitive practice of counting on the fingers. And while the ethical geniuses—the senior wranglers of the soul—are groping towards further truths and finer shades of feeling, deeper reaches of pity ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... you know: but to our point. I have been assured that the actual discovery of the intrigue was made to the marquis some months previously to the birth of his child—and that he forbore to take any notice of this, lest it might affect the legitimacy of that child. After the birth of the infant—a boy—subsequent indiscretions on the part of the marchioness, the marquis would make it appear, gave rise to his first suspicions. Now, sir, these are the points, of which, as my friend, and as ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... his wounds from the sight and search of men, his disorderly and, one might say, his criminal, imagination busied itself in sketching a giant scheme. It was as unique as had been the fallen Credit Magellan without owning to a shadow of Credit Magellan's legitimacy. This time Storri would have no partners; there would be no Mr. Harleys and no osprey pools to sell him out. Before all was done he might require men; but of the sort one ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... whom his nearest relation persecuted, and who was deserted even by his own father-in-law, there had come forward an adventurer without money, and whose very legitimacy was questioned. A sovereign had resigned possessions over which he reigned in peace, to hazard the uncertain fortune of war in behalf of a stranger. And now another soldier of fortune, poor in territorial possessions, but rich in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... outrage, but on the king-making vizier, who, falling into the hands of the prince whom he had himself placed upon the throne, was literally hacked to pieces. Dost Mahomed now rose like a rocket. The base and feeble remains of legitimacy seemed to die away of its own weakness, and the despised younger son of the king-making vizier soon reigned supreme at Cabool. Let us note that this was in 1826. The new king, says Mr Kaye, 'had hitherto lived the life of a dissolute soldier. His education had been neglected, and in his ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... Don Antonio de Urbistondo, Marques de la Solana, came out to Manilla as Governor of the Philippines. He was a man whose whole life had been passed in the camp, but his reputation had been gained during the civil wars in Spain, where he fought for legitimacy by the side of Don Carlos against the present queen. Nor did he give up the cause in which he had drawn his sword, until Don Carlos himself lost heart and forsook it, after which Don Antonio took advantage of the clemency of the queen, and swore allegiance to her as ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... defines anarchy as that "state of society in which the rule of each individual by himself is the only government the legitimacy of which is recognized," and then goes on to say, "in this sense, strict anarchy may be the highest conceivable grade of perfection of social existence; for, if all men spontaneously did justice and loved mercy, it is plain that the swords might advantageously ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... the veracious mediaeval chronicler, reported that in Sicily serpents were used to test the legitimacy of children; "if the children be illegitimate, the serpents bite and kill them." Hartland cites, on the authority of Thiele, "a story in which a wild stallion colt is brought in to smell two babes, one of which is a changeling. Every time he smells one he is quiet ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... Australian aboriginal, space is allotted in this book to selected anecdotes. Some are original; a few have been previously honoured by print. Others have wandered, unlettered vagrants, so far and wide as to have lost all record of legitimacy. To these houseless strangers I gladly offer hospitality, and acknowledge with thankfulness ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... begun in the winter of 1526-27. It was proposed to marry the Princess Mary to a son of the French king. The Bishop of Tarbes, who conducted the negotiations, advised himself, apparently by special instigation of the evil spirit, to raise a question as to her legitimacy. ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley

... for jury trials in instances of contempt not committed in the presence of the court commanded support from members of both parties in the Fifty-eighth Congress. Federal decisions upheld workingmen's right, in the absence of an express contract, to strike at will, although emphatically affirming the legitimacy of enjoining violent interference with railroads, and of enforcing the injunction by ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... marched an army into the city, and there was apparent submission, but as soon as they quitted, the insurrection again took place, and the bishop was forced again to solicit aid from the Austrians, for Prussia would no longer interfere. Metternich, who was so fond of legitimacy that he considered the gaming-tables a legitimate source of revenue to the apostle, marched in an Austrian army, and hundreds were slaughtered that the bishop might obtain his rights. Such was the state of affairs when the French revolution broke out and convulsed Europe, and the province of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... to be of inferior rank—but to remain unmarried. From listening to Philip's wooing she was kept back by her sister's example, whose marriage had destroyed her popularity. And for Elizabeth there would have been yet another danger in this alliance. Was not her legitimacy dependent on the invalidity of her father's marriage with his brother's widow? It would be a very similar case if she were to marry her sister's husband. Besides she would have needed the Pope's dispensation ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... healed their wounds. Thoth spat upon the eye of Horus and it became whole. Horus, however, gave his eye to Osiris to eat, and thereby Osiris became endowed with life, soul, and power (i.e. in the underworld). But Seth disputed the legitimacy of the birth of Horus, and the great gods held a court in the house of Keb. In this court, justice was done, the truth of Horus's claims was established, and he was placed on the throne of his father. ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner

... princess, named three days later in her baptism, after the king's mother, Elizabeth.[174] A son had been hoped for. The child was a daughter only; yet at least Providence had not pronounced against the marriage by a sentence of barrenness; at least there was now an heir whose legitimacy the nation had agreed to accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the river decked itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical with bells. A font of gold was presented for the christening. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... me, you she-devil?" snarls Hardin, alarmed at the settled, resolute face. "I have a little piece of news for you which will block your game, my lady. There is no proof of the legitimacy of the child, Isabel Valois. A claim has already been filed by a distant Mexican relative of the Peraltas. The suit will come up soon. If the girl is declared illegitimate, you can take her back to France, and keep her as a beggar. You are in my ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... only be guessed; for that Edmund Earl of Kent was really her second husband I think there is the strongest reason to believe. His sisters afterwards chose to deny the marriage; it was their interest to do so, for had the legitimacy of his child been established, they would have been obliged to resign to her her father's estates, which, as his presumptive heirs, they had inherited. Their excessive anxiety to prove her illegitimate, the persecution ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... wholly dispensed with royalty, cannot, even if they would, make a legislative body Sovereign by the simple process of allowing it to usurp power once enjoyed by the Crown. France did, indeed, after it had finally dispensed with Legitimacy, make two attempts to found governments in which the theory of popular Sovereignty was evaded. The Orleans monarchy, for instance, through the mouths of its friends, denied Sovereignty to the people, without being able to claim it for the King; and this insecurity of its legal framework was an ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... able to take their own course, would have given to the proceedings of the Convention a decidedly revolutionary character. The other class admitted that a revolution was necessary, but regarded it as a necessary evil, and wished to disguise it, as much as possible, under the show of legitimacy. The former class demanded a distinct recognition of the right of subjects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class desired to rid the country of one bad prince, without promulgating any doctrine which might be abused for the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Madeleine began to detail to Maurice, the leading motives on which the WALKURE was built up; and Dove, having hummed, strummed and whistled all those he knew by heart, settled down to a discourse on the legitimacy and development of the motive, and especially in how far it was to be considered a purely intellectual implement. He spoke with the utmost good-nature, and was so unconscious of being a bore that it was impossible to take him amiss. Madeleine, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... The legitimacy of this mode of reasoning follows, in the case of affirmative propositions, from the principle of Contradiction, that if any term be affirmed of a subject, the contradictory term may be denied (chap. vi. Sec. 3). To obvert affirmative ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... VII. refused to strengthen his title by advancing the claims of his wife: and the uncertainty of the laws of marriage, and the innumerable refinements of the Romish canon law, which affected the legitimacy of children,[108] furnished, in connection with the further ambiguities of clerical dispensations, perpetual pretexts, whenever pretexts were needed, for a breach of allegiance. So long, indeed, as the character of the nation remained essentially military, it could as little tolerate an incapable ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... kicking were I to swaddle mine in stone-work. No, M. Talleyrand; if ever Paris is surrounded by fortifications to coerce the populace, it must be the work of some democrat, some aspirant to supreme power, who resolves to maintain it, exercising a domination too hazardous for legitimacy. I will only scrape from the chambers the effervescence of superficial ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... of Sir David Beaton of Creich, Comptroller of Scotland, was his third wife, by whom he had his son James, second Earl of Arran; but who being born during the life of his father's divorced wife, his legitimacy depended on the validity of his divorce. Had he, in such a case, been set aside, Matthew Earl of Lennox would have ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... from Father Meinhard. The document itself he advised Berenger not to expose to the dangers of the French journey, but to leave it with him to be forwarded direct to Lord Walwyn. It was most important, both as obviating any dispute on the legitimacy of the child, if she lived; or, if not, it would establish those rights of Berenger to the Nid de Merle estates, of which he had heard from the King. This information explained what were the claims that the Chevalier was so anxious to hush up by a marriage with Madame de Selinville. Berenger, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that question," said Barbara. "It was brought hither by that false priest. His agent, Balthazar, has betrayed him. It was brought hither to prevent the discovery of Sir Luke Rookwood's legitimacy. He meant to make his own terms about it. It has come hither to proclaim his guilt—to be a fearful witness against him." Then, turning to Checkley, she added, "You have called Heaven to witness your innocence: you shall attest it by oath ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the calling of a free Parliament which should establish English freedom and religion on a secure basis. It promised toleration to Protestant Nonconformists and freedom of conscience to Catholics. It left the question of the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales and the settlement of the succession to Parliament. James was wounded above all by the doubts thrown on the birth of a Prince; and he produced proofs of the birth before the peers who were in London. But the proofs ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... from his fall, and returned to his duty; his malice towards me increased, and I had no peace or comfort in his presence. One day he threw a biscuit at my head, calling me at the same time a name which reflected on the legitimacy of my birth, in language the most coarse and vulgar. In a moment all the admonitions which I had received, and all my sufferings for impetuosity of temper, were forgotten; the blood boiled in my veins, and trickled from my wounded forehead. Dizzy, and almost sightless with rage, I seized ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Ion accepts the god's will but longs to know who is his mother. Seeing an unwonted dejection in him Xuthus learns the reason. Ion is afraid of the bar on his birth which will disqualify him from residence at Athens, where absolute legitimacy was essential; his life at Delphi was in sharp contrast, it was one of perfect content and eternal novelty. Xuthus tells him he will take him to Athens merely as a sightseer; he is afraid to anger his wife with his good fortune; in time he ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... legality; legitimacy, legitimateness. legislature; law, code, corpus juris[Lat], constitution, pandect[obs3], charter, enactment, statute, rule; canon &c. (precept) 697; ordinance, institution, regulation; bylaw, byelaw; decree &c. (order) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... only in the present crisis that the preference is given to Minerva. The power of continence must establish the legitimacy of freedom, the power of self-poise the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... is to the informed an almost uninterrupted chronique scandaleuse, and not infrequently has it been stained with crimes of blackest dye. In sight of these facts, it certainly is imperative upon the sycophantic painters of history, not only to leave untouched the question of the "legitimacy" of the several successive "fathers and mothers of their country," but also to take pains to represent them as patterns of all virtues, as faithful husbands and good mothers. Not yet has the breed of the augurs died out; they still live, as did their Roman prototypes, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... Somerset, 'I very much doubt the legitimacy of inheritance. The State, in my view, should collar it. I am now going through a stage of socialism and poetry,' he added apologetically, as one who spoke of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... hindered not the people from being agitated with great anxiety concerning the state of religion; and as the bulk of the nation inclined to the Protestant communion, the apprehensions entertained concerning the principles and prejudices of the new queen were pretty general. The legitimacy of Mary's birth had appeared to be somewhat connected with the papal authority; and that princess being educated with her mother, had imbibed the strongest attachment to the Catholic communion, and the highest aversion to those new tenets, whence, she believed, all the misfortunes ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... that, everything embarrassing fell away after he had been present five minutes: it was in fact wonderful that their excellent, their pleasant, their permitted and proper and harmless American relation—the legitimacy of which he could thus scarce express in names enough—should seem so unperturbed by other matters. They had both since then had great adventures—such an adventure for him was his mental annexation of her country; and it was now, for the moment, as if the greatest of them all ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... Urban. Soon, however, she reverted to her former position. It is probable that for her, as for many European sovereigns, the matter was decided by considerations with which the naif question of the legitimacy of a papal election had little ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... would leave us a minute's peace till the matter was cleared up? Or take it the other way. Comfort yourself, if you will, with the idea that this affair will trouble nobody in the present. How are we to know it may not turn up in the future under circumstances which may place the legitimacy of your children in doubt? We have a man to deal with who sticks at nothing. We have a state of the law which can only be described as one scandalous uncertainty from beginning to end. And we have two people (Bishopriggs and Mrs. Inchbare) who can, and will, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... precise limit for the legitimacy of the child. In France a child is regarded as lawfully begotten if born within three hundred days after the death or departure of the husband. There are a sufficient number of cases on record to show that gestation may be ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... to rouse against it the jealous apprehensions of the princes. He therefore said, "You wish for constitutions; guard against them. In France, desire for a constitution produced a revolution, and the same will happen to you." He it was who gave to the congress that catchword, legitimacy. The object of the past struggle was not the restoration of the liberties of the people but that of the ancient legitimate dynasties and their absolute sovereignty. The war had been directed, not ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... in the long run to endure the climate or to hold out against the guerrilla tactics of the natives. Shu Han tried to buy the assistance of the Tibetans and with their aid to carry out a decisive attack on Wei, whose dynastic legitimacy was not recognized by Shu Han. The ruler of Shu Han claimed to be a member of the imperial family of the deposed Han dynasty, and therefore to be the rightful, legitimate ruler over China. His descent, however, was a little doubtful, and in any case it depended on ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... "Daw.'' Like many another celebrity, as, for example, Walter Raleigh and Shakespeare, Sophie spelled her name variously, though ultimately she fixed on "Dawes.'' Richard, or Dickey, Daw was a fisherman for appearance sake and a smuggler for preference. The question of Sophie's legitimacy anses from the fact that her mother, Jane Callaway, was registered at death as "a spinster.'' Sophie was one of ten children. Dickey Daw drank his family into the poorhouse, an institution which sent Sophie to fend for ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... 1991 splintered the USSR into Russia and 14 other independent republics. Since then, Russia has shifted its post-Soviet democratic ambitions in favor of a centralized semi-authoritarian state whose legitimacy is buttressed, in part, by carefully managed national elections, former President PUTIN's genuine popularity, and the prudent management of Russia's windfall energy wealth. Russia has severely disabled a Chechen rebel movement, although ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... could not have spoken differently. He knew, and soundly knew, not only that the city was doomed and that her rulers who persisted in defending her were senseless, if gallant, fanatics, but also that they had forfeited their technical legitimacy. To talk to-day of duty, civil or military, to such a perjured Government does not even deserve to be called constitutional pedantry, for it has not a splinter of constitutionalism to support it. Sedekiah held his vassal throne only by ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... Congress of Verona, in November, 1822, Austria, France, Russia, and Prussia signed a revision of the treaty of the Holy Alliance, [Footnote: Snow, Treaties and Topics; Seignobos, Pol. Hist. of Europe since 1814, 762.] which had for its objects the promotion of the doctrine of legitimacy in support of the divine right of rulers, and the doctrine of intervention, for the purpose of restoring to their thrones those monarchs who had been deposed by popular uprisings, and of rehabilitating those who had been limited by written constitutions. At Verona, the allies ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the Union side. But I remember him less on account of anything he said relating to the struggle in America, than for a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most dangerous enemies. Dr. Carpenter told me that some time previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose published conversations with various men of importance throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... not wait to be asked, nor did he leave his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire, and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion, for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion or rancor if they contested places ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... third- rate problems, but there seems to be no doubt that it began on May 21st, 1688, in Lombard Street, in the city of London. But this event over, mystery steps in with the question, What was his father? The occupation of the elder Pope occasioned nearly as fierce a controversy as the poetical legitimacy of the younger. Malice has even hinted that old Pope was a hatter. The poet, of course, knew, but wouldn't tell, being always more ready, as Johnson observes, to say what his father was not than what he was. He denied ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... I, on the occasion of our ride with the apple-farmer, awhile back, had held subtle casuistical debate on the legitimacy of men ostensibly, not to say ostentatiously, on foot to New York picking up chance rides in this way. The argument had gone into pursuit of very fine distinctions, and almost rivalled in its casuistry the ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... been mere deviations from her own arbitrary standards, and not violations of the eternal laws of truth and right. Nevertheless, however imperfect her practice, all her great teachers from Athanasius to Aquinas, and from Aquinas to the present day, have rightly recognized the legitimacy of the employment of force for moral purposes in the last resort, have admitted the compatibility of Christianity with military service, and have confessed that, evil as war is, there are evils still greater, and that the duty of every Christian man may be ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

... The old Orleanist Ministers Guizot, Duchatel, etc., who likewise hastened to Claremont, to advocate the fusion, represented in fact only the nervous reaction of the July monarchy; despair, both in the citizen kingdom and the kingdom of citizens; the superstitious belief in legitimacy as the last amulet against anarchy. Mediators, in their imagination, between Orleans and Bourbon, they were in reality but apostate Orleanists, and as such were they received by the Prince of Joinville. The virile, bellicose ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... without breaking them! Disciples of Mercury, I salute you, whatever be your sex; to your discretion, to your persuasive arts are confided our dearest interests, the peace of mind of husbands, the happiness of lovers, the reputation of women, the legitimacy of children. Without you, this desolated earth would prove to be, in reality, a vale of tears; the young and beautiful wife united to decrepit husband, would languish and grow weak, like the lonely flower which the sun's rays never touch. Thus did Mexence bind ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... which many of them possess may be regarded by extreme precisians as of doubtful legitimacy as far as comment here is concerned: but this may be ruled out as a superfluous scruple. It is the illumination of the text "by the author's own candles" as he himself says in a well-known Introduction: the actual "illustration" ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... his countenance taken, without the use of pencil or brush, by the mere agency of the sun's rays; and even after having verified the truth of this apparently incredible statement by actual experiment in his own person, he still seems to have entertained considerable misgivings as to the legitimacy of the process—"How it was effected was indeed incomprehensible! Here is an art, which, if it be not magic, it is difficult to conceive what ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower classes only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there came a sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes deserted the cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great democratic movement of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out, the nobility and the clergy were left alone to labour for the triumph of Henri V. For a long ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola



Words linked to "Legitimacy" :   legitimate, illegitimacy, lawfulness, real stuff, real McCoy, believability, credibility, real thing, credibleness



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