“And don't tell me this isn't your war. You swore an oath to serve the King of Spain, and the king of Spain is a prisoner in France and you were supposed to be his guard. By God, this is your war far more than it's my war. I never swore an oath to protect Spain, I never had a woman raped by a Frenchman or a child murdered by a dragoon or a harvest stolen and a house burned by a Crapaud forage party. Your country has suffered all those things, and your country is Spain, and if you'd rather fight for Ireland than for Spain, then why in the name of Almighty God did you take the Spanish oath?”
Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 110
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)
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Bernard Cornwell 175
British writer 1944Related quotes

Captain Fernando Galiana and Captain Richard Sharpe, p. 202
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Fury (2006)

“He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.”
The Dutch Picture, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 1 (the opening paragraph of the book)

Denouncing the Spanish Convention of Pardo in the House of Commons (6 March 1739), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 6-7.

Proletariatis Brdzola August 1905, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 376
Contemporary witnesses

Walter Scott (ed.), A Collection of scarce and valuable tracts: Vol. II (London: 1809), p. 169.

“Tell him your country fought a war so you wouldn't have to answer to kings and queens."”
Henry, Gregor, and Ripred, p. 217
The Underland Chronicles, Gregor the Overlander (2003)
Context: "Luxa and I do not serve food, we are royalty." "Yeah, well, I'm the warrior and Boots is a princess. And you two are going to get pretty hungry if you're waiting for me to serve you." "Tell him, boy. Tell him your country fought a war so you wouldn't have to answer to kings and queens."
Strongman Medicine: Suspicious Numbers and Brutal Quarantines (April 02, 2020)