The Black Arrow
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| Author | Robert Louis Stevenson |
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| Country | Scottish |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical Adventure novel and a Romance. |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons (USA) & Cassell (UK) |
| Released | 1888 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 344 (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7661-9477-9 (paperback edition) |
The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses is an 1888 novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, which can be classed genre-wise as an historical adventure novel and a romance. It first appeared as a serial, 1883-1884, beginning in Young Folks; A Boys' and Girls' Paper of Instructive and Entertaining Literature, vol. XXII, no. 656 (Saturday, June 30, 1883)—Stevenson finished writing it by the end of that summer of 1883. Stevenson alludes to the time gap between the serialization and the publication as one volume in 1888 in his preface "Critic [parodying Dickens's "Cricket"] on the Hearth": "The tale was written years ago for a particular audience ...."
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[edit] Plot introduction
The Black Arrow tells the story of Richard (Dick) Shelton during the Wars of the Roses: how he becomes a knight, rescues his lady Joanna Sedley, and obtains justice for the murder of his father, Sir Harry Shelton. Outlaws in Tunstall Forest organized by Ellis Duckworth, whose weapon and calling card is a black arrow, cause Dick to suspect that his guardian Sir Daniel Brackley and his retainers are responsible for his father's murder. Dick's suspicions are enough to turn Sir Daniel against him, so he has no recourse but to escape from Sir Daniel and join the outlaws of the Black Arrow against him. This struggle sweeps him up into the greater conflict surrounding them all. The story of the Wars of the Roses is told in miniature by The Black Arrow.
[edit] Plot Summary
In the reign of "old King Henry VI." (1422-1461, 1470-1471) and during the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) the story begins with the Tunstall Moat House alarm bell being rung to begin mustering troops for its absent lord Sir Daniel Brackley, who intends to join the Battle of Risingham. It is then that the "fellowship" known as "The Black Arrow" headquartered in Tunstall Forest begins to strike with its "four black arrows" for the "four black hearts" of Brackley and three of his retainers: Nicholas Appleyard; Bennet Hatch; and Sir Oliver Oates, the parson. The rhyme that is posted in connection with this attack gets the protagonist Richard (Dick) Shelton, ward of Sir Daniel, to become curious about the fate of his father Sir Harry Shelton. Having been dispatched to Kettley, where Sir Daniel was quartered, and sent to Tunstall Moat House by return dispatch, he also falls in with a fugitive from Sir Daniel, disguised as a boy, alias John Matcham, who in reality is Joanna Sedley, an heiress, kidnapped by Sir Daniel. Coincidentally Sir Daniel was intending to marry Joanna to Dick himself; and, in her male disguise, Joanna brings up the matter to Dick affording her the opportunity of feeling him out on the subject. Dick says he is not interested, but he does ask her if his intended bride is good-looking and of pleasant disposition.
While making their way through Tunstall Forest that covers the better part of Book 1 Joanna tries to persuade Dick to turn against Sir Daniel in sympathy with the Black Arrow outlaws, whose hideout they discover. The next day they are met in the forest by Sir Daniel himself disguised as a leper and making his way back to the Moat House after his side was defeated at the Battle of Risingham. Dick and Joan then follow Sir Daniel to the Moat House. Here Dick changes sides when he finds out that Sir Daniel is the real murderer of his father, and escapes injured from the Moat House. He is rescued by the outlaws of the Black Arrow with whom he throws in his lot for the rest of the story.
The second half of the novel, Books 3-5, tells how Dick rescues his true love Joanna from the clutches of Sir Daniel with the help of both the Black Arrow fellowship and the Yorkist army led by Richard Crookback, the future Richard III of England.
The second half of the narrative centers around Shoreby, where the Lancastrian forces are well entrenched. Robert Louis Stevenson inserts seafaring adventure in chapters 4-6 of Book 3 as Dick and the outlaws steal a ship and attempt a seaside rescue of Joanna, who is being kept in a house by the sea. They are unsuccessful, and after Joanna is moved to Sir Daniel's main quarters in Shoreby, Dick then visits her in the guise of a Franciscan friar, which was a common disguise during the Wars of the Roses. Stevenson, the popularizer of the tales of the Arabian nights, has Dick tell the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves in Book 4, chapter 6 to help him escape from the ruined sea captain Arblaster, whose ship Dick and the outlaws had stolen.
Richard Crookback, Duke of Gloucester, makes his appearance in Book 5, with whom Dick keeps his rendezvous. Dick's accurate knowledge of the Lancastrian forces in Shoreby aid Crookback in winning the battle. Dick is also fortunate as a successful commander in this battle. A delighted Crookback accordingly knights Dick, and after the battle gives him 50 horsemen to pursue Sir Daniel, who has escaped Shoreby with Joanna. Dick succeeds in rescuing Joanna, but loses his men in the process. He, Joanna, and Alicia Risingham travel to Holywood where he and Joanna are finally married. In this way he keeps his initial pledge to Joanna to see her safe to Holywood.
Just before the wedding on the outskirts of Holywood Dick encounters a fugitive Sir Daniel, whom he keeps from entering the city and spoiling his wedding. While Sir Daniel slinks away he is shot by the final black arrow from the bow of Ellis Duckworth, who tells Dick, "But be at rest; the Black Arrow flieth nevermore - the fellowship is broken."
Sir Richard and Lady Shelton live in Tunstall Moat House untroubled by the rest of the Wars of the Roses, and the outlaw Lawless lives out his days as he wanted: a Franciscan friar.
[edit] Characters in "The Black Arrow"
- Richard Shelton – son of the late Sir Harry Shelton, heir of Tunstall. (the protagonist).
- Clipsby – a Tunstall peasant.
- Bennet Hatch – a middle aged retainer of Sir Daniel Brackley, and bailiff of the Tunstall hundred.
- Nicholas Appleyard – a septuagenarian veteran of the Battle of Agincourt (1415).
- Sir Oliver Oates – the local Tunstall parson and Sir Daniel's clerk.
- Sir Daniel Brackley – a self-serving, unscrupulous knight, who sides with either York or Lancaster when it suits him. His vacillating character resembles that of the historic Earl Thomas Stanley and his brother Sir William Stanley in the Wars of the Roses. The ending of the sir names is the same: "-ley." (the antagonist).
- The Walsinghams– Stevenson's renaming of the Woodvilles of the Wars of the Roses. They do not play a part in the narrative of The Black Arrow, but it is intimated that in the recent past they had excercised lordship and received rents in Tunstall and Kettley. They are described as "poor as thieves." The Woodville family during the Wars of the Roses was poor in being composed largely of commoners, enobled by marriage under Edward IV of England.
- Joanna Sedley – also known as John Matcham, the ward of the Lord Foxham but kidnapped by Sir Daniel. (the heroine).
- Will Lawless – a "Friar Tuck" type of outlaw, member of the Black Arrow Fellowship, who has been many things in life, including a Franciscan friar.
- Ellis Duckworth – organiser of the Black Arrow Fellowship to avenge Harry Shelton, Simon Malmesbury, and himself. He was rumored to be an agent of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
- John Capper – a Black Arrow outlaw
- Goody Hatch – wife of Bennet Hatch
- Lord Foxham– a local Yorkist magnate
- Hawksley – Lord Foxham's retainer
- Earl Risingham – a local Lancastrian magnate
- Alicia Risingham – niece of Earl Risingham and friend, confidant, and companion of Joanna Sedley. She coquettishly poses herself for romantic consideration by Dick Shelton, who graciously declines in favor of his true love Joanna.
- Lord Shoreby – a local Lancastrian magnate
- Captain Arblaster – the owner of the ship The Good Hope, stolen by Shelton and the Black Arrow Fellowship
- Tom – Captain Arblaster's first mate
- Richard Crookback – Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, future Richard III of England (a real historical person)
- Sir William Catesby – Richard Crookback's retainer (a real historical person).
[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
From the information given in the novel two time references for the two blocks of action that constitute the narrative can be pinpointed: May, 1460 and January, 1461. The important time indicator is the Battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460 mentioned at the beginning of Book 3, Chapter 1:
Months had passed away since Richard Shelton made his escape from the hands of his guardian. These months had been eventful for England. The party of Lancaster, which was then in the very article of death, had once more raised its head. The Yorkists defeated and dispersed, their leader butchered on the field, it seemed, - for a very brief season in the winter following upon the events already recorded, as if the House of Lancaster had finally triumphed over its foes.
It is because Richard Crookback, Richard III of England, is presented as an adult active in the Wars of the Roses in January, 1461 that Stevenson points out in a footnote in Book 3, Chapter 6: "At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have been created Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the reader's leave, he shall so be called." Richard was born in 1452, so he would have been merely 8 years old at the time of this story. A footnote in Book 5, Chapter 1 reads: "Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date [i.e. January, 1461]." Stevenson follows William Shakespeare in retrojecting Richard of Gloucester into an earlier period of the Wars of the Roses and portraying him as a dour hunchback—Stevenson: "the formidable hunchback" (Book 5, Chapter 2). (See Henry VI, part 2; Henry VI, part 3; and Richard III (play).) This characterization closely follows the Tudor Myth, a tradition that overly vilified Richard of Gloucester and cast the entire English Fifteenth Century as a bloody, barbaric chaos in contrast to the Tudor era of law and order.
Curiously, the 1948 film portrays Richard Gloucester in a more favorable light than in the novel, somewhat anticipating the work of Paul Murray Kendall to rehabilitate him (Kendall, Richard III, 1956). When Gloucester is told he is "more than kind," he replies jokingly that such rumors would ruin his [bad] "reputation": the revision of the Tudor myth?
The Battle of Shoreby, a fictitious battle that is the main event of Book 5, is modeled after the First Battle of St Albans in the Wars of the Roses. This battle in history as in the novel is a victory for the House of York. The presence of an abbey church in Shoreby is reminiscient of the abbey church of Tewkesbury to which the Lancastrians fled for sanctuary after the battle on May 4, 1471.
Robert Louis Stevenson indicates that Tunstall of The Black Arrow is a real place by writing in the Prologue: John Amend-All: "Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old King Henry VI., wore much the same appearance as it wears today." In south-east Suffolk, England, 18 miles NE of Ipswich, less than 10 miles from the North Sea a "Tunstall" is located with an accompanying forest. The similarity of place-names near this Tunstall to place-names in the novel also suggest that this is Stevenson's Tunstall: Kettley is Kettleburgh in actuality, Risingham is Framlingham, and Foxham is Farnham, Suffolk. The identities of Shoreby-on-the-Till and Holywood are probably Orford and Leiston respectively. Orford is on the North Sea and has a road going to the northwest to Framlingham (the "highroad from Risingham to Shoreby"), and Leiston is also on the North Sea with a medieval abbey like Holywood of the novel. The River Till, which figures largely in Book 1 of the novel, would then be the River Deben in actuality. The River Deben flows near Kettleburgh.
The name of the main character Richard Shelton and his inheritance, Tunstall, were the name and title of an actual historical personage, Sir Richard Tunstall. He, as a Lancastrian and ardent supporter of King Henry VI of England, held Harlech Castle against the Yorkists through most of the 1460s when Edward IV of England ruled. In contrast, Richard Shelton, who becomes the knight of Tunstall at the end of The Black Arrow, is a staunch Yorkist.
Two other anachronisms of Stevenson are in having Sir Oliver and others speak of "Simnel" and "the Walsinghams" as the ones behind the Black Arrow fellowship in the narrative. Lambert Simnel is the focus of rebellion in Henry VII's reign (1485-1509), and "the Walsinghams," Stevenson's renaming of the Woodvilles, would have played a part only after May, 1464, when Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The Black Arrow has been adapted for film and television several times, including a 1911 film short starring Charles Ogle, a 1948 film starring Louis Hayward, a 1984 film starring Oliver Reed and Benedict Taylor, a Russian film Chyornaya strela 1985, a 1951 two-part British TV serial starring Denis Quilley, a 1968 seven-part Italian TV production entitled La freccia nera, and a British TV series running from 1972-1975 starring successively Robin Langford and Simon Cuff as Richard Shelton during its run.
[edit] Trivia
Stevenson did not like his Black Arrow, referring to it as "tushery" with reference to his use of archaic English dialogue. For the planned fourteen-volume Edinburgh edition of his works, Stevenson indicated that he did not want to write an introduction to The Black Arrow—his wife Fanny, however, did so for the 1905 Biographical Edition of his works. The Black Arrow is in good company as Stevenson also did not like his The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (see below: links to the two volumes of his correspondence). The Black Arrow consists of 79,658 words, so it can be classified a novel rather than a novella, novelette, short story, or flash fiction.
- The Black Arrow is also the title of a 2005 novel by Vin Suprynowicz.
[edit] Release details
- 1888, USA, Charles Scribner's Sons ?, Pub date ? ? 1888, Hardback first edition
- 1888, UK, Cassell ?, Pub date ? ? 1888, Hardback
- 2005, USA, Kessinger Publishing ISBN 0-7661-9477-9 , Pub date 30 April 2005, paperback
[edit] Sources, references, external links, quotations
- Wikisource text of The Black Arrow.
- Project Gutenberg etext of The Black Arrow at Project Gutenberg
- Typeset PDF ebook of The Black Arrow and other Stevenson books, optimized for printing.
- Project Gutenberg etext of volume one of Robert Louis Stevenson's correspondence in which he speaks of The Black Arrow as "tushery" at Project Gutenberg
- Project Gutenberg etext of volume two of Robert Louis Stevenson's correspondence in which he discusses The Black Arrow at Project Gutenberg
