Prince Edmund (Blackadder)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Blackadder character | |
 |
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| Prince Edmund Plantagenet, Duke of Edinburgh | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation(s) | Duke of Edinburgh, Laird of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, Lord Warden of the Royal Privies |
| First appearance | The Foretelling |
| Last appearance | The Black Seal |
| Episode count | 6 |
| Played by | Rowan Atkinson |
Prince Edmund Plantagenet, Duke of Edinburgh (August/ September, 1461 - December, 1498) was a fictional character in the first series of the popular BBC sitcom The Black Adder.
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[edit] Birth
Edmund was born in 1461 to Gertrude of Flanders. Gertrude was married to Richard, Duke of York but was also having an affair with Donald McAngus, Third Duke of Argyll. Which of the two men was his father remains uncertain.
[edit] Episode List
(See individual pages for full details)
Richard III (played by Peter Cook) wins the Battle of Bosworth Field, but is killed by his incompetent grandnephew Prince Edmund, who also saves the leader of the enemy, Henry Tudor. Edmund's father, Richard IV (played by Brian Blessed) is proclaimed King.
With his father King Richard's imminent return from the Crusades, Dougal McAngus, the King's Supreme Commander, is awarded Edmund's Scottish land. In revenge, Edmund plots to kill him, until McAngus reveals letters that show the Queen had an affair with his father. Thinking that Harry is illegitimate, Edmund reveals this to the court, only to be humiliated when they reveal he is the illegitimate one.
The King, in order to more easily manipulate the huge wealth of the Church, makes Edmund Archbishop of Canterbury. Things go well for Edmund, at first ....... however, a group of knights, overkeen to advance in the royal favour, misinterpret a comment made by him, and so they set out to murder the Archbishop.
To improve international relations with Spain, the King decides to marry Edmund to the Spanish Infanta. Finding her grossly unattractive, Edmund tries to get out of the marriage -- firstly by pretending to be already married to a random peasant, then by pretending to be gay, and then by having Baldrick surreptitiously sleep with the lascivious Infanta so that she is not a virgin. All his schemes fail miserably and Edmund resigns to his fate. But at the last moment the political landscape shifts, and an alliance with Spain is no longer viable -- much to Edmund's relief. The King orders him to marry the prepubescent Princess Leia of Hungary instead, and in the closing scene Edmund is reading his new bride a bedtime story.
With Black Death sweeping across England, the country is in turmoil, and the King becomes temporarily possessed. The Lords blame witchcraft, so the Witchsmeller Pursuivant (played by Frank Finlay) is summoned to identify the culprit, who immediately decides that Edmund is responsible. With this, he put's him on trial and of course, find's him guilty. Edmund is set to be burnt at the stake, but is saved by his mother, the Queen, the actual witch.
January 29, 1498, Saint Juniper's Day, the day the King of England bestows honours to his kinfolk. When Edmund is reduced by his father, King Richard, to the sole dignity of Lord Warden of the Royal Privies, all his other titles being transferred to his brother Harry. He is outraged and plots to seize the throne. He rounds up the most evil men in England, but on his way back, he is stopped by his arch nemesis and childhood rival, Phillip of Burgundy - known to his enemies as The Hawk (played by Patrick Allen). He is imprisoned, tortured horribly by a machine developed by the Hawk specifically for the purpose, which is unnecessarily complicated and designed to grind various parts of Edmund (including his beloved codlings) into mince.
Baldrick and Percy poison the conspirators with drugged wine, but are too late to stop the machine. Edmund survives long enough to be comforted by his family, and the King finally manages to remember his name. However, they toast the dying Edmund with poisoned wine left behind by the very stupid Baldrick and Percy, causing them to all die, making Edmund, astonishingly, King. However he soon expires himself (according to one of the closing credits songs for Blackadder II; after 30 seconds), his last words are: "I wonder if it was the wine. And now I shall be King of E--".
[edit] Theme-song Lyrics
The sound of hoofbeats cross the glade
Good folk, lock up your son and daughter
Beware the deadly flashing blade
Unless you want to end up shorter
Black Adder! Black Adder!
He rides a pitch-black steed
Black Adder! Black Adder!
He's very bad indeed
Black: His gloves of finest mole
Black: His codpiece made of metal
His horse is blacker than a vole
His pot is blacker than his kettle
Black Adder! Black Adder!
With many a cunning plan
Black Adder! Black Adder!
You horrid little man
[edit] Character
Described by his father as 'an embarrassing little weed', this Black Adder is somewhat different from later incarnations, being largely unintelligent, and relying more on the plans of Baldrick. The character does evolve through the series, however, and he begins showing signs of what his descendants will be like by the final episode, where he begins insulting everyone around him. He was largely ignored by his father, who, on the few occasions he did recognise his son, called him by the wrong name- anything from "Edna" to "Osmund".
[edit] Legacy
The book Blackadder : The Whole Damn Dynasty chronicled that following the death of the entire Royal Family, Henry Tudor usurped the throne and re-wrote history to eliminate the reign of Richard IV and, therefore, Edmund.
Henry, a Lancastrian claimant, was married to Elizabeth of York, an older paternal aunt of Edmund. Henry was the founder of the Tudor dynasty.
Whether Edmund had descendants through his wife Leia of Hungary is uncertain. As Leia was only 14 when Edmund died, any child born to them would have been no more than an infant, and Henry would probably have had such a child killed or imprisoned as he or she would have been a dangerous rival for the throne. Edmund did have illegitimate descendants who adopted the surname "Blackadder" and were given lordship status. He had at least three grandsons: one named Osric was kidnapped and his ransom not paid, another named Nathaniel married a fanatical Puritan and took the name Whiteadder, and another one reportedly blew the family fortune "on wine, women and amateur dramatics" - at the end he was eking out a living doing humorous impressions of Anne of Cleves'. His great-grandson (the unnamed grandson's son) Edmund, Lord Blackadder served as a courtier of Elizabeth I of England, last member of the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth was affectionately known as Queenie to Lord Blackadder.
Other characters also seem to have left their descendants, not to mention Percy and Baldrick. For example, Friar Bellows' comment in the last episode concerning "Canon Jack Smollet...the entrail-eating heretic of Bath and Wells", could be seen as a precursor to the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells, who appears in the second series demanding a loan repayment from Lord Blackadder. Also, in the third series we meet MacAdder, a member of a Scottish branch of the Blackadder family who is faintly reminiscent of Dougal McAngus, which could be taken as indicating that Donald McAngus may indeed have been Prince Edmund's true father and so ancestor of the whole Blackadder dynasty.
[edit] Titles and honours
- Lord Edmund Plantagenet
- The Duke of Edinburgh
- Lord Warden of the Royal Privies
- The Laird of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles
- Archbishop of Canterbury
| Blackadders | Other Characters | The Series | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
In chronological order
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The Black Adder
Blackadder II |
Blackadder the Third Blackadder Goes Forth |
In chronological order |
