The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses

The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses
Author Robert Louis Stevenson
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Historical, Adventure, Romance novel
Publisher Charles Scribner's Sons (US) & Cassell (UK)
Publication date
 1888

The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses is an 1888 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is both an historical adventure novel and a romance novel. It first appeared as a serial in 1883 with the subtitle "A Tale of Tunstall Forest" beginning in Young Folks; A Boys' and Girls' Paper of Instructive and Entertaining Literature, vol. XXII, no. 656 (Saturday, June 30, 1883)[1] and ending in the issue for Saturday, October 20, 1883[2]—Stevenson had finished writing it by the end of summer.[3] It was printed under the pseudonym Captain George North.[4] He 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…"[5] The Paston Letters were Stevenson's main literary source for The Black Arrow.[6]

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.

A crucial moment in the novel when Sir Oliver, Sir Daniel, and Dick Shelton are surprised by a black arrow in the Moat House refectory hall

Plot summary

The novel is set 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, rung to summon recruits for its absent lord Sir Daniel Brackley, to join the Battle of Risingham; at which the outlaw "fellowship" known as "the Black Arrow" 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 posted in explanation of this attack, makes the protagonist Richard ('Dick') Shelton, ward of Sir Daniel, curious about the death 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 falls in with a fugitive, Joanna Sedley, disguised as a boy with the alias of John Matcham: an heiress kidnapped by Sir Daniel to obtain guardianship over her and to retain his control over Richard by marrying her to him.

As they travel through Tunstall Forest, Joanna tries to persuade Dick to turn against Sir Daniel in sympathy with the Black Arrow outlaws, whose camp they discover near the ruins of Grimstone manor. The next day they are met in the forest by Sir Daniel himself, disguised as a leper and returning to the Moat House after his side was defeated at Risingham. Dick and Joanna then follow Sir Daniel to the Moat House. Here Dick confirms that Sir Daniel is the murderer of his father, and escapes injured from the Moat House. He is rescued by the outlaws of the Black Arrow.

Cover of the first Scribner Brothers' American edition of 1888

The second half of the novel, Books 3-5, tells how Dick rescues Joanna from 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. It centers on Shoreby, where the Lancastrian forces are entrenched. Robert Louis Stevenson inserts seafaring adventure in chapters 4-6 of Book 3, wherein Dick and the outlaws steal a ship and attempt a seaside rescue of Joanna. They are unsuccessful, and after Joanna is moved to Sir Daniel's main quarters in Shoreby, Dick visits her in the guise of a Franciscan friar 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.

While shadowing Sir Daniel, Dick and the outlaws encounter another group of spies interested in Joanna. After a skirmish in which the outlaws prevail, Dick finds that he has conquered Joanna's lawful guardian, Lord Foxham, who promises to give Joanna to Dick in marriage after contemplated seaside rescue. There is irony in Foxham scolding Dick, who is nobly born, for consorting with outlaws when the outlaws are recruited in Dick and Foxham's plans to rescue Joanna. Wounded in the failed seaside rescue, Foxham writes letters of recommendation for Dick to Richard Crookback, whom Dick must find on the outskirts of Shoreby.

Richard Crookback, Duke of Gloucester, makes his appearance in Book 5. As Dick is leaving Shoreby he sees Crookback holding his own against seven or eight Lancastrian assailants, and assists his victory. Dick's accurate knowledge of the Lancastrian forces in Shoreby aid Crookback in winning the battle that he wages later that day. Dick is also successful as one of Crookback's commanders. Crookback knights Dick on the field of battle and, following their victory, gives him fifty 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 married. In this way he keeps his initial pledge to Joanna to convey her safely to Holywood.

In the early morning of his wedding day Dick encounters a fugitive Sir Daniel trying to enter Holywood seaport to escape to France or Burgundy. Because it is his wedding day, Dick does not want to soil his hands with Sir Daniel's blood, so he simply bars his way by challenging him either to hand-to-hand combat or alerting a Yorkist perimeter patrol. Sir Daniel retreats, but is shot by Ellis Duckworth (the outlaws' captain) with the last black arrow. Thereafter Sir Richard and Lady Shelton live in Tunstall Moat House untroubled by the rest of the Wars of the Roses. They provide for both Captain Arblaster and the outlaw Will Lawless by pensioning them and settling them in Tunstall hamlet, where Lawless does a volte face by returning to the Franciscan order, taking the name, Brother Honestus.

Title page of the first edition of 1888, US edition a few weeks before the UK edition

Characters

Chronology and geography

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[26] and January, 1461.[27] The important time indicator is the Battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460, which Stevenson describes in the first chapter of Book 3:

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.[28]

It is because Richard Crookback (later Richard III of England) is presented as an adult active in the Wars of the Roses in January, 1461 that Stevenson provides the footnote: "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."[29] Richard was born in 1452, so he would have been merely 8 years old at the time of this story. A later footnote emphasizes this again: "Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date [i.e. January, 1461]."[30] 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."[31] (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 The Black Arrow portrays Richard of Gloucester in a more favourable light than in the novel, somewhat anticipating the work of Paul Murray Kendall to rehabilitate him (Kendall, Richard III, 1956). When Richard is told he is "more than kind," he replies jokingly that such rumors would ruin his [bad] "reputation": the revision of the Tudor myth?

Stevenson liked his characterization of Richard Crookback, and expressed his desire to write about him again. Stevenson alludes both to his novel The Black Arrow and Richard Crookback with the phrase "the Sable Missile" in a letter he wrote Sidney Colvin in the month the final installment of The Black Arrow appeared in Young Folks (October, 1883):

Your remarks on The Black Arrow are to the point. I am pleased you liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose hellish energy has always fired my attention. I wish Shakespeare had written the play after he had learned some of the rudiments of literature and art rather than before. Some day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile, and shoot it, moyennant finances [tr: "for a [financial] consideration"] , once more into the air; I can lighten it of much, and devote some more attention to Dick o' Gloucester. It's great sport to write tushery.[32]

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.[33] This battle in history as in the novel was a victory for the House of York. The presence of an abbey church in Shoreby is reminiscent of the abbey church of Tewkesbury to which the Lancastrians fled for sanctuary after the battle on May 4, 1471.

In the "prologue" Stevenson intimates that the Tunstall of The Black Arrow is a real place: "Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old King Henry VI., wore much the same appearance as it wears today."[34] 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. Stevenson and his family had visited Suffolk in 1873.[35] The similarity of place-names near this Tunstall, Suffolk to place-names in the novel also suggest that this is Stevenson's Tunstall: Kettley, Risingham and Foxham are probably Kettleburgh, Framlingham and Farnham in actuality. The identities of Shoreby-on-the-Till and Holywood are probably Orford and Leiston respectively.[36] Orford is on the North Sea and is joined to Framlingham by a road going to the northwest (the "highroad from Risingham to Shoreby"),[37] 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 from 1465-1468 during the first part of Edward IV's reign. In contrast, Richard Shelton, who becomes the knight of Tunstall at the end of The Black Arrow, is a staunch Yorkist.

Two other anachronisms in the novel are Sir Oliver and others speaking of "Simnel" and "the Walsinghams" as suspected organizers of the Black Arrow fellowship. Lambert Simnel was 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.

The Black Arrow consists of 79,926 words, so it can be classified a novel rather than a novella, novelette, short story, or flash fiction.

Criticism

Stevenson himself was the first critic of his Black Arrow, referring to it as "tushery" with reference to his use of archaic English dialogue. In a May, 1883 letter to H.E. Henley Stevenson wrote:

The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring, and am headachy. So, as my good Red Lion Counter begged me for another Butcher's Boy-I turned me to-what thinkest 'ou?-to Tushery, by the mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. The Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest is his name: tush! a poor thing![32]

His wife Fanny was anonymously acknowledged in the "fly-leaf" as the "critic on the hearth"[38]—this offers an explanation for this critic and the author having "joint lives" and being on the "hearth," emblematic of home. 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 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Praise for The Black Arrow is rare among literary critics over its 125-year history, though the novelist John Galsworthy wrote that it was "a livelier picture of medieval times than I remember elsewhere in fiction."[39] The reason for this stems from Stevenson's own dislike of The Black Arrow coupled with a misunderstanding of his attitude toward what he called "tushery."[40]

Annotated edition

On December 18, 2007 Penguin Books issued an historic first annotated edition of The Black Arrow with the introduction and notes by Professor John A. Sutherland, Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and visiting professor of literature at the California Institute of Technology.[41] Professor Sutherland makes mention of this Wikipedia article in this edition.[42] The book cover depicts two fifteenth century warriors battling with red and white roses for the two houses of Lancaster and York respectively. It can be noted that the white rose of the cover is larger than the red rose denoting the ascendancy of the House of York at the conclusion of the narrative. The illustration provides a symbolic representation of the title of the novel.[43]

Film, TV, animated, or theatrical adaptations

The Black Arrow (1911)
Directed by Oscar Apfel
Written by Adapted by Charles M. Seay
Starring Charles Ogle
Nathalie Jerome
Release date
  • November 10, 1911 (1911-11-10)
Country United States
Language Silent film
English intertitles

The Black Arrow has been adapted for film and television several times, often very loosely. Adaptations include a 1911 film short starring Charles Ogle, a 1948 film starring Louis Hayward, a 1985 film starring Oliver Reed and Benedict Taylor, a Soviet 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, a British TV series running from 1972-1975 starring successively Robin Langford and Simon Cuff as Richard Shelton during its run, and a 1988 animated adaptation by Burbank Films Australia. The Robert Louis Stevenson website maintains a complete list of derivative works.[44]

Editions

Comic book version

In October, 1946 The Gilberton Company of New York published their Classics Illustrated comic book version of The Black Arrow as "No. 31."[45]

In 1964, Editorial Sea/Novaro (Mexico) published a comic adaptation in Tesoro De Cuentes Clasicos #89, "La Flecha Negra".[46]

Original manuscript

Half of Stevenson's original manuscripts are lost, including those of Treasure Island, The Black Arrow and The Master of Ballantrae. Stevenson's heirs sold Stevenson's papers during World War I; many Stevenson documents were auctioned off in 1918.[47]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ clip of the first installment of The Black Arrow
  2. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Curtis Bigelow and Temple Scott, eds., 10 vols. (Philadelphia: John D. Morris and Company, 1906), 3:xi: "EDITORIAL NOTE Under the title of The Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest, by Captain George North, this story ran serially in Young Folks from June 30 to October 20, 1883." Cf. also Colonel W.F. Prideaux, C.S.I., A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, (London: Frank Hollings, 1903), 61.
  3. ↑ "With the end of the summer came the last chapter of The Black Arrow and our return to Hyères, where my husband took up other more exciting work" {Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, Biographical Edition with a preface by Mrs. Stevenson, (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1905), xii}.
  4. ↑ description of the clip of the first installment of The Black Arrow
  5. ↑ Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, Biographical Edition with a preface by Mrs. Stevenson, (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1905), xvii.
  6. ↑ Ruth Marie Faurot, "From Records to Romance: Stevenson's The Black Arrow and The Paston Letters," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 5 (Autumn 1965) 4:677.
  7. 1 2 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 10.
  8. 1 2 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 11.
  9. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 11-12.
  10. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 16.
  11. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 30, 34, 37, 104-05.
  12. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 27.
  13. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 29.
  14. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 31.
  15. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 10, 17, 28, 257, 258.
  16. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 28.
  17. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 168.
  18. ↑ Paul Maixner, Robert Louis Stevenson: The Critical Heritage, (Routledge, 1995), 321.
  19. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 113.
  20. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 52.
  21. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 253.
  22. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 54.
  23. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 32.
  24. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 136.
  25. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 236.
  26. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 35: "It was near six in the May morning when Dick began to ride down into the fen upon his homeward way" [emphasis added].
  27. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 119: "It was a black, bitter cold evening in the first week of January, with a hard frost, a high wind, and every likelihood of snow before the morning" [emphasis added].
  28. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 119, 262.
  29. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 151.
  30. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 207
  31. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 216.
  32. 1 2 Stevenson, Robert Louis (1 August 1996). "The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 1" – via Project Gutenberg.
  33. ↑ Ruth Marie Faurot, "From Records to Romance: Stevenson's The Black Arrow and The Paston Letters," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 5 (Autumn 1965) 4:686: "Actually, the battle which Stevenson describes is modeled closely on the account of the battle of St. Albans in May 1455, documented in The Paston Letters."
  34. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 9; emphasis added.
  35. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), xxvii.
  36. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), xxvii-xxviii.
  37. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 65.
  38. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), xlvii, xix-xx, 255; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Curtis Bigelow and Temple Scott, eds., 10 vols. (Philadelphia: John D. Morris and Company, 1906), 3:xi: "The work is dedicated to his wife, 'The Critic on the Hearth,' yet she never read the book. Mrs. Stevenson once said, ... 'I always make it a rule never to read a novel the scene of which is laid in a bygone age. I would never read The Black Arrow and Mr. Stevenson thought it such a good joke that he insisted upon dedicating it to me.'"
  39. ↑ Quoted in Edward Wagenknecht, Cavalcade of the English Novel (New York, 1943), 377; cf. Ruth Marie Faurot, "From Records to Romance: Stevenson's The Black Arrow and The Paston Letters," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 5 (Autumn 1965) 4:689
  40. ↑ Ruth Marie Faurot, "From Records to Romance: Stevenson's The Black Arrow and The Paston Letters," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 5 (Autumn 1965) 4:689-690.
  41. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), i-ii.
  42. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), xliii.
  43. ↑ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland, (London: Penguin Books, 2007), front cover.
  44. ↑ "Derivative Works - Robert Louis Stevenson".
  45. ↑ Classics Illustrated: The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, no. 31, (New York: The Gilberton Company, 1946).
  46. ↑ http://httwww.tebeosfera.com/numeros/tesoro_de_cuentos_clasicos_1957_sea_novaro_89.html
  47. ↑ "Bid to trace lost Robert Louis Stevenson manuscripts". BBC News. 9 July 2010.
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