The black arrow
The Black Arrow ( The black arrow: A tale of the two roses ) is a historical adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson .
Creation of the novel
The first printing took place as a multiple part in the magazine "Young Folks" from June 30, 1883 to October 20, 1883 under the pseudonym Captain George North.
action
The event settled Stevenson between May 1460 and January 1461 around the late medieval town of Tunstall, Suffolk , about 29 km northeast of Ipswich .
It is the time of the Wars of the Roses .
Richard "Dick" Shelton is an eighteen year old lad in the service of the knight Sir Daniel Brackley on Tunstall. The knight is also Shelton's guardian after his father Harry Shelton, a chivalrous neighbor of Brackley and former owner of Tunstall, was killed by Brackley and his entourage in order to take possession of both Harry Shelton's property and Shelton's son, Dick. The guardianship of Dick brought Brackley the revenue and control of Shelton's lands, thereby increasing his own power base. Dick Shelton, however, learned nothing of the murder for many years and grew up as a loyal follower of Sir Daniels.
As such, he accompanies the warrior and warrior Bennet Hatch to a veteran of the Battle of Agincourt , Nick Appleyard. The latter served as a longbow archer in King Henry V's expedition corps and, after his return home, as a mercenary of the knight Brackley and is now to defend the moated castle Tunstall as fortress commander, while the knight leads his troops in a military meeting on the side of the House of Lancaster against units of the House of York . During this conversation, Nick Appleyard is struck down by a black arrow that was explicitly addressed to him by an inscription on the arrow shaft and dies.
The arrow turns out to be the first threat from a secret brotherhood of outlaws and outlaws. This had gathered around a man who calls himself John the Avenger. In a letter of confession, John the Avenger blames the knight Brackley and some men from his entourage for the fire of the Grimstones, the murder of Harry Shelton and other crimes. At this point, Dick Shelton is confronted for the first time with the suspicion that the knight who raised and protected him from childhood could be responsible for the crime. Sir Daniel gathers his men in the inn at Kettley (meaning the actually existing Kettleburgh). In his entourage there is also a young man of about sixteen years of age and delicate appearance, who calls himself John Matcham and who later reveals himself as Miss Johanna Sedley. She is the orphaned ward of Lord Foxham, a partisan of the House of York, who had promised her early on to his relative Hamley for marriage. Sedley alias Matcham was kidnapped by Brackley, who in turn wants to marry off the winning game to his other ward Dick, but later to the evil Lord von Shoreby (meaning the coastal town of Orford). The girl, disguised as a youth, decides to flee to the nearby Holywood monastery (probably Leiston).
On the run, she is accompanied by the unsuspecting Junker Dick Shelton who still takes her for John Matcham. At the ruins of the Grimstone mansion, which, according to the letter of confession, had been burned down by Bennet Hatch, the two are secretly overhearing a gathering of the Forest Brotherhood of the Black Arrow around the outlaw Ellis Duckworth, who is again making serious allegations against Dick's employers, including his involvement in the murder of Harry Shelton.
Dick and John witness an ambush set by the forest people on seven sticks of Sir Daniel. The knight's men are completely worn out and killed. A short time later they meet the knight himself, who, coming from the battlefield, is trying to steal back to his moated castle Tunstall in the disguise of a leper. It becomes clear that the Lancaster party has catastrophically lost the armed conflict to which Sir Daniel was called and the people of York now rule the area. The defeat is presumably due to the very belated intervention of Sir Daniel, who already indicated in Kettley that he wanted to wait and see how the battle ended and then join the victor.
Through the explanations of Ellis Duckworth, who turns out to be the head of the Forest Brotherhood, and which were made by him in complete ignorance of the presence of Dick Shelton, Dick demands, at Tunstall Castle, first Bennet Hatch, later also a dying warrior and then finally the knight himself to explain to him the details of the death of his father. In doing so, Shelton bluntly confronts his masters with the charge of murder, or at least involvement in the crime. While Brackley swears a gruesome perjury without batting an eyelid, the priest Sir Oliver Oates, who according to the letter of confession is said to have been the one who cut Harry Shelton's throat, pushes around and makes himself extremely suspicious. The behavior of the others allegedly involved in the murder case also increases the suspicion of Junker Shelton.
The knight now decides to get rid of Sheltons, whose questions are beginning to get uncomfortable for him, and quarters him in a room of the castle, to which a secret passage also leads, in order to have him murdered during the night. Shelton is warned and is able to flee the castle. On the run, he falls into the hands of Ellis Duckworth, who pretends to be a friend of Harry Shelton and tells Dick what happened at the time.
With the armed band of forest people behind him, Dick, who is now on the side of York, sets out to avenge his father and to recapture his bride - as such Johanna Sedley promised him at Tunstall Castle.
During a night battle, Dick succeeds in forcing the unrecognized Lord Foxham to surrender and making him his prisoner.
Against the promise to help him get back his bride, Foxham's rightful ward, he releases the lord, who is much higher in the aristocratic hierarchy, from knightly captivity.
In the following arguments, Dick Shelton succeeds in winning the Duke of Gloucester , later Richard III. to oblige when he leaps in to this in a scuffle in which the duke, fighting alone, is hard pressed by eight men. Richard becomes aware of the brave young man who also reveals himself to him as a York party member. In the Battle of Shoresby Gloucester knight Dick, who from then on may call himself Sir Richard. He offers him his favor, but predicts that Dick, who could very well make it to the lord due to his courage and prudence, will die as "Sir", that is, as a simple knight. Gloucester realizes that Dick lacks one quality that is inevitable for a steep court career: Dick lacks the ice-cold and calculating disposition. His anachronistic chivalrous manner will let him stay what he is for life - a knight. The future king consequently withdraws his favor in return for the stipulated release of an old seaman whom Richard had actually intended for the gallows.
First, however, he fights with the Duke's troops and again meets his old adversary Daniel Brackley. This had him briefly in his power when the forest people had broken into the church during the wedding ceremony between Johanna Sedley and the Lord of Shoresby and shot the groom. Nevertheless, Dick managed to escape to the troops of the Duke of Gloucester after he had stipulated church asylum and no direct involvement in the act could be proven. With his express orders and the support of 50 ducal horsemen, Dick set out on the hunt for Brackley, who the Duke is very well known as an enemy troop leader of stature. The meeting between Brackleys and his people is lost due to the hesitation and inattention of Dick. Still, he can free his bride. During the skirmish, Dick's former comrade-in-arms Bennet Hatch falls.
However, York can win another, larger argument with Lancaster. In this battle, Sir Daniel's forces are wiped out. Brackley tries a second time in the disguise of a beggar to slip away and find shelter in Holywood monastery. He realizes that his opportunist role has been played out in England and plans to move to Brittany.
On his way to the monastery he is caught by Dick, who renounces revenge for the death of his father, but blocks the defeated man's way to Holywood, where he wants to marry his Johanna Sedley that day. During the conversation a black arrow zooms in and kills the knight Sir Daniel Brackley. Ellis Duckworth had taken revenge one last time.
Others
- The portrayal of Richard III, which does not deny a certain respect, but is mostly negative. Stevenson took over the Tudor propaganda almost uncritically. The Duke of Gloucester, however, was only nine years old at the time of the events and not 18, as the author drew him.
- The person of Sir Richard Shelton, knight on Tunstall, is authentic. The real Sir Richard Tunstall remained throughout his life a loyal partisans of Lancaster, and took over as such even the defense of the Welsh Castle Harlech Castle from 1463 to 1468 under King Edward IV against the house York.
Film adaptations (selection)
- The black arrow (Italian television miniseries, 1968 (La freccia nera), GDR synchronous.)
- The Black Arrow (USSR, 1985 (Tschornaja Strela), directed by Sergej Tarasow)
- Black Arrow (US, Spain, 1985, directed by John Hough )
literature
- Robert Louis Stevenson: The Black Arrow. Story from the time of the Wars of the Roses in England . Translation of Else Werkmann . Minden: JCC Bruns, 1927
- Robert Louis Stevenson: The black arrow story from the time of the Wars of the Roses in England , Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 1952, translated into German by Rudolf Schaller, with illustrations by Gerhard Großmann, with an afterword by Karl Heinz Berger
- Robert Louis Stevenson: The Black Arrow A story from the time of the Wars of the Roses , Verlag Neues Leben Berlin 1980, translated into German by Rudolf Schaller 1952, with illustrations by Klaus Ensikat
Individual evidence
- ↑ The black arrow at Fernsehserien.de
Web links
- Original text of The Black Arrow ( English )