The Black Arrow

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The Black Arrow is also the title of a 2005 novel by Vin Suprynowicz.

Image:The Black Arrow 1.jpg 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 ...."

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).

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Contents

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Brief overview

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. This novel consists of 79,658 words.

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Characters in the Novel

  • 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. (the antagonist).
  • 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)
  • Richard Catesby, Richard Crookback's retainer (a real historical person).
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Plot Summary

In the reign of "old King Henry VI." and during the Wars of the Roses 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 toward its end. 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 a 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. Robert Louis Stevenson gets seafaring adventure inserted in chapters 4-6 of Book 3, and he puts a reference to one of the Tales of the Arabian Nights (i.e. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) in Book 4, chapter 6. The story ends with Dick knighted by Richard Crookback, Sir Daniel killed by the last black arrow, and Dick and Joan married.

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External Historical and Geographical Information

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. 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.

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.

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Film and Television

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.

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External links

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