King Richard (the Black Knight) Character Analysis

“By St Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, clearly for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant land with their bones, leaving few here who have either will or power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God’s blessing on our master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap; but Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is coming down to this country in person, and we shall soon see how little Cedric’s trouble will avail him.”

[T]here was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the object of such unintermitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews of this period. Upon the slightest and most unreasonable pretences [… or] absurd and groundless [accusations], their persons and property were exposed to every turn of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however adverse these races were to each other, contended which should look with greatest detestation upon a people, whom it was accounted a point of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute. […] It is a well-known story of King John that he confronted a wealthy Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum, which was the tyrant’s object to extort from him.

[I]t was the misfortune of this Prince, that his levity and petulance were perpetually breaking out, and undoing all that had been gained by his previous dissimulation.

Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland […]. Upon this occasion, the Irish chieftains contended which should first offer to the young Prince their loyal homage and the kiss of peace. But, instead of receiving their salutations with courtesy, John and his petulant attendants could not resist the temptation of pulling the long beards of the Irish chieftains, a conduct which, as might have been expected, was highly resented by these insulted dignitaries, and produced fatal consequences to the English domination of Ireland.

No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of his web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the scattered members of Prince John’s cabal. Few of these were attached to him from inclination, and none from personal attachment. It was therefore necessary […to] open to them new prospects of advantage, and remind them of those which they presently enjoyed. To the young and wild nobles, he held out the prospect of unpunished license and uncontrolled revelry; to the ambitions, that of power, and to the covetous, that of increased wealth and extended domains. The leaders of the mercenaries received a donation in gold; an argument most persuasive to their minds, and without which all others would have proved in vain. Promises were still more liberally distributed than money by this active agent; […] nothing was left undone that could determine the wavering, or animate the disheartened.

Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of which the roof had partly fallen in. […] The ribs of two of these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch, ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding, resembling shark’s teeth, which appears so often in the more ancient Saxon churches. A belfry rose above the porch on four small pillars, within which hung the green and weather-beaten bell […].

The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those hermits who dwelt in the woods to exercise hospitality toward benighted or bewildered passengers.

Joy to the fair! whose constant knight
Her favour fired to feats of might;
Unnoted shall she not remain
Where meet the bright and noble train;
Minstrel shall sing and herald tell—
‘Mark yonder maid of beauty well,
’Tis she for whose bright eyes was won
The listed field at Ascalon!

‘Note well her smile!—it edged the blade
Which fifty wives to widows made,
When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,
Iconium’s turban’d soldan fell.
See’st thou her locks, whose sunny glow
Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?
Twines not of them one golden thread,
But for its sake a Paynim bled.’

Joy to the fair!—my name unknown,
Each deed, and all its praise, thine own;
Then, oh! Unbar this churlish gate,
The night-dew falls, the hour is late,
Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,
I feel the north breeze chill as death;
Let grateful love quell maiden shame,
And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.

“It may be so […] but I cannot look on that stained lattice without its awakening other reflections than those which concern the passing moment, or its privations. When that window was wrought, my dear friend, our hardy fathers knew not the art of making glass, or of staining it—The pride of Wolfganger’s father brought an artist from Normandy to adorn his hall with this new species of emblazonment, that breaks the golden light of God’s blessed day into so many fantastic hues. The foreigner came here, poor, beggarly, cringing, and subservient, ready to doff his cap to the meanest native of the household. He returned pampered and proud, to tell his rapacious countrymen of the wealth and the simplicity of the Saxon noble—a folly, oh Athelstane, foreboded of old, as well as foreseen, by those descendants of Hengist and his hardy tribes who retained the simplicity of their manners.

“Alas! fair Rowena,” returned De Bracy, “you are in the presence of your captive, not your jailor, and it is from your fair eyes that De Bracy must receive that doom which you fondly expect from him.”

“I know you not, sir,” said the lady, drawing herself up with all the pride of offended rank and beauty; “I know you not—and the insolent familiarity with which you apply to me the jargon of a troubadour, forms no apology for the violence of a robber.”

“To thyself, fair maid […] to thine own charms be ascribed what’er I have done which passed the respect due to her, whom I have chosen as queen of my heart and loadstar of my eyes.”

“I repeat to you, Sir Knight, that I know you not, and that no man wearing chain and spurs ought thus to intrude himself upon the presence of an unprotected lady.”

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, it is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb—is the defaced sculpture of the inscription with which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim—are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of these ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

[…] “Thou speakest, maiden of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honor […].”

“And Richard Plantagenet,” said the King, desires no more fame than his good lance and sword may acquire him—and Richard Plantagenet is prouder of achieving an adventure, with only his good sword, and his good arm to speed, than if he led to battle a host of an hundred thousand armed men.”

“But your kingdom, my lord,” said Ivanhoe, “your kingdom is threatened with dissolution and civil war—your subjects menaced by every species of evil, if deprived of their sovereign in some of these dangers which it is your daily pleasure to incur, and from which you have but this moment narrowly escaped.”

Novelty in society and in adventure was the zest of life to Richard Coeur de Lion, and it had its highest relish when enhanced by dangers encountered and surmounted. In the lion-hearted King, the brilliant, but useless character, of a knight of romance, was in great measure realized; and the personal glory which he acquired by his own deeds of arms, was far more dear to his excited imagination than that which a course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government. Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid meteor […]; his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country on which history loves to pause […]. But in his present company Richard shewed to the greatest imaginable advantage. He was gay, good-humored, liberal, and fond of manhood in every rank of life.

I asked for wine—they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I found my arms swathed down—my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache at the very remembrance—the place was utterly dark—the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also used as a place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of the Father Abbot.—Saint Jeremy! how different form that tone with which he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!—the dog has feasted with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.

It was a scene of bustle and life, as if the whole vicinage had poured forth its inhabitants to a village wake, or rural feast. But the evident desire to look on blood and death, is not peculiar to these dark ages; though in the gladiatorial exercise of single combat and general tourney, they were habituated to the blood spectacle of brave men falling by each other’s hands. Even in our own days, when morals are better understood, an execution, a bruising match between two professors, a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers, collects at considerable hazard to themselves an immense crowd of spectators, otherwise little interested, excepting to see how matters are to be conducted, and whether the heroes of the day are, in the heroic language of insurgent tailors, flints or dunghills.

“By St Dunstan,” answered Gurth, “thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, clearly for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant land with their bones, leaving few here who have either will or power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God’s blessing on our master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap; but Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is coming down to this country in person, and we shall soon see how little Cedric’s trouble will avail him.”

[T]here was no race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the object of such unintermitting, general, and relentless persecution as the Jews of this period. Upon the slightest and most unreasonable pretences [… or] absurd and groundless [accusations], their persons and property were exposed to every turn of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however adverse these races were to each other, contended which should look with greatest detestation upon a people, whom it was accounted a point of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plunder, and to persecute. […] It is a well-known story of King John that he confronted a wealthy Jew in one of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to be torn out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half disfurnished, he consented to pay a large sum, which was the tyrant’s object to extort from him.

[I]t was the misfortune of this Prince, that his levity and petulance were perpetually breaking out, and undoing all that had been gained by his previous dissimulation.

Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland […]. Upon this occasion, the Irish chieftains contended which should first offer to the young Prince their loyal homage and the kiss of peace. But, instead of receiving their salutations with courtesy, John and his petulant attendants could not resist the temptation of pulling the long beards of the Irish chieftains, a conduct which, as might have been expected, was highly resented by these insulted dignitaries, and produced fatal consequences to the English domination of Ireland.

No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of his web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the scattered members of Prince John’s cabal. Few of these were attached to him from inclination, and none from personal attachment. It was therefore necessary […to] open to them new prospects of advantage, and remind them of those which they presently enjoyed. To the young and wild nobles, he held out the prospect of unpunished license and uncontrolled revelry; to the ambitions, that of power, and to the covetous, that of increased wealth and extended domains. The leaders of the mercenaries received a donation in gold; an argument most persuasive to their minds, and without which all others would have proved in vain. Promises were still more liberally distributed than money by this active agent; […] nothing was left undone that could determine the wavering, or animate the disheartened.

Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of which the roof had partly fallen in. […] The ribs of two of these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch, ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding, resembling shark’s teeth, which appears so often in the more ancient Saxon churches. A belfry rose above the porch on four small pillars, within which hung the green and weather-beaten bell […].

The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those hermits who dwelt in the woods to exercise hospitality toward benighted or bewildered passengers.

Joy to the fair! whose constant knight
Her favour fired to feats of might;
Unnoted shall she not remain
Where meet the bright and noble train;
Minstrel shall sing and herald tell—
‘Mark yonder maid of beauty well,
’Tis she for whose bright eyes was won
The listed field at Ascalon!

‘Note well her smile!—it edged the blade
Which fifty wives to widows made,
When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,
Iconium’s turban’d soldan fell.
See’st thou her locks, whose sunny glow
Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?
Twines not of them one golden thread,
But for its sake a Paynim bled.’

Joy to the fair!—my name unknown,
Each deed, and all its praise, thine own;
Then, oh! Unbar this churlish gate,
The night-dew falls, the hour is late,
Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,
I feel the north breeze chill as death;
Let grateful love quell maiden shame,
And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.

“It may be so […] but I cannot look on that stained lattice without its awakening other reflections than those which concern the passing moment, or its privations. When that window was wrought, my dear friend, our hardy fathers knew not the art of making glass, or of staining it—The pride of Wolfganger’s father brought an artist from Normandy to adorn his hall with this new species of emblazonment, that breaks the golden light of God’s blessed day into so many fantastic hues. The foreigner came here, poor, beggarly, cringing, and subservient, ready to doff his cap to the meanest native of the household. He returned pampered and proud, to tell his rapacious countrymen of the wealth and the simplicity of the Saxon noble—a folly, oh Athelstane, foreboded of old, as well as foreseen, by those descendants of Hengist and his hardy tribes who retained the simplicity of their manners.

“Alas! fair Rowena,” returned De Bracy, “you are in the presence of your captive, not your jailor, and it is from your fair eyes that De Bracy must receive that doom which you fondly expect from him.”

“I know you not, sir,” said the lady, drawing herself up with all the pride of offended rank and beauty; “I know you not—and the insolent familiarity with which you apply to me the jargon of a troubadour, forms no apology for the violence of a robber.”

“To thyself, fair maid […] to thine own charms be ascribed what’er I have done which passed the respect due to her, whom I have chosen as queen of my heart and loadstar of my eyes.”

“I repeat to you, Sir Knight, that I know you not, and that no man wearing chain and spurs ought thus to intrude himself upon the presence of an unprotected lady.”

“Glory?” continued Rebecca; “alas, it is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion’s dim and mouldering tomb—is the defaced sculpture of the inscription with which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim—are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of these ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?”

[…] “Thou speakest, maiden of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honor […].”

“And Richard Plantagenet,” said the King, desires no more fame than his good lance and sword may acquire him—and Richard Plantagenet is prouder of achieving an adventure, with only his good sword, and his good arm to speed, than if he led to battle a host of an hundred thousand armed men.”

“But your kingdom, my lord,” said Ivanhoe, “your kingdom is threatened with dissolution and civil war—your subjects menaced by every species of evil, if deprived of their sovereign in some of these dangers which it is your daily pleasure to incur, and from which you have but this moment narrowly escaped.”

Novelty in society and in adventure was the zest of life to Richard Coeur de Lion, and it had its highest relish when enhanced by dangers encountered and surmounted. In the lion-hearted King, the brilliant, but useless character, of a knight of romance, was in great measure realized; and the personal glory which he acquired by his own deeds of arms, was far more dear to his excited imagination than that which a course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government. Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid meteor […]; his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country on which history loves to pause […]. But in his present company Richard shewed to the greatest imaginable advantage. He was gay, good-humored, liberal, and fond of manhood in every rank of life.

I asked for wine—they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I found my arms swathed down—my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache at the very remembrance—the place was utterly dark—the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also used as a place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of the Father Abbot.—Saint Jeremy! how different form that tone with which he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!—the dog has feasted with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.

It was a scene of bustle and life, as if the whole vicinage had poured forth its inhabitants to a village wake, or rural feast. But the evident desire to look on blood and death, is not peculiar to these dark ages; though in the gladiatorial exercise of single combat and general tourney, they were habituated to the blood spectacle of brave men falling by each other’s hands. Even in our own days, when morals are better understood, an execution, a bruising match between two professors, a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers, collects at considerable hazard to themselves an immense crowd of spectators, otherwise little interested, excepting to see how matters are to be conducted, and whether the heroes of the day are, in the heroic language of insurgent tailors, flints or dunghills.