Arrow Of God Sparknotes

[Elwanda Menhennett]

TheBlack 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 organised 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.

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.

In book 4, "The Disguise," Dick and his outlaw companion, Lawless, disguise themselves as friars to get into Sir Daniel's Shoreby mansion to visit Joanna. They discover that the next morning Sir Daniel will give Joanna in marriage to his fellow Lancastrian magnate, Lord Shoreby, and word is sent to Ellis Duckworth, the outlaw chief. Complications arise as Lawless gets drunk and Lord Shoreby's spy, Rutter, noses around Sir Daniel's mansion, discovering telltale evidence of Dick and Lawless's intrusion. Dick kills Rutter, and security in the mansion is heightened when his body is discovered. Dick and Lawless end up in the custody of Sir Oliver, who tells Dick that he is free to leave provided the wedding of Lord Shoreby and Joanna takes place as planned. When Black Arrow archers disrupt the wedding, killing the bridegroom, Dick and Lawless are turned over to Sir Daniel. Dick claims sanctuary from Sir Daniel in the abbey church, but, in the end, yields himself and Lawless to a more impartial judge, the Lancastrian magnate, Earl Risingham. Dick gains freedom for himself and Lawless when he produces evidence to Earl Risingham that Sir Daniel is a double-dealing traitor.

Crookback 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 and Joanna make their way to Holywood where they are married. In this way Dick fulfills 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 the 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 with the final black arrow by Ellis Duckworth who had been following him. Thereafter, Sir Richard and Lady Shelton live in Tunstall Moat House untroubled by the rest of the Wars of the Roses. Lawless is pensioned and settled in Tunstall hamlet, where he does a volte face by returning to the Franciscan order and taking the name, Brother Honestus.

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[25] and January 1461.[26] The important time indicator is the Battle of Wakefield, 30 December 1460, which Stevenson describes in the first chapter of Book 3: .mw-parser-output .templatequoteoverflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 32px.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequoteciteline-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0

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 rumours would ruin his [bad] "reputation": the revision of the Tudor myth?

Stevenson liked his characterisation 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 instalment 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.[31]

The Battle of Shoreby, a fictitious battle that is the main event of Book 5, is modelled after the First Battle of St Albans in the Wars of the Roses.[32] 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 4 May 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."[33] 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.[34] 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.[35] Orford is on the North Sea and is joined to Framlingham by a road going to the northwest (the "highroad from Risingham to Shoreby"),[36] 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 to 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.

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![31]

Praise for The Black Arrow is rare among literary critics over its 137-year history, though the novelist John Galsworthy wrote that it was "a livelier picture of medieval times than I remember elsewhere in fiction."[38] 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."[39] In the introduction to the 2003 Signet Classic edition, Professor Gary Hoppenstand argues that The Black Arrow has been underappreciated, saying it is a "rich psychological novel" that is "deeper and more textured" than Treasure Island: "Those, however, who approach The Black Arrow as a rich psychological novel, similar in a number of ways to Stevenson's gothic masterpiece, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, will find a rewarding experience, one that offers insight into the complexity of the human condition."[40]

On 18 December 2007 Penguin Books issued an historic first annotated edition of The Black Arrow with the introduction and notes by John Sutherland.[41] Sutherland makes mention of the English Wikipedia article about the book 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]

In the first quatrain of this poem, the speaker describes shooting an arrow into the sky and not knowing where it ended up. He watched it fly for a time, but his eyes were not swift enough to follow it to its end.

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