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Harlequin (novel)
Encyclopedia
Harlequin is the first novel in The Grail Quest
series by Bernard Cornwell
. It begins a series of stories set in the middle of the fourteenth century, an age when the four horsemen of the apocalypse seem to have been released over Europe
.
to fight against the French
in Brittany
and, afterwards, at the battle of Crecy
in Picardy
. It is a tale of longbow
s and butchery, especially when England
's archers
swarm into the Norman
city of Caen
. And over it all, like a dream, hovers the Grail
which is the epitome of chivalry
and Christian
decency, qualities which are in desperately short supply as the armies of France
and England struggle at the beginning of what will be known as the Hundred Years War.
The narrative begins in the village of Hookton, where Thomas is growing up under his once mad father, who is also the village priest. Thomas has been training secretly with a bow, despite the fact that his father forbids it. On Easter Morning, 1342, a French party of raiders arrive under the command of Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, a French Knight whose crest is a blue field with three golden hawks on it. Also with Sir Guillaume is a warrior dressed all in black, known simply as the Harlequin, who has hired Sir Guillaume to carry out the raid to steal Hookton's treasure, the Lance of St. George
. The Harlequin kills Thomas' father, and the lance is stolen. Thomas manages to reach his bow and kill four of the raiders, but the Harlequin and Sir Guillaume both escape.
Brittany:
The book then moves forward by four years. Thomas has gone to France to serve in the English army and take vengeance on his father's killers. He is serving under a competent commander, Will Skeat, and the army is besieging the city of La Roche-Derrien. The army assaults the city and is beaten back with many losses. Among the city defenders is the Blackbird, a woman who fights with a crossbow. Her real name is Jeanette, and she is the countess of Amorica. She wounds an English knight, Sir Simon Jekyll, in the arm after the assault, and Jekyll vows revenge.
Skeat and Thomas later visit the army commander, the Earl of Northampton. Thomas has discovered a way to assault the city from the rear- a weak wooden palisade is all that prevents the army's entry, and they are weakly placed. The Earl gives Thomas permission to lead an assault, with Jekyll in nominal command (though everyone in the army hates him). Thomas and his men successfully penetrate the city, open the gates and the town is sacked. During the onslaught Jekyll encounters Jeanette and attempts to rape her, but is prevented by the Earl, who walks in on him with his pants down.
Jekyll is chastised for his actions, but the war calls the Earl away to another campaign. Skeat and his men, including Thomas, are left to garrison the captured city. Thomas and his men guard Jeanette from Sir Simon, but Jeanette will not let them in her house. As the days go by, Skeat and his men conduct a series of raids on French villages. A small French force from Lannion under the command of Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc attempts to destroy Skeat's army, but Skeat refuses to fight him. Jekyll, however, is eager for plunder, so he and his men battle Sir Geoffrey's force. Jekyll loses the battle despite putting up a powerful defense, and Geoffrey then attempts to charge Skeat's archers. His force is mowed down and destroyed by the English longbows, and Thomas captures him, but lets him go, to Jekyll's fury. Thomas' response is to tell Jekyll to "go and boil your arse".
Later that night, Thomas is ambushed by Jekyll's men and brutally beaten, but he is saved by Father Hobbe, a friend who constantly reminds him of his vow of revenge. Thomas then befriends Jeanette and the two make a plan to take revenge on Jekyll. Skeat and his men then move to attack Lannion, weakened by the loss of Geoffrey's force. During the attack Geoffrey is killed by Thomas. A French relief force attempts to destroy the English, but they are destroyed by Skeat's archers. That night, Thomas and Jeanette lure Jekyll out of the town. He attempts to rape Jeanette again, and Thomas tries to kill him, he shoots Jekyll's squire, and injures Jekyll but Jekyll escapes.
Normandy:
Thomas and Jeanette can no longer stay at La Roche-Derrien
, as Jekyll will kill them both, so they decide to take refuge with the Duke of Brittany who Jeanette is related to through her husband. The Duke, however, is inhospitable; He rapes Jeanette and kidnaps her son, but Jeanette escapes with Thomas. She is traumatized by the event, but Thomas nurses her back to health. The two then rejoin the main English army under Edward III that has invaded the channel. Jeanette becomes attached to the Black Prince as a Lady of Honour. Thomas takes part in the assault on the French city of Caen
. During the battle he recognizes the coat of arms of Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, and shoots him in the thigh. He also rescues a young woman named Eleanor from being raped by an English man-at-arms. As he leaves the house, Jekyll sees him and knocks him unconscious, afterwards leaving him to hang.
Thomas is rescued by Eleanor, who is revealed to be Sir Guillaume's illegitimate child. Sir Guillaume appears to Thomas with a missing eye, along with the wound Thomas gave him. Sir Guillaume tells Thomas that it was the Harlequin who gave him the wound. Sir Guillaume, like Thomas, wants to kill the Harlequin, and the two become friends. Thomas is nursed back to health by a Jewish doctor named Mordecai. Meanwhile Jeanette confronts Jekyll in front of the Prince, who has Jekyll banished from the army. Thomas learns a great deal about his family from Sir Guillaume and a churchman in Caen. His father was a member of the infamous Vexille family- the former counts of Astarac and descendants of the Cathar
heretics. Thomas also learns that the Vexille family may be in possession of the Holy Grail, and the Harlequin had gone to Hookton to find it as well as the Lance of St. George. Despite this new information Thomas decides to return to the English army with Eleanor who becomes his lover and simply be an archer for the time being.
Meanwhile Sir Simon Jekyll decides to join the French army for a chance to take revenge on both Jeanette and the Black Prince. He impresses several knights through his battle skills, and even manages to defeat a black knight- the Harlequin, who reveals himself to be Guy Vexille, the Count of Astarac, and Thomas' cousin.
Crecy:
Thomas manages to rejoin Will Skeat's band and helps the English defeat a French force guarding a river ford in the battle of Blanchetaque
. The two armies then line up for battle at Crecy. Sir Guillaume, Sir Simon, and Guy Vexille are all on the French side. During the epic battle the French are massacred by the English arrows, but the fighting soon becomes hand to hand. Jekyll encounters Thomas on the battlefield and attempts to kill him, but Sir Guillaume stabs Jekyll in the side and kills him. Sir Guillaume then encounters Vexille and tries to kill him, as do Thomas and Skeat. Vexille severely wounds Skeat in the head, and Sir Guillaume is nearly killed by the English, though Thomas rescues him. Guy manages to escape, though not before he recognizes Thomas.
Skeat is sent to Mordecai to recover and Sir Guillaume is set free to help him. Thomas discovers the Lance of St. George on the battlefield, and the first book draws to a close.
The Grail Quest
The Grail Quest is a historical fiction novel series written by Bernard Cornwell dealing with a 14th Century search for the Holy Grail, around the time of the Hundred Years' War. They follow the adventures of Thomas of Hookton as he leaves Dorset after the murder of his father and joins the...
series by Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...
. It begins a series of stories set in the middle of the fourteenth century, an age when the four horsemen of the apocalypse seem to have been released over Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Plot introduction
The narrative tells how Thomas of Hookton leaves his native DorsetDorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
to fight against the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and, afterwards, at the battle of Crecy
Battle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War...
in Picardy
Picardy
This article is about the historical French province. For other uses, see Picardy .Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France...
. It is a tale of longbow
Longbow
A longbow is a type of bow that is tall ; this will allow its user a fairly long draw, at least to the jaw....
s and butchery, especially when England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
's archers
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
swarm into the Norman
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
city of Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
. And over it all, like a dream, hovers the Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
which is the epitome of chivalry
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
decency, qualities which are in desperately short supply as the armies of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and England struggle at the beginning of what will be known as the Hundred Years War.
Plot summary
Prologue:The narrative begins in the village of Hookton, where Thomas is growing up under his once mad father, who is also the village priest. Thomas has been training secretly with a bow, despite the fact that his father forbids it. On Easter Morning, 1342, a French party of raiders arrive under the command of Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, a French Knight whose crest is a blue field with three golden hawks on it. Also with Sir Guillaume is a warrior dressed all in black, known simply as the Harlequin, who has hired Sir Guillaume to carry out the raid to steal Hookton's treasure, the Lance of St. George
Saint George
Saint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox...
. The Harlequin kills Thomas' father, and the lance is stolen. Thomas manages to reach his bow and kill four of the raiders, but the Harlequin and Sir Guillaume both escape.
Brittany:
The book then moves forward by four years. Thomas has gone to France to serve in the English army and take vengeance on his father's killers. He is serving under a competent commander, Will Skeat, and the army is besieging the city of La Roche-Derrien. The army assaults the city and is beaten back with many losses. Among the city defenders is the Blackbird, a woman who fights with a crossbow. Her real name is Jeanette, and she is the countess of Amorica. She wounds an English knight, Sir Simon Jekyll, in the arm after the assault, and Jekyll vows revenge.
Skeat and Thomas later visit the army commander, the Earl of Northampton. Thomas has discovered a way to assault the city from the rear- a weak wooden palisade is all that prevents the army's entry, and they are weakly placed. The Earl gives Thomas permission to lead an assault, with Jekyll in nominal command (though everyone in the army hates him). Thomas and his men successfully penetrate the city, open the gates and the town is sacked. During the onslaught Jekyll encounters Jeanette and attempts to rape her, but is prevented by the Earl, who walks in on him with his pants down.
Jekyll is chastised for his actions, but the war calls the Earl away to another campaign. Skeat and his men, including Thomas, are left to garrison the captured city. Thomas and his men guard Jeanette from Sir Simon, but Jeanette will not let them in her house. As the days go by, Skeat and his men conduct a series of raids on French villages. A small French force from Lannion under the command of Sir Geoffrey de Pont Blanc attempts to destroy Skeat's army, but Skeat refuses to fight him. Jekyll, however, is eager for plunder, so he and his men battle Sir Geoffrey's force. Jekyll loses the battle despite putting up a powerful defense, and Geoffrey then attempts to charge Skeat's archers. His force is mowed down and destroyed by the English longbows, and Thomas captures him, but lets him go, to Jekyll's fury. Thomas' response is to tell Jekyll to "go and boil your arse".
Later that night, Thomas is ambushed by Jekyll's men and brutally beaten, but he is saved by Father Hobbe, a friend who constantly reminds him of his vow of revenge. Thomas then befriends Jeanette and the two make a plan to take revenge on Jekyll. Skeat and his men then move to attack Lannion, weakened by the loss of Geoffrey's force. During the attack Geoffrey is killed by Thomas. A French relief force attempts to destroy the English, but they are destroyed by Skeat's archers. That night, Thomas and Jeanette lure Jekyll out of the town. He attempts to rape Jeanette again, and Thomas tries to kill him, he shoots Jekyll's squire, and injures Jekyll but Jekyll escapes.
Normandy:
Thomas and Jeanette can no longer stay at La Roche-Derrien
La Roche-Derrien
La Roche-Derrien is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of La Roche-Derrien are called rochois.-External links:* *...
, as Jekyll will kill them both, so they decide to take refuge with the Duke of Brittany who Jeanette is related to through her husband. The Duke, however, is inhospitable; He rapes Jeanette and kidnaps her son, but Jeanette escapes with Thomas. She is traumatized by the event, but Thomas nurses her back to health. The two then rejoin the main English army under Edward III that has invaded the channel. Jeanette becomes attached to the Black Prince as a Lady of Honour. Thomas takes part in the assault on the French city of Caen
Battle of Caen (1346)
The Battle of Caen in 1346 was a running battle through the streets of the Norman city during the English invasion of Normandy under King Edward III in July of that year...
. During the battle he recognizes the coat of arms of Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, and shoots him in the thigh. He also rescues a young woman named Eleanor from being raped by an English man-at-arms. As he leaves the house, Jekyll sees him and knocks him unconscious, afterwards leaving him to hang.
Thomas is rescued by Eleanor, who is revealed to be Sir Guillaume's illegitimate child. Sir Guillaume appears to Thomas with a missing eye, along with the wound Thomas gave him. Sir Guillaume tells Thomas that it was the Harlequin who gave him the wound. Sir Guillaume, like Thomas, wants to kill the Harlequin, and the two become friends. Thomas is nursed back to health by a Jewish doctor named Mordecai. Meanwhile Jeanette confronts Jekyll in front of the Prince, who has Jekyll banished from the army. Thomas learns a great deal about his family from Sir Guillaume and a churchman in Caen. His father was a member of the infamous Vexille family- the former counts of Astarac and descendants of the Cathar
Cathar
Catharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries...
heretics. Thomas also learns that the Vexille family may be in possession of the Holy Grail, and the Harlequin had gone to Hookton to find it as well as the Lance of St. George. Despite this new information Thomas decides to return to the English army with Eleanor who becomes his lover and simply be an archer for the time being.
Meanwhile Sir Simon Jekyll decides to join the French army for a chance to take revenge on both Jeanette and the Black Prince. He impresses several knights through his battle skills, and even manages to defeat a black knight- the Harlequin, who reveals himself to be Guy Vexille, the Count of Astarac, and Thomas' cousin.
Crecy:
Thomas manages to rejoin Will Skeat's band and helps the English defeat a French force guarding a river ford in the battle of Blanchetaque
Battle of Blanchetaque
The Battle of Blanchetaque in 1346 was the second of the three battles which made up what became the Crecy campaign of King Edward III of England during the early stages of the Hundred Years War...
. The two armies then line up for battle at Crecy. Sir Guillaume, Sir Simon, and Guy Vexille are all on the French side. During the epic battle the French are massacred by the English arrows, but the fighting soon becomes hand to hand. Jekyll encounters Thomas on the battlefield and attempts to kill him, but Sir Guillaume stabs Jekyll in the side and kills him. Sir Guillaume then encounters Vexille and tries to kill him, as do Thomas and Skeat. Vexille severely wounds Skeat in the head, and Sir Guillaume is nearly killed by the English, though Thomas rescues him. Guy manages to escape, though not before he recognizes Thomas.
Skeat is sent to Mordecai to recover and Sir Guillaume is set free to help him. Thomas discovers the Lance of St. George on the battlefield, and the first book draws to a close.
Characters in Harlequin
- Thomas of Hookton - protagonist, illegitimate son of a priest and archer in the English army
- Will Skeat - Thomas's friend and commander, a captain in the service of the Earl of Northampton
- William de Bohun, 1st Earl of NorthamptonWilliam de Bohun, 1st Earl of NorthamptonWilliam de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton, KG was an English nobleman and military commander.-Lineage:He was the fifth son of Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford and Elizabeth of Rhuddlan. He had a twin brother, Edward...
- English nobleman and military commander - Guy Vexille, Comte d'Astarac - Thomas's cousin, his father's murderer and the antagonist, the Harlequin
- Sir Guillaume d'Evecque - French knight, father of Eleanor
- Edward of Woodstock, Prince of WalesEdward, the Black PrinceEdward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Aquitaine, KG was the eldest son of King Edward III of England and his wife Philippa of Hainault as well as father to King Richard II of England....
- heir to the English throne - Sir Simon Jekyll - Thomas's sworn enemy, a poor English knight
- Jeanette - daughter of a rich Breton merchant, widow of the Count of Armorica
- Eleanor - Sir Guillaume's illegitimate daughter
- Ralph Vexille - Thomas's father and Guy's uncle, the priest in Hookton and a former madman