Saunders and Otley first edition - 1843
Good old G.P.R.; he has done it again - given me a few hours of pleasure wallowing in the past. This time he has set a novel in the days of Henry III, just prior to, and after, the Battle of Evesham. Of course, one has to swallow hard occasionally when the author embarks on yet another purple passage (he was often mocked for this by contemporary critics). Here is his opening paragraph:
Merry England! - Oh, merry England! What a difference has there always been between thee and every other land! What a cheerfulness there seems to hang about thy very name! What yeoman-like hilarity is there in all the thoughts of the past! What a spirit of sylvan cheer and rustic hardihood in all the tales of thy old times! Certainly, the printer's compositor must be worrying about using up all his exclamation marks too soon.
However, we then plunge into the tale itself, commencing in a well-described country inn, surrounded by medieval rustics but each with individual characteristics. We meet flirtatious Kate Greenly serving a man in the garb of a countryman...his form had that peculiarity which is not usually considered a perfection, and is termed a hump...his legs were stout and well turned, his arms brawny and long, his chest singularly wide for a deformed person, and his grey eyes large, bright, and sparkling...his nose was decidedly the point of the epigram, standing out a sort of sharp apex to a shrewd, merry ferret-like face. There he sat, sopping his bread in the contents of his jug...Not for long. In comes the villain of the book, toying with Kate, the landlord's daughter. The peasant sums him up: if his heart be as black as his face...Well, it is. He is Richard de Ashby, kinsman to the Earl of Ashby. After a fracas, the 'peasant' departs, into the nearby greenwood. He will appear intermittently throughout the tale - sans hump -, as Robert of the Lees, aka the legendary Robin Hood. Both Kate, who leaves her local yeoman lover for Richard de Ashby and a time of absolute misery, and Robin are going to be the downfall of de Ashby. The latter sustains his vileness throughout: he never prayed: the blessed influence even of an imperfect communion with Heaven never fell like the summer rain upon his heart, softening and refreshing. The idea of his dependence upon Providence, or his responsibility to God, would have been far too painful and cumbersome to be daily renewed and encouraged by prayer. He was one of the idolaters; and the god of his heart was himself.
James places a considerable part of his tale in the forest to the north of Nottingham: no forest contained more to interest or to excite than that of merry Sherwood - comprising within it self, as the reader knows, a vast extent of very varied country, sweeping round villages, and even cities, and containing, in its involutions, many a hamlet, the inhabitants of which derived their sustenance from the produce of the forest ground. Here Robin reigns supreme, even if it is in Henry III's reign and not the usual earlier period of King John. These scenes are contrasted with the gaiety, but also the treachery and deceit, of the Court. The author's portraits of the vacillating Henry III; the troubled, but awe-inspiring Simon de Montfort; the chivalric Prince Edward and his cherished wife Eleanor; the solid and, essentially, moral earls of Ashby and Monthermer, are well-drawn and life-like. If there is a heroine, it is Lucy de Ashby, who provides the necessary love story with the undoubted hero, Hugh de Monthermer, only nephew of the earl of Monthermer. and presumptive heir to his title and estates.
Other passages of note are the description of the Battle of Evesham and its aftermath; the scenes between Hugh and Prince Edward; and the denouement of the story at the projected to-the-death tournament between Alured de Ashby (Lucy's brother) and Hugh de Monthermer. James keeps control of his quite convoluted tale throughout, bringing in a gallery of minor supporters as well as the genuinely historical and fictitious main characters. It is truly, as the subtitle proclaims, A Romance of Old Times.
Left in my James' 'locker' are Arabella Stuart 3 vols. (1844); Russell 3 vols. (1847); and The Cavalier (1859). I look forward to reading all three later in the autumn. And then? I have my eyes on another dozen, all in three volumes, to purchase; that is, at an affordable price and only in first editions.
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