Literature / The Black Arrow

As the novel is Older Than Radio and most twists in Stevenson's work are now widely known, all spoilers are unmarked on this page.

The Black Arrow is a historical novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, set in the English Wars of the Roses (1455-1487).

The story begins in 1460, when England is being torn apart by the war between the Houses of York and Lancaster. Richard "Dick" Shelton, ward of Sir Daniel Brackley, goes to Tunstall hamlet to talk the villagers into joining Sir Daniel's forces in the Battle of Risingham. As Dick is visiting the village, Sir Daniel's old retainer Nicholas Appleyard is murdered by an outlaw of "the Black Arrow". Shortly after, another Black Arrow pins a message to the church's door, warning that his leader Jon Amend-All has four black arrows under his belt for the black hearts of Daniel Brackey and his retainers Nicholas Appleyard, Bennet Hatch, and Oliver Oates. Since the message accuses his targets, among others crimes, of killing Sir Harry Shelton, Dick starts wondering how his father died.

Dick is dispatched to Kettley, where Sir Daniel is quartered, to carry a message from Sir Oliver. Meanwhile, Sir Daniel is staying at an inn, waiting for reinforcements and declining to join his ally Lord Risingham's fighting troops while the battle's outcome remains undetermined. There, he greets "John", a boy who has just been kidnapped by his men— in reality a young heiress called Joanna Sedley, whom Sir Daniel intends to marry his ward Dick in order to get custody over her. His men have whisked her away from her rightful guardian and have forced her to wear male clothes so that nobody recognises her.

Dick arrives at the inn and tells Sir Daniel the news. The next day, Sir Daniel sends Dick back to Tunstall Moat House. Right after, Brackley finds out that Joanna has been clever enough to sneak out, borrow a horse and ride off, so he orders his soldiers to bring her back. Meanwhile, Dick bumps into Joanna in the moor right after she has lost her horse. Calling herself "John Matcham", Joanna talks Dick into taking her safely to Hollywood. As trekking through the forest, Dick and "John" find the camp of the Black Arrow and witness a gathering where the outlaws vow to make Sir Daniel and his men pay for Harry Shelton's death. Dick is reluctant to believe some thieves' words, but "John" dryly says that the circumstances of Sir Harry's death are a very badly-kept secret.

The next day they run into a blind leper wandering in the forest. "John" passes out when they are cornered by the man, but he reveals to be Sir Daniel, who is wearing a disguise to return to the Moath House safely after his side has been crushed at Risingham. Both Dick and "John" follow Sir Daniel back to the Moat House, and Dick starts making questions about his father's death. At night, "John" sneaks into Dick's room to warn him that Sir Daniel has decided to get rid of him, confirming that he murdered his father. "John" is also forced to reveal her true identity, prompting Dick to realize he has fallen in love with her.

Dick and Joanna try to escape from the Moat House, but Dick is the only to make it out of there. As Dick is stumbling around the wood, injured and tired, he is found and rescued by the outlaws of the Black Arrow.

The book is in the Public Domain and can be read in the Project Gutenberg site (link) and Robert Louis Stevenson's official site (link).

See the franchise page for its many adaptations.

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Tropes:

• Adaptational Heroism: Portrayals of the future Richard III were toned down and more heroic in the animated adaptations by Air Programs International and Burbank with his treatment of prisoners of war, dourness, ambition and ruthlessness being omitted with the API adaptation even treating Richard's eventual ascension to the throne as a good thing. Considering the historical figure was a fair king, it might be more accurate.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the Classics Illustrated adaptation, Bennet Hatch interrupts Dick Shelton as he is encouraging the villagers to join Sir Daniel's forces to tell them they will join their lord's army or else...and then advises Dick treating the "simple varlets" with more harshness. In the original novel he makes no insulting comments or suggests Dick to abuse people.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The comic-book adaptations tend to remove Dick's worst moments, such like feeling tempted to beat "John" during an argument or stealing Arblaster's ship.
• Alliterative Name: Sir Oliver Oates, one of Sir Daniel's allies.
• Arranged Marriage: Sir Daniel kidnaps Joanna Sedley, and to obtain guardianship over her, as well as keeping controlling Dick, he plans to marry both kids.
• Artistic License – History: The mention of the Battle of Wakefield during the timeskip means the story takes place from May 1460 to January 1461...and still Richard Plantagenet is an adult man and Duke of Gloucester despite being born in 1452. Stevenson admitted in a footnote that Richard Plantagenet is older than he should be, and he is inaccurately called Duke of Gloucester for clearness' sake.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Sir Daniel intends to get Dick married to Joanna to increase his influence on his ward and so consolidate his hold on the fiefdom of Tunstall. At the end, Dick and Joanna get married...after Sir Daniel's death, with Dick reclaiming his inheritance.
• Big Bad: Sir Daniel Brackley murdered the protagonist's father, pretends to be his legal guardian and well-meaning friend as plotting to steal his inheritance, and tries to get him assassinated when Dick discovers the truth.
• Break the Haughty: Throughout the story, Dick's self-assured and ignorant cockiness, which borders on jerkassery, gets beaten out of him by the consequences of his actions until he become a humbler, more thoughtful young man.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Dick wonders who might be the murderer of Nick Appleyard, Sir Daniel's old bowman, his fellow soldier Bennet Hatch replies: "God knows". Since both he and Nick have killed a lot of people in Sir Daniel's service, there is no shortage of potential revenge-craving culprits; and he would not be surprised to be the next victim.
• Call to Agriculture: After surviving The Hundred Years' War, the old archer Nick Appleyard became semi-retired, so he planted an orchard and started growing cabbages.
• Calling Card: The darts of The Black Arrow gang's members have their owner's name carved in the shaft.
  Dick Shelton: "This is a strange shaft."
  Bennet Hatch: "Ay, by my faith! Black, and black-feathered. Here is an ill-favoured shaft, by my sooth! for black, they say, bodes burial. And here be words written. Wipe the blood away. What read ye?"
  Dick Shelton: "'Appulyaird fro Jon Amend-All'. What should this betoken?"
  Bennet Hatch: "Nay, I like it not. John Amend-All! Here is a rogue's name for those that be up in the world!"
• Christianity is Catholic: All characters are Catholic Englishmen, often calling upon to the Virgin Mary or some patron saint in ways which would be frowned upon in England one century later.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Sir Daniel Brackley changed sides so many times in the course of the War of the Roses that not even Dick can tell what side is on currently when asked.
  "Come, now, will ye read me a riddle?" returned Clipsby. "On whose side is Sir Daniel?"
  "I know not," said Dick, colouring a little; for his guardian had changed sides continually in the troubles of that period, and every change had brought him some increase of fortune.
  "Ay," returned Clipsby, "you, nor no man. For, indeed, he is one that goes to bed Lancaster and gets up York."
• Comic-Book Adaptation: The novel has been adapted into comic-book several times. In the Classics Illustrated collection it was the issue #31.
• Create Your Own Hero: Dick served Sir Daniel loyally until he begins suspecting that his mentor murdered his father. When Sir Daniel reckons that Dick is making too questions, he attempts to get him killed. Dick manages to flee, and he swears revenge against the evil feudal lord.
• Create Your Own Villain: When Sir Daniel pleads with Lord Earl Risingham to not believe an outlaw like Dick Shelton, Joanna steps up and states Dick became a brigand because of Sir Daniel's own actions. When Dick fled for his life from Sir Daniel, the Black Arrow -whom he previously fought- found him and took care of him. So, what did they expect him to do? Siding with the "mentor" who betrayed him or the bandits who saved him?
  Joanna Sedley: "My Lord of Risingham, hear me, in justice. I am here in this man's custody by mere force, reft from mine own people. Since that day I had never pity, countenance, nor comfort from the face of man—but from him only—Richard Shelton—whom they now accuse and labour to undo. My lord, if he was yesternight in Sir Daniel's mansion, it was I that brought him there; he came but at my prayer, and thought to do no hurt. While yet Sir Daniel was a good lord to him, he fought with them of the Black Arrow loyally; but when his foul guardian sought his life by practices, and he fled by night, for his soul's sake, out of that bloody house, whither was he to turn—he, helpless and penniless? Or if he be fallen among ill company, whom should ye blame—the lad that was unjustly handled, or the guardian that did abuse his trust?"
• Defeat Means Friendship: As tracking down Sir Daniel to rescue Joanna, Dick Shelton and his outlaws run into an unknown group. After defeating them, Dick finds out that he has not trounced Sir Daniel's allies but Lord Foxham -Joanna's lawful guardian- and his retainers. After yielding himself to Dick, Lord Foxham explains he was spying on Sir Daniel to free his ward; and since their goals overlap, both men agree that they should be friends and allies.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Dick Shelton goes through of months of bloody battles, betrayals and conflict during which he escapes from his treacherous lord, joins a band of outlaws, crashes a wedding...until his father's murder has been avenged, and he and Joanna Sedley are free to get married. And it is said that "Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by. They dwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love began."
• Evil Mentor: Sir Daniel murdered Harry Shelton, heir of Tunstall, and obtained guardianship of his minor son Dick to hijack his inheritance. When Dick discovers Sir Daniel's plot, his mentor attempts to murder him.
• Evil Plan: Sir Daniel murdered Sir Harry Shelton and obtained custody of his son Richard to usurp the fiefdom of Tunstall. Intending to increase his control upon Dick, as well as obtaining guardianship over another heir, Sir Daniel kidnaps Joanna Sedley to set up an arranged marriage between both youths. When Dick starts suspecting his guardian, Sir Daniel changes his plans: he attempts to murder Dick and force Joanna to marry a rich Lancastrian lord.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Nick Appleyard is dying, fellow soldier Bennet asks is he has a last wish. The old bowman replies to pull the dart out and let him die peacefully, adding he is tired of England anyway.
  Bennet Hatch: "Can ye hear, old Nick? Have ye a last wish before ye wend, old brother?"
  Nick Appleyard: (gasping) "Pluck out the shaft, and let me pass, a' Mary's name! I be done with Old England. Pluck it out!"
• Fate Worse than Death: When Lord Risingham is interrogating Dick about Rutter's death, Lord Shoreby's spy, Dick states he would rather get executed by Lord Risingham on the spot than being given to Sir Daniel, who openly confessed his intention to torture Dick.
  Dick Shelton: "Sir, I am here in sanctuary, is it not so? Well, sir, I see by your bearing that ye are high in station, and I read in your countenance the marks of piety and justice. To you, then, I will yield me prisoner, and that blithely, foregoing the advantage of this holy place. But rather than to be yielded into the discretion of that man—whom I do here accuse with a loud voice to be the murderer of my natural father and the unjust retainer of my lands and revenues—rather than that, I would beseech you, under favour, with your own gentle hand, to despatch me on the spot. Your own ears have heard him, how before that I was proven guilty he did threaten me with torments. It standeth not with your own honour to deliver me to my sworn enemy and old oppressor, but to try me fairly by the way of law, and, if that I be guilty indeed, to slay me mercifully."
• Feudal Overlord:
  • Sir Daniel Brackley is a ruthless and manipulative lord who has increased his wealth by constantly playing both sides during the civil war, always backing whoever has the upper hand at the time. He also infamously uses trickery, murders and kidnappings to become the guardian legal of -often gullible and manipulable- underage landholders, steals their inheritance and then offers the farmers living in their lands a choice between fighting under his banner and paying increasingly high taxes or being hanged from a tree.
  • Dick Shelton becomes a positive example. When he was still Sir Daniel's clueless ward, Dick was already willing to talk to the folks of Tunstall hamlet respectfully and listen to their troubles and concerns. After his evil mentor's death, Dick becomes the Lord of Tunstall and is able to keep his lands undisturbed by the ongoing war. He even provides a lifetime pension to a peasant whom he personally wronged.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Both Lancastrians and Yorkists are depicted as people doing bad things for -they think- a just cause. Dick Shelton joins the House of York out of convenience, but he does not believe his side is morally superior, and he has serious concerns regarding Richard Plantagenet's treatment of prisoners of war.
• He Knows Too Much: When Dick starts making questions about his father's death, Sir Daniel decides to murder him before Dick finds out that he murdered his father to steal his inheritance.
• Historical Domain Character: The "Book V: Crookback" features King Richard III of England -back when he was still Richard "Crookback" Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester- and his retainer Sir William Catesby.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Influenced by William Shakespeare's plays and the "Tudor myth", which vilified the House of York, Stevenson depicts Richard Plantagenet as a dour, ambitious and ruthless hunchback who thinks little of executing innocent prisoners of war. Real life Richard III was, in fact, a decent and relatively fair king.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Sir Daniel's ploy involving getting Dick and Joanna married causes Dick to find out about his guardian murdering his father and slip from his grasp. Later, when Sir Daniel tries to give Joanna to Lord Shoreby to reinforce his ties with a rich Lancaster partisan, Dick crashes the wedding (which he was invested in stopping, having fallen in love with Joanna due to Sir Daniel's manipulations), and thanks to knowing a big deal about Sir Daniel's treacherous dealings, his testimony gets his ex-guardian into hot water with his Lancastrian allies.
• Ignored Expert: When Nick Appleyard, an old bowman and war veteran, observes a flight of birds circling over the nearby wood in a messy pattern, he warns that hostile rogues might be skulking around. Bennet Hatch berates him over both being concerned about some birds flying and considering someone would attack them in the Sir Daniel's fiefdom. No later than five minutes, an arrow fired from the wood kills Nick.
• Jerkass Realization: Dick stumbles upon a boy named John Matcham wandering around the moor and promises to guide him through the forest. Shortly after, Dick discovers that "John" is really a -beautiful- girl called Joanna Sedley, he embarrassedly remembers their interactions during their trip (featuring Dick complaining about "John" being a wimp, Dick ranting to "John" about not wanting to get married ever because all women are witches, Dick complaining about "John" hindering him every time Dick wants to do something stupid... and, most importantly, Dick wanting to hit "John" during an argument and then whining about the unfairness of being called a bully if he ever went ahead with it), and he feels like a blithering idiot.
• King Incognito: After his soldiers are defeated in Risingham, Sir Daniel disguises himself as a blind leper to flee back to his moat house.
• Knighting: Dick Shelton is knighted by Lord Plantagenet, leader of the House of York, as a token of gratitude for helping him win the Battle of Shoreby.
• The Late Middle Ages: The novel is set in England under the reign of Henry VI during the War of the Roses (1455-1487).
• Meaningful Name: One of the outlaws of The Black Arrow is named Lawless.
• Mercy Kill: As he is riding through a fen, Dick comes upon a horse struggling uselessly to get out of a mud pool. Since Dick could not pull the horse out of the quicksand because it was sunk up to the belly, he opted for drawing his crossbow and pulling it out of its misery swiftly.
  Half-way across, and when he had already sighted the path rising high and dry upon the farther side, he was aware of a great splashing on his right, and saw a grey horse, sunk to its belly in the mud, and still spasmodically struggling. Instantly, as though it had divined the neighbourhood of help, the poor beast began to neigh most piercingly. It rolled, meanwhile, a bloodshot eye, insane with terror; and as it sprawled wallowing in the quag, clouds of stinging insects rose and buzzed about it in the air.
  "Alack!" thought Dick, "can the poor lad have perished? There is his horse, for certain—a brave grey! Nay, comrade, if thou criest to me so piteously, I will do all man can to help thee. Shalt not lie there to drown by inches!"
  And he made ready his cross-bow, and put a quarrel through the creature's head.
• My Master, Right or Wrong:
  • Subverted. When Dick tries to reassure the folk of Tunstall hamlet that they will be paid if they join the effort of war, one woman points out "If they survive". Dick replies they would surely be honored to die for their natural lord, and one man sarcastically asks who that person would be, since he has followed many "natural lords" since the war broke out.
    Woman: "If they live, that may very well be; but how if they die, my master?"
    Dick: "They cannot better die than for their natural lord."
    Man:' "No natural lord of mine. I followed the Walsinghams; so we all did down Brierly way, till two years ago, come Candlemas. And now I must side with Brackley! It was the law that did it; call ye that natural? But now, what with Sir Daniel and what with Sir Oliver—that knows more of law than honesty—I have no natural lord but poor King Harry the Sixt, God bless him!—the poor innocent that cannot tell his right hand from his left."''
  • Subverted with Dick. He tries to defend Sir Daniel until the evidence that he killed his father become too blatant to ignore.
  • At one point, Dick questions John Carter, one of Sir Daniel's spearmen, about his father's death, as insisting that he will not hold anything against Carter because he does not expect him to disobey his lord.
    Dick Shelton: "Carter, mistake me not. I know ye were but an instrument in the hands of others; a churl must obey his lord; I would not bear heavily on such an one."
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When a runaway Joanna bumps into Dick in the moor, she takes advantage that she has been forced to wear male clothes to claim to be a boy called "John Matcham" and ask Dick to guide her back to Hollywood. Dick agrees, but later he runs into Sir Daniel, and instead of leading "John" -who had passed out previously- back to "his" home as promised, Dick brings his friend back to Tunstall, ensuring that Joanna falls back under his evil mentor's power.
• Nice to the Waiter: Dick Shelton is kind and polite to the poor farmers of Tunstall hamlet, chooses to look the other way when they badmouth their lord, and does his best to clarify their concerns. Unfortunately, it is clear he doesn't understand the concerns of people whose lives and livelihoods depend on his lord's whims.
• Official Couple: Richard Shelton and Joanna Sedley end married after the death of Sir Daniel.
• Old Soldier: Nick Appleyard, one of the archers of Sir Daniel, is a veteran of the Hundred Years' War and the battle of Agincourt. A wrinkled, grey-eyed, seventy-year-old man who is constantly grumbling and prating about the late King Henry V, his eyesight is still as sharp as his wits, and although he would rather be left alone with his cabbages, people still trust him to put together a garrison and hold a fort.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. The story features Richard Shelton and Richard Plantagenet, usually referring to the former as "Dick" and the latter as "Crookback".
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!: Dick begs Richard "Crookback" Plantagenet, leader of the Yorkist faction and future King of England, to have mercy on Captain Arblaster instead of executing him as a prisoner of war. Crookback grudgingly agrees, but Dick falls out of favor with him.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Deconstructed. Dick steals Captain Arblaster's ship "the Good Hope", and he thinks nothing of it because he needed one ship to carry his plan out. Later, he runs into Arblaster again, and finds out that stealing his means of livelihood destroyed Arblaster's life...nearly literally, since his lack of a ship means Arblaster gets mixed up in the Battle of Shoreby and nearly gets killed by Yorkist partisans. At the very least, the epilogue has him living in Tunstall Hamlet and receiving a pension from Dick.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Dick Shelton is a good soldier, a competente archer, a faithful lover, a reasonable lord when he regains his inheritance, and a devout Christian.
• Reformed, but Rejected: When Captain Arblaster gets captured and nearly executed in the aftermath of the Battle of Shoreby, Dick successfully pleads with Richard Crookback to save his life, at the cost of falling out of favor with him. Arblaster does not care about Dick saving him or regretting his actions, though, and he tells Dick to get out of his sight after pointing out that his ship's theft caused this situation (and his first mate Tom's death) in the first place.
• Retirony: Variant. Nick Appleyard gets killed off shortly after retiring, right when Bennet is talking him into going back to the castle to lead a garrison.
• Rightful King Returns: After Sir Daniel has been killed off and Dick has married Joanna, he enters into the possession of his inheritance, the lands of Tunstall, which Sir Daniel had stealthily usurped after murdering Dick's father. For their part, the folks of Tunstall hamlet who had lived under the yoke of Sir Daniel are glad to be ruled by a reasonable lord for a change.
• Secondary Character Title: "The Black Arrow" is the outlaw gang who have vowed to take revenge against Sir Daniel Brackley for Harry Shelton's murder.
• Seeking Sanctuary: When the Black Arrow disrupt the wedding between Joanna and Lord Shoreby in Shoreby Abbey Church, Dick and his companion Lawless are turned over to Sir Daniel, but Dick claims sanctuary in the abbey church.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Dick Shelton met Joanna Sedley when she was wearing male clothes, covered in mud and pretending to be a (wimpy) boy. When he sees her wearing a dress fitting for a wedding, Dick can hardly talk, and declares she is the fairest and stateliest maid of England.
  She was attired in costly stuffs of deep and warm colours, such as befit the winter and the snow. Upon her head, her hair had been gathered together and became her as a crown. And she, who had seemed so little and so awkward in the attire of Matcham, was now tall like a young willow, and swam across the floor as though she scorned the drudgery of walking.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Sir Daniel's men force Joanna to wear male clothes when they whisk her away from Hollywood so nobody recognizes their kidnap victim. Joanna exploits her unwanted garment by pretending to be a boy named "John Matcham" to sneak out of the inn where she has been dragged to, borrow a horse and ride off without the landlord thinking of stopping her.
• Tempting Fate:
  • When Nick Appleyard hints that enemies might be hiding in the nearby grove, Bennet Hatch snorts that Nick is absolutely safe in the lands of Sir Daniel. Six exchanges later, one arrow strikes Nick between the shoulder blades, slaying him.
    "Ay!" returned Appleyard, "y'are a wise man to go to war, Master Bennet. Birds are a good sentry; in forest places they be the first line of battle. Look you, now, if we lay here in camp, there might be archers skulking down to get the wind of us; and here would you be, none the wiser!"
    "Why, old shrew," said Hatch, "there be no men nearer us than Sir Daniel's, at Kettley; y'are as safe as in London Tower; and ye raise scares upon a man for a few chaffinches and sparrows!"
    A few seconds later...
    An arrow sang in the air, like a huge hornet; it struck old Appleyard between the shoulder-blades, and pierced him clean through, and he fell forward on his face among the cabbages.
  • Just before his death, Nick was arguing that, should one rogue who hates Sir Daniel's men have the chance to kill one of them, he would choose Bennet -who burned the town of Grimstone- over one old bowman who is about to die a natural death anyway.
• Time Skip: Book III starts some few months after Dick Shelton escapes from the hands of his guardian Sir Daniel at the end of Book II.
• Title Drop: Several times since Nick Appleyard is killed by a black arrow:
  With that, Sir Daniel, turning his back to Dick, and quite at the farther end of the long table, began to write his letter, with his mouth on one side, for this business of the Black Arrow stuck sorely in his throat.
• Turncoat: Sir Daniel Brackley constantly changed sides during the Wars of the Roses, profiting every time. During the Battle of Risingham, he is insistently asked by his Lancastrian "allies" to join the battle, but he tries and stalls for time until it is clear who is winning, and he nearly changes sides when it looks like the House of York is triumphing.
• Uncertain Doom: During the Battle of Shoreby, Dick Shelton catches a brief glimpse of Lord Risingham and Lord Richard squaring off. Dick does not see Risingham again, but he firmly believes the man got killed in battle.
• War Is Hell: As the Houses of York and Lancaster tear each other down, cities are being destroyed, fields are being burned, and the common folk suffers from hunger.
  "It is the ruin of this kind land," a woman said. "If the barons live at war, ploughfolk must eat roots."
• Wedding Smashers: When Sir Daniel tries to get Joanna married to Lord Shoreby, the archers of the Black Arrow disrupt the wedding by shooting their arrows from the church's clerestory, killing Shoreby and vanishing quickly.
• You Have Failed Me:
  • When Joanna manages to steal a horse and escape from Tunstall's moat house, Sir Daniel orders Selden to choose six crossbowmen and hunt her down, warning that keeping his head on his shoulders depends on his success entirely.
  • Averted with Richard Plantagenet, despite his depiction being based on Shakespeare's propaganda-influenced portrayal. When he tasks Dick with bring him Sir Daniel's head and Dick returns empty-handed, all Richard does is to frown and ask in annoyance: "You were given fifty spearmen. Why were you beaten?"
• You Killed My Father: Subverted. Dick Shelton swears to kill Sir Daniel to avenge his father's murder; but by the end of the story, Dick feels too humbled by his own mistakes and accidental misdeeds to judge anybody. Hence, when he finds Sir Daniel alone, Dick decides to forgive and let him go.
  Dick Shelton: "Sir, my father fell when I was yet a child. It hath come to mine ears that he was foully done by. It hath come to mine ears—for I will not dissemble—that ye had a hand in his undoing."

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Tropes in the 1948 film adaptation:

• Age Lift: Richard Shelton is aged up from a young boy to an adult war veteran, with his father's murder taking place while he, Richard, was away at war. Joanna is likewise aged up as well.
• Composite Character:
  • Ellis Duckworth (leader of the Black Arrow) and Lord Foxham (Joanna's rightful guardian) are combined into a single character named Sir John Sedley.
  • Sir Daniel absorbs the role of Lord Shoreby, so he's now forcing Joanna to marry himself.
• Related in the Adaptation: Sir Daniel is portrayed as Richard's Evil Uncle.
• Setting Update: The film moves the time period forward to "after" the Wars of the Roses, by which they appear to mean after the temporary Yorkist victory that preceded the rise of the Tudors. This flips the sides, with Sir Daniel being a Yorkist and the rebels being Lancastrians, which is exactly reversed from the novel.
• Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: The film scores about 1.5. The resemblance to the novel is a bit too tenuous for it to be considered a Recognizable Adaptation, but at the same time, enough plot elements are retained to prevent it from being truly In Name Only.

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