Plot
The story is set in 1486. The episode opens as King Richard IV departs on a Crusade against the Turks, leaving his elder son Prince Harry to rule as regent. The King's younger son, Prince Edmund, encouraged by his sidekick Baldrick, considers the opportunity to take control of the kingdom. As it turns out, Prince Harry takes most of the power and leaves Edmund to do the duties that remain: namely herding sheep and cleaning out the drains.
A year later, Harry plans a feast to celebrate Richard's impending return and entrusts Edmund with arranging the entertainments. The line-up of acts grows increasingly pathetic as Edmund is forced to book Morris dancers, a bear baiter, a troupe of eunuchs, a novelty act involving a hen which lays eggs, and a supposedly humorous act entitled "The Jumping Jews of Jerusalem".
King Richard's military commander from Scotland, Dougal MacAngus, arrives for the feast and mistakes Edmund for a eunuch. Edmund's bad mood worsens when MacAngus asks for land in Scotland as a reward for his service, the Royal burghs of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles. Ignoring the fact that these lands are possessed by Edmund, Prince Harry grants them to MacAngus, and a furious Edmund plots with Baldrick and Percy to kill MacAngus. After ignoring Baldrick's "cunning plan" to use a cannon, Edmund decides to try something more subtle. He finds MacAngus hunting in the forest and offers him a part in a play that is being staged at the castle that night as part of the St Leonard's Day festivities. The Death of the Pharaoh is hastily re-scripted to include a role for MacAngus as "Tutankhamen McPherson", an Egyptian Pharaoh who is assassinated on the banks of the Nile. During the play backstage, Edmund replaces the actors' fake knives with real ones, intending to have them kill MacAngus onstage. When MacAngus reveals he has information that throws the legitimacy of Prince Harry's claim to the throne in jeopardy, however, Edmund reluctantly prevents the assassination.
Later, Edmund has the chance to examine the letters himself. They are dated 1460, his brother's year of birth, and Edmund concludes that they prove that Harry is an illegitimate child and placing Edmund first in line to the throne of England. MacAngus claims Richard IV was last seen entering Constantinople alone, armed with only a fruit knife and facing 10,000 Turks armed with scimitars, seemingly clearing the way for Edmund to become king immediately. Eagerly, Edmund reveals the letters to the Royal court, claiming Harry to be illegitimate and the King (probably) deceased. At that moment, however, Richard IV makes a grand entrance, claiming to have survived "thanks to my trusty fruit knife!".
Edmund is surprised but tries to show the letters to his father. It is found that the letters date from November–December 1460, nine months after Harry was born, and nine months before Edmund was born, thus proving that Edmund is a bastard.
Suddenly faced with losing his royal title, Edmund is quick to claim the letters to be forgeries and burns them out of feigned disgust. In the heat of the moment, Edmund also challenges MacAngus to a duel; MacAngus quickly disarms him with a single blow of the sword, and while MacAngus holds the sword to his neck, Edmund begs for his life, offering everything he had to Dougal. MacAngus pretends at first to be about to strike but then laughs, showing no hard feelings. Soon afterwards, Harry sees Edmund and Dougal keeping company, and believes them to have become firm friends. However, it is shown that Edmund goes through with Baldrick's plan and MacAngus dies in an "accident" involving a cannon.
Read more about this topic: Born To Be King (The Black Adder)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)