| Maria Escalosa, Infanta of Spain | |
|---|---|
| Blackadder character | |
| First appearance | "The Queen of Spain's Beard" |
| Last appearance | "The Queen of Spain's Beard" |
| Portrayed by | Miriam Margolyes |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Royal princess |
| Nationality | Spanish |
(Miriam Margolyes) Infanta of Spain, Maria Escalosa was briefly engaged to Prince Edmund following an arranged marriage by the King for his own political gains. Expecting a ravishing Royal princess, Edmund was rather disappointed to discover she didn't quite accord with his mental picture, being short and fat.
Dismayed, Edmund attempts to weasel out of the wedding every way he can, first by pretending to be "like the Earl of Doncaster" (i.e. gay). The Infanta thinks he is merely dressing up as a Spanish man in order to delight her.
Edmund realises he can't get married if he's already married. He attempts to marry the first woman he finds, Tally Applebottom, a local peasant. This plan is derailed by "Father of the Bride" Thomas Applebottom interrupting the wedding by pointing out his being in fact the husband of the bride.
Edmund then coerces Baldrick into "deflowering" the Infanta: she is already not a virgin, and the King asserts it doesn't matter anyway, as only one of them needs to be a virgin.
The wedding between Edmund and the Infanta goes ahead, Edmund finally grimly resigned to his fate - but he is saved in the last possible moment on political grounds (The Swiss and French made sudden peace with each other at a mountain pass rendezvous, then forged a clandestine alliance with Spain, thus leaving the English without friends in Europe unless by chance they make an immediate pact with Hungary!), and finds himself married to the eight-year-old Princess Leia of Hungary instead.
Read more about this topic: List Of Minor Blackadder Characters
Famous quotes containing the words maria and/or spain:
“It were a blessed sight to see
That child become a willow tree,
His brother trees among.
He’d be four times as tall as me,
And live three times as long.”
—Catherine Maria Fanshawe (1765–1834)
“How the devil am I to prove to my counsel that I don’t know my murderous impulses through C.G. Jung, jealousy through Marcel Proust, Spain through Hemingway ... It’s true, you need never have read these authorities, you can absorb them through your friends, who also live all their experiences second-hand. What an age!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)