 First edition | |
| Author | Geoffrey Trease |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel, historical novel |
| Publisher | Martin Lawrence |
Publication date | 1934 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 152 |
| OCLC | 6171653 |
Bows Against the Barons is a 1934 children's novel by the British authorGeoffrey Trease, based on the legend ofRobin Hood. It tells the story of an adolescent boy who joins anoutlaw band and takes part in a great rebellion against thefeudal elite. Trease's first novel,Bows Against the Barons marks the start of his prolific career as a historical novelist. It is notable for reinterpreting the Robin Hood legend and revitalizing the conventions of children'shistorical fiction in 20th-century Britain.
Set in medieval England,Bows Against the Barons relates the adventures of apeasant boy who becomes an outlaw and joins the Robin Hood's band. Together, they take up arms against the masters of England and fight for the rights of the common people. The protagonist's former master tries to suppress them, but at great cost.
The title refers to thelongbow, the primary weapon of the outlaws.
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Bows Against the Barons takes place during the final months of Robin Hood's life, beginning in early June, and ending in the following year about February. It is largely told from the viewpoint of Dickon, a 16-year-old peasant boy from the village ofOxton.
The novel opens by depicting Dickon's hardships as aserf on abaronialmanor. He is whipped by hisbailiff for missing work and harassed by the village priest for not payingtithe. Despite his youth, Dickon has to be his family's breadwinner because his father, Dick, has been conscripted as an archer for theCrusades. His troubles are compounded when the King's deer from nearbySherwood Forest ravage his gardens. Moved by anger, Dickon kills one of the deer with an arrow. He then flees into the forest to avoid the penalties ofpoaching. Eventually, he meetsAlan-a-Dale, who leads him to Robin Hood's band. Proving adept at archery, Dickon is welcomed into their company.
Disguised as a weaver's apprentice, Dickon becomes Robin's messenger to all ofNottingham's rebels. Led by a bridle-smith, Dickon and the populace assemble in the market-place to protest about working conditions and to demand the release of imprisoned workers. TheSheriff of Nottingham attempts to disperse them, but Robin and his outlaws arrive and overwhelm the Sheriff. In the resulting riot, the imprisoned workers are freed. However, mounted soldiers fromNottingham Castle arrive to quash the revolt.
Pursued by a horseman, Dickon escapes through secret passages and reaches the safety of Sherwood Forest, but he is captured byroyal foresters and escorted north to be tried for poaching. However, Alan manages to make contact with Dickon, having disguised himself as a blindminstrel and his messages asdoggerel. On Alan's instructions, Dickon attempts to delay the foresters' journey. His plans almost go awry when he meets his former master, Sir Rolf D'Eyncourt, who has returned from the Crusades and now attempts to reclaim Dickon. Fortunately, the head forester refuses to hand him over, insisting on the priority of royal justice. As his journey resumes, Dickon vows revenge when he learns that his father has been killed in battle. When Dickon and the foresters eventually reach a village, the blacksmith and the villagers protest at Dickon's captivity. In the ensuing struggle, a forester almost kills Dickon, but Alan arrives in time and saves him. Together, they join the villagers in defeating the foresters.
Later, soldiers are dispatched from Nottingham to punish the villagers, but Robin and his band ambush and defeat them before they reach their destination.
In the meantime, Sir Rolf exploits and oppresses his tenants in his pursuit of wealth and luxury. The outlaws of Sherwood Forest oppose him, stirring up the serfs to resist his tyranny. Allied with neighboring barons, Sir Rolf pens the outlaws in the forest and attempts to hunt them down. The outlaws defeat them by hiding in trees and picking off his men from camouflaged positions. As they celebrate their victory, Robin reveals his ultimate goal – the overthrow of all masters and freedom for the people of England.
The outlaws now prepare for an attack on D'Eyncourt Castle, gathering money for their needs. Alan leads Dickon and others to waylay the Abbot of Rufford, disguising themselves as knights and luring him into an ambush. Seeing Dickon's talent for disguises, Robin sends the boy to infiltrate D'Eyncourt Castle and acquire information about its defences. Disguised as apage with bleached hair, Dickon manages to penetrate D'Eyncourt on Christmas Day, but is betrayed by an undyed lock of hair. Pursued, he hides on the chapel's beams and eventually escapes from the castle, surviving acrossbow shot.
With Dickon's information, the outlaws finally attack the castle during winter. Alan leads Dickon and a group of outlaws to infiltrate and capture the castlekeep. Taking up positions on itsbattlements, they pick off D'Eyncourt's defenders with their arrows while Robin launches the main assault on the outer walls. His combined force of outlaws and serfs eventually breaks through and razes the castle. Dickon kills his former bailiff, whileLittle John kills Sir Rolf.
Heartened by their success, the outlaws attempt to march on Nottingham itself. However, theEarl of Wessex traps them in apincer movement between Nottingham andNewark and defeats them all. When his ally, the Archbishop, wonders aloud why the rebels die so willingly on the swords of his soldiers the Earl replies grimly, "Because they know that they are going to win – but not in my time."
Alan,Friar Tuck andWill Scarlet are among those killed. Dickon, Robin and Little John survive the battle and flee north with other survivors toYorkshire, undergoing much hardship on their journey. Dickon almost drowns in abog. Wounded, Robin takes refuge in Kirklees, whose prioressbleeds him to death to claim a reward from the Earl. Alerted by an arrow shot by Robin from his deathbed, the outlaws reclaim his body and burn down the priory in revenge.
After burying Robin, the outlaw band breaks up. Dickon and Little John are the only ones who remain dedicated to Robin's cause. They depart for theHigh Peak in Derbyshire, determined to continue Robin's work and fulfill his visionary ideal.
In order of appearance:
Bows Against the Barons takes place largely in theEnglish Midlands, primarily inNottinghamshire. In the last two chapters, it moves north through thePeak District ofDerbyshire intoYorkshire. As a Robin Hood novel,Bows Against the Barons has many places associated with the legend: Sherwood Forest, Nottingham, Kirklees andHathersage.Barnsdale is mentioned several times as an alternative refuge and destination for Sherwood's outlaws. The novel also alludes briefly toEdwinstowe.
The novel takes place during the period of the Crusades, although it does not specify which one. It mentions that Sir Rolf has campaigned in theHoly Land and visited the "rotting courts of Eastern Europe", an allusion to theByzantine Empire in its decline. Sir Rolf's tyranny is attributed in part to "new notions of cruelty and luxury" picked up in the latter place.[4] The novel also alludes to theNorman Conquest as a historical background, depicting Nottingham as a town divided betweenSaxon andNormanboroughs, and comparing the battle between Robin and Wessex to theBattle of Hastings.
In his 1948 foreword and 1966 postscript, Trease compares his novel's events to theEnglish peasants' revolt of 1381, and his version of Robin Hood to medieval rebels such asWat Tyler,Robert Kett andJack Cade.[5][6]
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Bows Against the Barons is notable for its leftwingrevision of the Robin Hood legend. In contrast to earlier depictions of the outlaw as a nobleman and loyal subject of the king, it portrays Robin as apopulist figure of theradical left.[7][8] The novel depicts Robin's outlaws as guerilla rebels who aid workers in a medievalclass struggle against their masters,[7] and it employs much revolutionary rhetoric, bearing chapter titles such as "Comrades of the Forest" and "The People Speak".[9] The Robin Hood scholarStephen Thomas Knight describes the novel as being "rich with the leftist enthusiasm of the mid 1930s",[9] comparing the Nottingham riot scene toSergei Eisenstein'sThe Battleship Potemkin.[9]
The first edition ofBows Against the Barons supplemented the novel's leftist rhetoric with illustrations of a similar nature. For example, one of these illustrations depicts the Nottingham riot as a crowd scene filled withhammer and sickle imagery.[9] (See image to the right.)
Bows Against the Barons is also acoming-of-age story that depicts an adolescent protagonist's attempts to overcome difficulties and understand his place in the world.[10]
Trease began composingBows Against the Barons in 1933.[11] In his 1948 foreword and 1966 postscript to the novel, he explained his motivation for doing so.[5][6] Since childhood, he had enjoyed reading stories about Robin Hood but also felt doubtful about some details in these stories – for example, the portrayal of outlaw life with its hardships as "jolly",[5][6] and Robin's subservience to the king. Trease thus wanted to "create a new picture of Sherwood Forest which should be truer to life".[5][6]
In a 1996 essay, Trease provided a more detailed context for his novel's composition:
As a child, I had been aHenty addict... [and] had absorbed the Henty values – the glories of war, the superiority of theBritish Empire and a white skin, the inferiority of the female... You sided with theCavaliers against theRoundheads, the French aristocrats against the howling mob. The working class were tolerated only if faithful retainers. By the end of my schooldays I was abandoning such values.... [I]n 1933 I was a rather naive Left-wing member of theLabour Party, newly married and struggling to survive as a freelance writer.... [A]fter a rejected novel and other disappointments the desperate idea came to me, though even then it was largely prompted by my political sympathies. Why should children be educated – indeed indoctrinated – with Right-wing views and then later have to be laboriously converted, one by one, to the Left-wing gospel? Could we not catch them young?[12]
To realise his idea, Trease approached a publisher associated with theCommunist Party of Great Britain and made his proposal for a leftist Robin Hood novel.[13] It was accepted.Bows Against the Barons was written "at white-hot speed"[13] and published in the following year.
In later years, Trease was critical about his own novel. He found fault with its historical errors and lack of research, both of which he attributed to youthful over-confidence,[2] and made efforts to "remove the worst blemishes" in later editions.[14] He also criticised the novel for being "propagandist"[2] and toned down its leftist rhetoric in later editions – for example, removing the words "workers" and "comrade" from much of the text.[1] However, Trease also acknowledged its "vitality"[14] as a "young man's book".[15]
Initially, the novel met a largely indifferent response in Britain and the United States. As the author later recalled, it was "neither denounced nor derided but largely ignored".[13] However, it was an immediate success in theSoviet Union, which resulted in a five-month visit there by the author and his wife to collectroyalties in 1935.[13][16] It was at this time that he contributed to a journal called 'International Literature: Organ of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers' Number 7 (1935) with an article 'Revolutionary Literature for the Young' in which he lays out some principles of what this should be and suggests that there should be a new kind of hero in children's books.
InThe Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (1984),Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Prichard criticisedBows Against the Barons for its "political preaching",[17] especially for making "Robin [speak] like a member of the British Communist Party during the 1930s".[17] However, they also praised the novel as "a well-crafted adventure story, showing the narrative skill which is characteristic of all Trease's fiction".[17]
As Trease's first novel,Bows Against the Barons marks his debut in children's historical fiction. He would continue contributing to this genre until 1997.[18]
Bows Against the Barons is notable for its radical reworking of conventions for children's historical fiction in Britain. Its anti-authoritarian stance challenged the conservative values that had dominated the genre since the 19th century,[19][20] especially theimperialist works ofG. A. Henty.[21] Its modern prose style,egalitarian characterisation, andrealist attention to the harshness of medieval life all mark significant departures from thearistocratic focus andromantic glamour that had dominated the genre since the 19th century.[22][23] These changes anticipate the mid-20th-century renewal of children's historical fiction by writers such asRosemary Sutcliff,Henry Treece,Cynthia Harnett and Trease himself.[24]
In a 1995Socialist Review article on children's fiction,Alan Gibbons citesBows Against the Barons as a seminal work of socialist literature for children, praising it as an "inspirational read" and comparing its conclusion toHoward Fast'sSpartacus.[25]
A 2003ALAN Review article creditsBows Against the Barons with founding the genre of theyoung adult Robin Hood novel.[10] Subsequent contributions to this genre have includedMonica Furlong'sRobin's Country,Theresa Tomlinson'sForestwife trilogy,Nancy Springer'sRowan Hood series,Robin McKinley'sThe Outlaws of Sherwood and Michael Cadnum'sForbidden Forest.[26]
