Ivanhoe

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1819

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 1, Chapters 1-6

Volume 1, Chapters 7-14

Volume 2, Chapters 1-7

Volume 2, Chapters 8-16

Volume 3, Chapters 1-14

Character Analysis

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Volume 3, Chapters 1-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 3, Chapters 1-4 Summary

The narrator backtracks to describe what happens immediately after Cedric escapes Torquilstone in the monk’s outfit. Going to Locksley’s camp, he encourages the besiegers to mount an assault on the castle. The Black Knight leads the outlaws in building a raft bridge to cross the moat and breach the inner castle walls. Ulrica, true to her word, creates a diversion by setting the castle on fire. Bracy, who directs the defense of the castle, continues to hold off the attackers until the Black Knight whispers his identity in his ear. Bracy immediately surrenders and tells the Black Knight where to find Ivanhoe.

Meanwhile, as the castle becomes filled with smoke, Bois-Guilbert saves Rebecca but leaves Ivanhoe. Soon after, however, the Black Knight arrives and carries Ivanhoe away. On the lower floors of the castle, Cedric and Gurth find Rowena, and Cedric tells Gurth to carry her out of the castle while he searches for Athelstane. Athelstane, seeing Bois-Guilbert fleeing with Rebecca (whom he mistakes for his fiancée Rowena), charges at him with the nearest weapon. Bois-Guilbert strikes him down with a single blow to the head. Bois-Guilbert then retreats to his Templar preceptory. Ulrica appears on the castle walls and sings a Saxon battle song as Torquilstone burns around her.

After the battle, Locksley and his men gather beneath their oak tree to divide the spoils they took from the castle. Cedric refuses his share of the spoils, but he thanks Locksley for his help in saving him and Rebecca. He is especially grateful, however, to Wamba, who was ready to sacrifice himself to save him, and as a reward Wamba asks only that he give Gurth his freedom. Though Cedric mourns the death of Athelstane, Rowena feels a sense of relief that he will no longer court her. Cedric invites the Black Knight to Rotherwood, and the Black Knight promises to take up Cedric’s invitation after attending to some business of his own. As his share of the spoils, the Black Knight demands only Bracy, whom he captured in the battle. He then sets Bracy free, on the condition that he never try to take revenge on him. Bracy chooses a horse and rides away in haste.

Friar Tuck arrives, leading Isaac with a rope tied around his neck. He and the Black Knight have a friendly fight over Isaac’s fate. They finally decide that Isaac and Prior Aymer (who has also been captured) should set each other’s ransoms. From Locksley, Isaac learns that Rebecca has been carried off by Bois-Guilbert. In exchange for Isaac paying his ransom, Aymer agrees to use his influence to try to secure Rebecca’s release. Locksley gives the Black Knight a bugle to use if he should ever need his help, and they part as friends.

Bracy finds Prince John in York with Fitzurse. He reports the fall of Torquilstone, the death of Front-de-Boeuf, and the news that Richard has returned to England as the Black Knight. John and Fitzurse devise a plot to assassinate Richard, but Bracy, having just been released by Richard, refuses to help. When Fitzurse leaves, John tells Bracy that he plans to betray Fitzurse and install Bracy as his replacement.

Volume 3, Chapters 5-9 Summary

Isaac travels to the Templar preceptory at Templestowe with the letter Aymer had written for him. The head of the preceptory is the Grand Master of the Templar order, the religious zealot Lucas Beaumanoir. When Isaac reaches Templestowe, Beaumanoir demands that he be brought to him first. Isaac gives Beaumanoir Aymer’s letter addressed to Bois-Guilbert, in which Aymer urges Bois-Guilbert to ransom Rebecca before Beaumanoir can find out about her. In the letter, Aymer refers to Rebecca as a “second Witch of Endor,” and Beaumanoir seizes on this description to conclude that Rebecca is a sorceress who has bewitched Bois-Guilbert. He kicks Isaac out of the preceptory and confronts Albert Malvoisin, the Preceptor of Templestowe, about Bois-Guilbert. Malvoisin, who is no less worldly than Bois-Guilbert, makes excuses for the Templar. Beaumanoir finally decides to put Rebecca on trial for witchcraft, hoping that executing her will put an end to her spell over Bois-Guilbert, who is one of the order’s most promising knights. When he is warned of Beaumanoir’s plan, Bois-Guilbert is unwilling to sacrifice Rebecca, whom he still loves even though she continues to reject his advances. At the same time, Bois-Guilbert knows that standing by Rebecca would put his place in the order in jeopardy, and he is not willing to sacrifice his ambitions either.

Beaumanoir sets up an immediate trial to convict Rebecca. As she enters the courtroom to defend herself, somebody in the crowd puts a scroll in her hand. The trial begins. The charges against Bois-Guilbert are read, and it is stressed that he must be excommunicated unless it is proven that his reason was impaired by a sorceress. Witnesses come to testify about Rebecca’s supernatural powers and the strange way she impacted Bois-Guilbert’s behavior since Torquilstone. Though Rebecca’s determined defense, humility, and beauty move the crowd, the tide of the trial still turns against her. At last, prompted by Bois-Guilbert, Rebecca looks at the scroll that was put in her hand, which tells her to demand a champion. Rebecca does this, demanding the right to have a champion represent her in a trial by combat.

Beaumanoir offers Rebecca pity if she confesses her witchcraft and converts to Christianity. When Rebecca refuses, Beaumanoir seeks a champion to represent the Templars against Rebecca. One of the preceptors nominates Bois-Guilbert, who has no choice but to accept. Beaumanoir gives Rebecca three days to find a champion to represent her, and one of the peasants in the crowd is tasked with carrying a message to Isaac. The message is delivered: Rebecca explains the course of the trial and asks her father to seek Ivanhoe’s help.

That night, Bois-Guilbert visits Rebecca and asks her again to elope with him. This, he says, is the only way to save her life and his honor. Rebecca again refuses him, insisting that if Bois-Guilbert truly loved her he would help her without requiring a reward. Bois-Guilbert leaves Rebecca. In an exchange with Malvoisin, he considers running away or fighting as Rebecca’s champion, but Malvoisin convinces him that such plans will not do anybody any good.

Volume 3, Chapters 10-12 Summary

As the trial unfolds, King Richard—again disguised as the Black Knight—takes Ivanhoe to a priory to continue his recovery. Leaving Ivanhoe, the Black Knight sets out for Coningsburgh, guided by Wamba, to attend Athelstane’s funeral. As soon as they are gone, Ivanhoe demands a horse, fearing some approaching evil, and leaves with Gurth as his squire. Riding through the woods, the Black Knight and Wamba are ambushed by Fitzurse. With the help of Locksley and his men, whom Wamba summons with his bugle, the Black Knight kills all the ambushers except for Fitzurse. Fitzurse reveals that John ordered the attack, and Richard lets him go but gives him three days to leave England forever. He then reveals his identity to the outlaws, who swear their loyalty to him. Locksley reveals that he is Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.

Ivanhoe and Gurth join the group, and they all dine as the guests of the outlaws. Richard and Ivanhoe then travel to Coningsburgh, where Cedric has arranged Athelstane’s funeral. Ivanhoe covers his face to avoid being recognized by his father. When they are alone, Richard reveals his identity to Cedric, whose refusal to bow to him Richard accepts as right until he has proven himself to the Saxons as well as the Normans. Richard then asks Cedric to forgive his son Ivanhoe as a reward for him. Ivanhoe comes forward and he and Cedric are reconciled.

Suddenly, Athelstane enters, looking weak but alive. He explains that Bois-Guilbert only knocked him unconscious, but that the monks at the abbey where he was taken were dismayed to find him alive, since it meant that they would not receive the donations his family was expected to make to honor his memory. To secure the donations, the monks drugged him and kept him in the cellar of the abbey, but Athelstane finally managed to escape, steal a horse, and ride back to Coningsburgh. Having gained clarity from his trying experiences, Athelstane gives up his claim to the throne and agrees to let Ivanhoe marry Rowena. As he is speaking, however, Ivanhoe disappears, having received a message from Isaac. Richard disappears as well, but nobody knows where he has gone.

Volume 3, Chapters 13-14 Summary

At Templestowe, a crowd gathers to watch Rebecca’s trial by combat. Among the crowd are two of Robin Hood’s men, Allan-a-Dale and Friar Tuck, who are talking about the revival of Athelstane. Rebecca is led to the stake to wait for her champion, but nobody volunteers to stand against Bois-Guilbert, the Templar champion. Beaumanoir agrees to wait until noon before proceeding with the execution. Bois-Guilbert asks Rebecca once more to escape with him, but she again refuses.

Just before noon, Ivanhoe appears on an exhausted horse to formally accept the challenge. Bois-Guilbert does not want to fight a wounded knight, but Ivanhoe insists, and Beaumanoir agrees to let him fight as long as Rebecca accepts him as her champion. The men arm for battle and charge. Unsurprisingly, Bois-Guilbert knocks down the exhausted Ivanhoe. But Bois-Guilbert also falls from his horse, though Ivanhoe’s lance barely touches his shield. Ivanhoe leaps to his feet and demands that Bois-Guilbert yield. When Bois-Guilbert does not answer, Beaumanoir declares Ivanhoe the winner. When Bois-Guilbert’s helmet is removed, it is discovered that he is dead, evidently struck down by his own internal dilemma. Rebecca is set free.

Richard suddenly rides into the lists. He arrests Albert Malvoisin for treason, despite the protests of Beaumanoir. Isaac and Rebecca plan to leave England, fearing persecution from Richard because they helped to finance John. Richard punishes John’s supporters, though he deals lightly with John himself, merely sending him to live with their mother. Cedric agrees to let Ivanhoe and Rowena marry. Richard himself blesses the union, promising future harmony between Saxons and Normans in England. Shortly after the wedding, Rebecca visits Rowena and asks her to thank Ivanhoe on her and her father’s behalf and explaining that they are escaping to the Muslim court at Granada, where they hope to be treated better. Rowena and Ivanhoe live happily for many years. Ivanhoe continues to serve the English court until Richard’s untimely death.

Volume 3, Chapters 1-14 Analysis

Scott freely moves through time in his narrative, often employing authorial intrusion to add commentary on his characters or the period during which his novel is set. When he describes the capture of Torquilstone, for instance, Scott does so from several different perspectives, first having Rebecca describe the progress of the battle to Ivanhoe as she watches from the tower, and then using a flashback to describe the battle again (and in more detail) from the perspective of the attackers. This use of flashbacks allows Scott to narrate scenes involving multiple groups of characters that are occurring simultaneously. Scott’s authorial voice often comes out in these flashbacks to help orient the reader in time. But Scott also inserts authorial intrusion into the narrative to provide information on the historical, social, and cultural context of the Medieval period. On the character of the historical King Richard—who increasingly becomes an important character in the novel when it is revealed that he is the Black Knight—Scott notes that:

In the lion-hearted King, the brilliant, but useless character, of a knight of romance, was in great measure realized; and the personal glory which he acquired by his own deeds of arms, was far more dear to his excited imagination than that which a course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government. Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid meteor […] his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country on which history loves to pause (365).

Here, as elsewhere, Scott comments in his own voice on two of the central themes of the novel, namely, The Relationship Between History and Legend and Chivalry as a Means of Legitimating Power. Scott’s Richard is a king who has so thoroughly internalized the ideals of chivalry that he pursues them to the detriment of his government and his country. To help his audience understand and relate to his setting, Scott sometimes draws analogies with his own time, as when he compares the crowd eagerly awaiting Rebecca’s execution to contemporary spectators gathering to watch “an execution, a bruising match between two professors, a riot, or a meeting of radical reformers” (382).

The trial of Rebecca, which brings the adventure story to its denouement, highlights the tensions arising from Hierarchies of Religion, Class, and Gender in Medieval Europe. Rebecca is put on trial as a witch because she is a Jewish woman who has the misfortune of being a skilled healer, giving the superstitious Christians of the period the mistaken view that she must invoking supernatural powers. The trial is a sham, with the narrator reflecting on how irrational the situation is and how absurd the evidence given against Rebecca. Yet Rebecca is saved only through another idiosyncrasy of Medieval law—namely, trial by combat. The idea behind a trial by combat is that God will use the combatants to make the true verdict known. This gives the knights performing the combat a role that can be compared to divine emissaries—a role that is in keeping with the high premium the period placed on chivalry. Rebecca’s trial by combat is the final battle between the hero Ivanhoe and the villain Bois-Guilbert. When Bois-Guilbert falls—the victim more of his internal turmoil than of Ivanhoe’s lance—Beaumanoir declares solemnly that “[t]his is indeed the judgment of God” (392).

The novel ends on a happy note: Rebecca is rescued, Bois-Guilbert is vanquished, Richard is restored to the throne, and Ivanhoe reconciles with his father and marries Rowena. But reminders of the imperfections of the Medieval world are everywhere. Money and property, an important motif throughout the novel, show up again and again to highlight the prejudices and corruption of many individuals and institutions. In Scott’s rendering of the period, Jewish lenders like Isaac acquire wealth as a means of survival in a deeply antisemitic world, but this wealth only serves to increase their persecution. Many of the clergyman represented in the novel, especially Aymer, are men of God only in name, preferring to use their high social position to enjoy the creature comforts of life even when they go against their religious vows. Above all, the Medieval church with its many branches is characterized by a greed for power, and because the church is so powerful, it draws ambitious and power-hungry individuals (like the Templar Bois-Guilbert or the traitorous Malvoisin). The bigotry and superstition of the time also linger at the end of the novel: Though Rebecca is saved from being executed, she and her father still leave England because they are afraid of what may happen to them if they stay. Finally, the political turmoil of the time, as the author reminds us, is far from over. Richard was, after all, an imperfect king, and when he died, he would be succeeded by his vicious brother John. The untimely death of Richard will put a premature end to the career of Ivanhoe, the novel’s hero, who is consequently fated to be lost to history and to survive only as a “tale” (401).