Dear Ben Elton,
I had an idea on how a resurrection of Blackadder might begin,
Something that would address the "wokes" need for 'PC" content
and still be amusing and entertainingly informative.
It began whilst researching Clan Nagle of North Cork.
Imagine a Tony Robinson Time-Team meets Blackadder-Back & Forth.
I have begun publishing some of my findings on online forums
and of course met an expected knee jerk reaction:.
Especially in relation to the core of my thesis that Edmund Blackadder Esq.
of Blackadder the Third fame is in fact , historically, the similarly named
Edmund Nagle, of greater fame than any Nagle other than the saint
Nano Nagle herself !
There are two fan club sites online for Blackadder,
And as the booklet form of the printed word is passe.
A scholar must know their target audience and the best mode
to reach them initially.
Fortunately there are only the two online sites in English.
a fanpop and a fandom,. the latter is overseen by a strict disciplinarian and in less than three days the ability to post online has been withdrawn.
It seems no one wants to hear the truth.
These have nicely afforded me an appropriate outlet and audience .
In regard the BBCTV show of the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s
I noted the obvious connections with the plantation in Barbados,
and the irony in the admiralty, 'midshipmanly', and 'captainly 'inspired
butlers uniform that was made vogue by the admirals and equerries
who were George Augustus Frederick's closest friends,
and also were Grooms of the Bedchamber,
Especially the most famous of them all, Admiral Nagle.
As Nelson was dead 'our Edmund' was the next
most famous hero of the Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars
because of his many involvements in all three major conflicts
and because of the proximity to royalty that notoriety afforded him.
As Captain "Ned" Nagle he amused George the Third initially,
and then later his son George the Fourth.
Horatio Hornblower,an invention of the Ministry of Information's apparatik
Cecil Smith ( id est C.S.Forester) is also equally, if not more so than even Blackadder , is modeled on the life of Admiral Nagle. "Forester", writing in the wake of the Irish Free State's emergence, is not going to identify the hero
as a Roman Catholic Irishman from "Rebel Cork" who was nephew and heir of the noted Whig MP Edmund Burke
Admiral Edward Pellew, as highlighted in the Hornblower novels , was the commanding squadron leader on the day 'our Edmund' earned his first, of three, knighthoods by fighting off the much larger newly launched 70 gun
French frigate La Revolutuionaire off the coast of Brest and capturing it as a prize.
But ,let's not lose the plot: So, returning to Edmund Blackadder.
Secondarily to the admiral outfit ; there is the obvious reference to
the Plantation in Barbados that was potentially the bounty of marrying Amy Hardwood in the Amy and Amiability episode.
This is obviously the most easily discovered item about the late Admiral
as the very estate is mentioned in his Will. The slaves' transportation from Liverpool to Bridgetown was afforded by the special deals offered by the Twohy & Nagle shipping company working out of Merseyside docks.
The most famous of their captains being Jeremiah "Jerry" Nagle.aboard his two favourite commands 'Barbadian" & "Neptune" The latter ship he used to carry Irish convicts from Dublin to Sydney in 1838, after the sale and transport of slaves became no longer "PC" in Willie Wilberforce's wake.
In the same episode as Amy Hardwood, our Edmund encounters the highwayman called Shadow , who turns out to be not of the expected gender. Nagle himself is famous for relating his own anecdote on how he dealt with
a young lad with a pistol up on "Shooters Hill" when he was a passenger in the 'post-chaise', last printed in the New York Mirror
The episodes of BA3 that troubled me the most, offered the greatest rewards were the two more ominous connections with,
what is otherwise an oddly plotted series,One , The finale: Where Edmund
fights Arthur Wellesley, and the other where Edmund and Dr Samuel Johnson
come head to head over his' Dictionary.
Doctor Samuel Johnson,the lexicographer, and Joshua Reynolds, the portraitist,
are the accredited founders of the famous Literary Club, or just "The Club", that met to discuss, debate, perform, and converse upon all matters intellectual and aesthetic. It was a very exclusive club indeed, and if you didn't attend a regular meeting a member had to pay a forfeit fee to the secretary and bursar.
The details of the club's formation are obscure , but preeminence is given to Johnson & Reynolds . This however is a fiction created by the prejudices,
literary, cultural, and sectarian, of the past two hundred and fifty years.
A cursory view of the clubs formation names its original members 9 nine members as being Johnson, Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Christopher Nugent,Oliver Goldsmith, Topham Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, & Anthony Charmier.
Whilst the concept of intellectual soirees, and assemblies of the intelligentsia are part and parcel of the history of civilisation since well before Plato's "academy" , the original inspiration for such a similar gathering of aesthetes and scholars was devised by Christopher Nugent the famous doctor from Bath,
and his son-in-law Edmund Burke ( and his son Richard Burke). These three were all influenced by their regular invitations to attend the castle home of the 'gentleman-piper' and patron of the bardic arts, Garrett Nagle.
Who unsurprisingly, along with Edmund Burke, are the co-ward/co-stepfathers
of Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle, Groom of the Bedchamber for George IV.
It is no coincidence then that apart from his own lexicographic masterpiece
"The English Dictionary" Johnson , as he is portrayed in Curtis & Elton's satire, lists Edmund's (under his nom de plume) intellectual and social discourse ,
the memoirs of a butler, as his second choice in the stratosphere of literature.
Harvard University's library has letters with Johnson's signature addressed to the aforementioned Garrett Nagle, so there is evidence the two men corresponded. And , in lieu of Garrett esq. leaving his castle in Cork to attend The Club, he has as his lieutenants his three very close kinsmen Nugent
and the two Burkes.
And the final episode:Duel & Duality. Somewhat like the original series bizarro-superman version of Richard the Third by Shakespeare. This episode is Bizarro-Prince & the Pauper
A long standing family and territorial struggle existed
between the Duke of Wellington , Arthur Wellesley ( nee Wesley, nee Colley)
And Edmund "Ned" Nagle, butler to George Prince of Wales.,
It began not long after the Battle of the Boyne in1690. Even the date is in dispute
with Nagle calling it the 12th, and, the Colley-Wesley( later Wellesley)
calling it the 1st day of July.
That's important to note since the Gregorian calendar was not followed by the Protestant victors of the battle at the ford on that foggy summer's morning
130 years prior to the contest between them in King George's private rooms.
Before "Old Nosey" ( Wellington) became a famous military hero in India,
Spain, and in Belgium 1795 to 1815 he had tried his hand at politics.
As the resident rich kid of Church of Ireland parent's who very well ran the town of Trim , in Meath, Eire, Young Arthur was able to procure his way
into being the elected member of the Irish House of Commons for Trim.
As was the prerogative and inclination of his father and grandfather ,
who being on the side of the victorious "Williamites" at the Boyne ,
replaced the pre-existent proprietors and squires , the Irish Catholic
"Jacobines" families of Nagle and Tyrell.
These families having held these lands, and attended parliaments since they were granted to them by Hugh de Lacy, the leader of Henry the Second's invasion in 1171, i.e. 520years prior to the Boyne.And well attested to in the Song of Dermot and the Earl
To rub salt in the wound, if that hasn't festered enough over the previous 130 years,
Wellington further slight's Nagle, not 'our Edmund', in particular, but his family
in general by giving the credit to Major Hill, his second in command, at
his most successful triumph in India ( and by his own estimation : his great battle victory) being at Assaye, in late September 1803 in the official record.
Where in fact Major Hill was absent from the battle that day, as recorded by two other well deserving sources, and his role as "number two" to Arthur Wesley
( as he spelled his name at the time) was assumed by Edmund's cousin
Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) James Nagle.
Whereas influence in any privy council, general chiefs of staff,
or other ''war room" an ancient rivalry existed between the Army and Navy.
Sir Edmund was at George's side as confidant, friend, and valet well before Wellington was halfway across Spain, and a good ten years before Waterloo.
Competition for the King's, or Prince Regent's preferment would have been a daily battle . Napoleon rightly called Wellington the "Sepoy General", as he gained all his worthwhile experiences in India; His previous engagements in Flanders and The Netherlands after his first exit from parliament were failures.
Further, I readdressed the marriage to Amy Hardwood.
The TV show has George the Regent about to marry Amy Hardwood , supposedly the daughter of a rich industrialist, just for the money,
although she's portrayed by the stunning Miranda Richardson,
and is half the age Mary Harnage-Blackman was in 1797 when she married our hero , her second husband who she never called "Neddy".
(Not even King George IV got away with calling him "Neddy!")
George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales , was induced
by the will of Parliament to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick
in order for the government to agree to paying off many of his debts.
The marriage was an unmitigated disaster .
George arranged that at his coronation in 1821 that the Princess ,
rightfully now Queen-consort , be locked out of Westminster Abbey George's debts in toto were only recently fully paid off,
thanks always to the British taxpayer.
Edmund did marry an Heiress, and also widow of a well known
West Indian Sugar Merchant.
Her name was not quite Amy Hardwood ( an obvious 'dick-joke')
but at least the equally recognizable Mary Hardman.
Mary, unlike Amy, truly delivered a plantation in Barbados ,
it is called 'Boarded Hall' gained through loaning her son ,
(from her first marriage), Sir George Harnage ( the regularly bankrupt Director of the Bank of England) , money to pay his debts ,
mortgaged as a surety was the sugar plantation Boarded Hall in
St George's Valley ,just east of Bridgetown and the statue of Bussa the slave rebel leader,on Barbados..
Mary died in 1836 at the same address as her second husband, 'our Ed
As a conclusion, I add the opening piece I published on the wiki fandom page as all of those edits have now been "cancelled" by the "woke" brigade of internet moderators.
THE REAL EDMUND
Historians will note that the character portrayed by Atkinson is a composite of the equerry William Congreve and the Groom of the Bedchamber Edmund Nagle. Congreve , is in fact played by Robinson as the character Baldrick, assuming as he does a seat in the House of Commons via a 'rotten borough' whilst Edmund Nagle, is a renowned naval hero, being a "great favorite' of the prince of Wales(later King) . Nagle possessed plantations in Barbados called 'Boarded Hall", He had a long standing familial association and feud with the Duke of Wellington, and was also closely associated with Dr. Samuel Johnson's and the "Literary Club" he and Reynolds are incorrectly accredited with establishing, when in fact Johnson and Reynolds got the idea from Nagle's grandfather and stepfather Christopher Nugent & Edmund Burke et al . Who got the idea from Garrett Nagle , famously of Doneraile and surrounding districts.
The creation of the character, and particulars of the "life of Edmund Blackadder esq." is NOT original. There are multiple published anecdotes from the 1820s through to the 1940s in English language newspapers. especially those with an Irish Catholic diaspora like New York and Sydney.. Anecdotes that portray Nagle capturing a youthful Highwayman.And rescuing a shipmate from the jaws of a shark
Nagle is also noted as amusing the Prince's father George III with his Hibernian jokes and stories of naval warfare during' the great age of sail'..
In anecdotal reports contemporary to the late Regency Period , Nagle is often described as possessing a curt, blunt, and no-nonsense personality and possessed a rollicking wit that enamored him to the Prince and to both the Georges III & IV..
and lastly...."hurrah !.".
a scene from the TV show I imagined watching
THE MISSING EPISODE
Act 3 Scene 1
High above London, a flash of purple lightning in a clear night sky..
HRH's Private Suite. Carlton House ,
St. James SW1.
The Prince Regent standing , center stage, arms akimbo,
admiring his recently installed
gilded eagle-motifs in his drawing- room's four corners.
Enter, stage right, ,HRH's 'great favorite' Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle RN KB KCB GCH
"Oh Nagle , you're just in time to help me plan my Easter party, Hoorah !
What do you think of my eagles, aye ?" begins George Augustus , Regent .
"Your Majesty, the eagle is the preferred image used by your enemy!"
states the admiral, 'our Edmund' bluntly.
"Oh, nonsense admiral, Princess Caroline hates eagles" retorts the Prince.
"I meant Napoleon, not your wife ,Majesty" counters Edmund.
"Ha! What do we care about that Bonaparte fellow anyway,
he's on a remote rock in the middle of the Med ?" asks the Prince rhetorically.
"No he isn't , He's escaped, Majesty,
And at this very moment back on the Continent raising an army,
Paris is expected to surrender before the week is out,
King Louis XVIII has already fled, All of Europe is again in an uproar" replied Edmund .
"Oh dear, So, that's a 'no' to the eagles then is it?" Asks the Prince earnestly.
"Napoleon sees himself as Emperor of Europe, however you are
the true heir to the Holy Roman Empire , Majesty" Nagle continues.
"I'm wholly German, Nagle, " the Prince assumes an exaggerated thespian pose and acquires a Python-esque lisp
" I'm not a Woe-man , I'm Engwish, and pwoud to be, I'm Pwince Wegent of Engwand ,Scotwand, Wales, and Irewand, oh and oh Hannover too ! ""
the Prince replies theatrically..
"H -O -L- Y , Majesty 'Holy Roman Empire', Your wholly Lombardy ancestors
are the very root, stock, and shoot of the Christian rump of the much truncated
Roman imperium in Western Europe, and their descendants are your lot,
the Imperial House of Guelph " instructs Edmund curtly..
"Yes, yes, Indeed we're a wealthy house of woyals "Prince George continues hammingly, in imitation of Palin's 'Pilate'
"G -U -E- L- P -H, pronounced Welf ,not Well-TH Majesty" instructs our Blackwater born seaman in his deep North Cork brogue..
"You descend from the great Bavarian princes Henry the Black,Henry the Lion, Henry the Proud,and Henry the Middle, Leo the Generous, and Leo the- not-so-generous Otto the Illustrious,Otto the Magnanimous, Otto the Child, Otto the Redhead, and maybe even Otto the Abdicator
Louis the Roman, Wenzel the Idle, Ernest the Confessor, Magnus the Pious, and ,Magnus the Necklace Wearer, Willie Longsword ,and Willie the Younger, Tal Albert, and Fat Albert,, amongst many other luminaries"
Nagle' further informs his royal friend of more than a dozen years .
"Whereas your enemy ,Bonaparte, not your Brunswick bride,
although 'cannoneer par excellence' and a military genius, is just
a Corsican upstart and son of a tax collector turned entrepreneur called Carlo ".
"Yes, Yes, I do have some very fine ancestors indeed,
But what we really need now is a national hero:
Someone who can Wal Lee my Wegions,
and fwow this wabble wousing impewial imposter to the fwoor"
exhorts the Prince dramatically..
From a small side table Edmund removes an imperial purple colored table cloth, and wrapping it around his royal chum's shoulders states:
"Hail Caesar!" Nagle gives a good military salute that Herman Goering would be proud of.
"Deep Purple really suits you Sire, Let's get you dressed up in some new clothes Emperor :You will be our hero
Hail George Augustus !" Edmund then adds: "What is required is a cunning battle plan , Majesty,
Failing that I hear "Old Nosey" the "Sepoy General" Arthur Wellesley, is back from Spain and is looking for a job" ends Edmund dryly.
"Spwendid Nagle, vewy cwever, but I'm afwaid juth a new thet of purple thweads aint gonna get uth outa thith difficulthy, Bonaparte hath wegions, wegimenths, and dwugoons off hith own, Those wandy Fwenchmen will fowow him to gwory or deaf,"
the Prince exclaims having seemingly, ad lib, acquired more lisps..
"As we say in Latin ' nec asperra terrent' that is to say
in the English tongue: 'Let's not be afraid of difficulties', Your Majesty,"
...and after pausing a short moment seemingly in deep thought
Edmund adds: "How about rallying your imperial legions by issuing a new medal,?
A new badge of honor for all and sundry of your erstwhile sycophants.
A Guelphic Imperial insignia, throw in a good Latin motto,
add a Holy Cross for good measure, and start rewarding your commanders
ante-bellum , that is 'before the war', kind of like a 'thanking you in anticipation of your support' sorta thing. " finishes Edmund.
"Oh Hoorah! Spwendid !" exclaims the Prince
"Now if you'll allow me a moment on your harpsichord Majesty,
I've just had an idea for a catchy tune to accompany the bestowing
of the Guelphic Cross of Hannover. Edmund pulls out a stool and opens the keyboard and begins to play.
"Now, excuse me while I kiss the sky" he concludes .
The scene closes with ' our Ned' the boy from the Blackwater's backwater,
bashing out the opening bars of Jimmy Hendrix' hit ' Purple Haze
sincerely
Jude de Angulo, Kaikohe, New Zealand
I had an idea on how a resurrection of Blackadder might begin,
Something that would address the "wokes" need for 'PC" content
and still be amusing and entertainingly informative.
It began whilst researching Clan Nagle of North Cork.
Imagine a Tony Robinson Time-Team meets Blackadder-Back & Forth.
I have begun publishing some of my findings on online forums
and of course met an expected knee jerk reaction:.
Especially in relation to the core of my thesis that Edmund Blackadder Esq.
of Blackadder the Third fame is in fact , historically, the similarly named
Edmund Nagle, of greater fame than any Nagle other than the saint
Nano Nagle herself !
There are two fan club sites online for Blackadder,
And as the booklet form of the printed word is passe.
A scholar must know their target audience and the best mode
to reach them initially.
Fortunately there are only the two online sites in English.
a fanpop and a fandom,. the latter is overseen by a strict disciplinarian and in less than three days the ability to post online has been withdrawn.
It seems no one wants to hear the truth.
These have nicely afforded me an appropriate outlet and audience .
In regard the BBCTV show of the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s
I noted the obvious connections with the plantation in Barbados,
and the irony in the admiralty, 'midshipmanly', and 'captainly 'inspired
butlers uniform that was made vogue by the admirals and equerries
who were George Augustus Frederick's closest friends,
and also were Grooms of the Bedchamber,
Especially the most famous of them all, Admiral Nagle.
As Nelson was dead 'our Edmund' was the next
most famous hero of the Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars
because of his many involvements in all three major conflicts
and because of the proximity to royalty that notoriety afforded him.
As Captain "Ned" Nagle he amused George the Third initially,
and then later his son George the Fourth.
Horatio Hornblower,an invention of the Ministry of Information's apparatik
Cecil Smith ( id est C.S.Forester) is also equally, if not more so than even Blackadder , is modeled on the life of Admiral Nagle. "Forester", writing in the wake of the Irish Free State's emergence, is not going to identify the hero
as a Roman Catholic Irishman from "Rebel Cork" who was nephew and heir of the noted Whig MP Edmund Burke
Admiral Edward Pellew, as highlighted in the Hornblower novels , was the commanding squadron leader on the day 'our Edmund' earned his first, of three, knighthoods by fighting off the much larger newly launched 70 gun
French frigate La Revolutuionaire off the coast of Brest and capturing it as a prize.
But ,let's not lose the plot: So, returning to Edmund Blackadder.
Secondarily to the admiral outfit ; there is the obvious reference to
the Plantation in Barbados that was potentially the bounty of marrying Amy Hardwood in the Amy and Amiability episode.
This is obviously the most easily discovered item about the late Admiral
as the very estate is mentioned in his Will. The slaves' transportation from Liverpool to Bridgetown was afforded by the special deals offered by the Twohy & Nagle shipping company working out of Merseyside docks.
The most famous of their captains being Jeremiah "Jerry" Nagle.aboard his two favourite commands 'Barbadian" & "Neptune" The latter ship he used to carry Irish convicts from Dublin to Sydney in 1838, after the sale and transport of slaves became no longer "PC" in Willie Wilberforce's wake.
In the same episode as Amy Hardwood, our Edmund encounters the highwayman called Shadow , who turns out to be not of the expected gender. Nagle himself is famous for relating his own anecdote on how he dealt with
a young lad with a pistol up on "Shooters Hill" when he was a passenger in the 'post-chaise', last printed in the New York Mirror
The episodes of BA3 that troubled me the most, offered the greatest rewards were the two more ominous connections with,
what is otherwise an oddly plotted series,One , The finale: Where Edmund
fights Arthur Wellesley, and the other where Edmund and Dr Samuel Johnson
come head to head over his' Dictionary.
Doctor Samuel Johnson,the lexicographer, and Joshua Reynolds, the portraitist,
are the accredited founders of the famous Literary Club, or just "The Club", that met to discuss, debate, perform, and converse upon all matters intellectual and aesthetic. It was a very exclusive club indeed, and if you didn't attend a regular meeting a member had to pay a forfeit fee to the secretary and bursar.
The details of the club's formation are obscure , but preeminence is given to Johnson & Reynolds . This however is a fiction created by the prejudices,
literary, cultural, and sectarian, of the past two hundred and fifty years.
A cursory view of the clubs formation names its original members 9 nine members as being Johnson, Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Christopher Nugent,Oliver Goldsmith, Topham Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, & Anthony Charmier.
Whilst the concept of intellectual soirees, and assemblies of the intelligentsia are part and parcel of the history of civilisation since well before Plato's "academy" , the original inspiration for such a similar gathering of aesthetes and scholars was devised by Christopher Nugent the famous doctor from Bath,
and his son-in-law Edmund Burke ( and his son Richard Burke). These three were all influenced by their regular invitations to attend the castle home of the 'gentleman-piper' and patron of the bardic arts, Garrett Nagle.
Who unsurprisingly, along with Edmund Burke, are the co-ward/co-stepfathers
of Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle, Groom of the Bedchamber for George IV.
It is no coincidence then that apart from his own lexicographic masterpiece
"The English Dictionary" Johnson , as he is portrayed in Curtis & Elton's satire, lists Edmund's (under his nom de plume) intellectual and social discourse ,
the memoirs of a butler, as his second choice in the stratosphere of literature.
Harvard University's library has letters with Johnson's signature addressed to the aforementioned Garrett Nagle, so there is evidence the two men corresponded. And , in lieu of Garrett esq. leaving his castle in Cork to attend The Club, he has as his lieutenants his three very close kinsmen Nugent
and the two Burkes.
And the final episode:Duel & Duality. Somewhat like the original series bizarro-superman version of Richard the Third by Shakespeare. This episode is Bizarro-Prince & the Pauper
A long standing family and territorial struggle existed
between the Duke of Wellington , Arthur Wellesley ( nee Wesley, nee Colley)
And Edmund "Ned" Nagle, butler to George Prince of Wales.,
It began not long after the Battle of the Boyne in1690. Even the date is in dispute
with Nagle calling it the 12th, and, the Colley-Wesley( later Wellesley)
calling it the 1st day of July.
That's important to note since the Gregorian calendar was not followed by the Protestant victors of the battle at the ford on that foggy summer's morning
130 years prior to the contest between them in King George's private rooms.
Before "Old Nosey" ( Wellington) became a famous military hero in India,
Spain, and in Belgium 1795 to 1815 he had tried his hand at politics.
As the resident rich kid of Church of Ireland parent's who very well ran the town of Trim , in Meath, Eire, Young Arthur was able to procure his way
into being the elected member of the Irish House of Commons for Trim.
As was the prerogative and inclination of his father and grandfather ,
who being on the side of the victorious "Williamites" at the Boyne ,
replaced the pre-existent proprietors and squires , the Irish Catholic
"Jacobines" families of Nagle and Tyrell.
These families having held these lands, and attended parliaments since they were granted to them by Hugh de Lacy, the leader of Henry the Second's invasion in 1171, i.e. 520years prior to the Boyne.And well attested to in the Song of Dermot and the Earl
To rub salt in the wound, if that hasn't festered enough over the previous 130 years,
Wellington further slight's Nagle, not 'our Edmund', in particular, but his family
in general by giving the credit to Major Hill, his second in command, at
his most successful triumph in India ( and by his own estimation : his great battle victory) being at Assaye, in late September 1803 in the official record.
Where in fact Major Hill was absent from the battle that day, as recorded by two other well deserving sources, and his role as "number two" to Arthur Wesley
( as he spelled his name at the time) was assumed by Edmund's cousin
Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) James Nagle.
Whereas influence in any privy council, general chiefs of staff,
or other ''war room" an ancient rivalry existed between the Army and Navy.
Sir Edmund was at George's side as confidant, friend, and valet well before Wellington was halfway across Spain, and a good ten years before Waterloo.
Competition for the King's, or Prince Regent's preferment would have been a daily battle . Napoleon rightly called Wellington the "Sepoy General", as he gained all his worthwhile experiences in India; His previous engagements in Flanders and The Netherlands after his first exit from parliament were failures.
Further, I readdressed the marriage to Amy Hardwood.
The TV show has George the Regent about to marry Amy Hardwood , supposedly the daughter of a rich industrialist, just for the money,
although she's portrayed by the stunning Miranda Richardson,
and is half the age Mary Harnage-Blackman was in 1797 when she married our hero , her second husband who she never called "Neddy".
(Not even King George IV got away with calling him "Neddy!")
George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales , was induced
by the will of Parliament to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick
in order for the government to agree to paying off many of his debts.
The marriage was an unmitigated disaster .
George arranged that at his coronation in 1821 that the Princess ,
rightfully now Queen-consort , be locked out of Westminster Abbey George's debts in toto were only recently fully paid off,
thanks always to the British taxpayer.
Edmund did marry an Heiress, and also widow of a well known
West Indian Sugar Merchant.
Her name was not quite Amy Hardwood ( an obvious 'dick-joke')
but at least the equally recognizable Mary Hardman.
Mary, unlike Amy, truly delivered a plantation in Barbados ,
it is called 'Boarded Hall' gained through loaning her son ,
(from her first marriage), Sir George Harnage ( the regularly bankrupt Director of the Bank of England) , money to pay his debts ,
mortgaged as a surety was the sugar plantation Boarded Hall in
St George's Valley ,just east of Bridgetown and the statue of Bussa the slave rebel leader,on Barbados..
Mary died in 1836 at the same address as her second husband, 'our Ed
As a conclusion, I add the opening piece I published on the wiki fandom page as all of those edits have now been "cancelled" by the "woke" brigade of internet moderators.
THE REAL EDMUND
Historians will note that the character portrayed by Atkinson is a composite of the equerry William Congreve and the Groom of the Bedchamber Edmund Nagle. Congreve , is in fact played by Robinson as the character Baldrick, assuming as he does a seat in the House of Commons via a 'rotten borough' whilst Edmund Nagle, is a renowned naval hero, being a "great favorite' of the prince of Wales(later King) . Nagle possessed plantations in Barbados called 'Boarded Hall", He had a long standing familial association and feud with the Duke of Wellington, and was also closely associated with Dr. Samuel Johnson's and the "Literary Club" he and Reynolds are incorrectly accredited with establishing, when in fact Johnson and Reynolds got the idea from Nagle's grandfather and stepfather Christopher Nugent & Edmund Burke et al . Who got the idea from Garrett Nagle , famously of Doneraile and surrounding districts.
The creation of the character, and particulars of the "life of Edmund Blackadder esq." is NOT original. There are multiple published anecdotes from the 1820s through to the 1940s in English language newspapers. especially those with an Irish Catholic diaspora like New York and Sydney.. Anecdotes that portray Nagle capturing a youthful Highwayman.And rescuing a shipmate from the jaws of a shark
Nagle is also noted as amusing the Prince's father George III with his Hibernian jokes and stories of naval warfare during' the great age of sail'..
In anecdotal reports contemporary to the late Regency Period , Nagle is often described as possessing a curt, blunt, and no-nonsense personality and possessed a rollicking wit that enamored him to the Prince and to both the Georges III & IV..
and lastly...."hurrah !.".
a scene from the TV show I imagined watching
THE MISSING EPISODE
Act 3 Scene 1
High above London, a flash of purple lightning in a clear night sky..
HRH's Private Suite. Carlton House ,
St. James SW1.
The Prince Regent standing , center stage, arms akimbo,
admiring his recently installed
gilded eagle-motifs in his drawing- room's four corners.
Enter, stage right, ,HRH's 'great favorite' Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle RN KB KCB GCH
"Oh Nagle , you're just in time to help me plan my Easter party, Hoorah !
What do you think of my eagles, aye ?" begins George Augustus , Regent .
"Your Majesty, the eagle is the preferred image used by your enemy!"
states the admiral, 'our Edmund' bluntly.
"Oh, nonsense admiral, Princess Caroline hates eagles" retorts the Prince.
"I meant Napoleon, not your wife ,Majesty" counters Edmund.
"Ha! What do we care about that Bonaparte fellow anyway,
he's on a remote rock in the middle of the Med ?" asks the Prince rhetorically.
"No he isn't , He's escaped, Majesty,
And at this very moment back on the Continent raising an army,
Paris is expected to surrender before the week is out,
King Louis XVIII has already fled, All of Europe is again in an uproar" replied Edmund .
"Oh dear, So, that's a 'no' to the eagles then is it?" Asks the Prince earnestly.
"Napoleon sees himself as Emperor of Europe, however you are
the true heir to the Holy Roman Empire , Majesty" Nagle continues.
"I'm wholly German, Nagle, " the Prince assumes an exaggerated thespian pose and acquires a Python-esque lisp
" I'm not a Woe-man , I'm Engwish, and pwoud to be, I'm Pwince Wegent of Engwand ,Scotwand, Wales, and Irewand, oh and oh Hannover too ! ""
the Prince replies theatrically..
"H -O -L- Y , Majesty 'Holy Roman Empire', Your wholly Lombardy ancestors
are the very root, stock, and shoot of the Christian rump of the much truncated
Roman imperium in Western Europe, and their descendants are your lot,
the Imperial House of Guelph " instructs Edmund curtly..
"Yes, yes, Indeed we're a wealthy house of woyals "Prince George continues hammingly, in imitation of Palin's 'Pilate'
"G -U -E- L- P -H, pronounced Welf ,not Well-TH Majesty" instructs our Blackwater born seaman in his deep North Cork brogue..
"You descend from the great Bavarian princes Henry the Black,Henry the Lion, Henry the Proud,and Henry the Middle, Leo the Generous, and Leo the- not-so-generous Otto the Illustrious,Otto the Magnanimous, Otto the Child, Otto the Redhead, and maybe even Otto the Abdicator
Louis the Roman, Wenzel the Idle, Ernest the Confessor, Magnus the Pious, and ,Magnus the Necklace Wearer, Willie Longsword ,and Willie the Younger, Tal Albert, and Fat Albert,, amongst many other luminaries"
Nagle' further informs his royal friend of more than a dozen years .
"Whereas your enemy ,Bonaparte, not your Brunswick bride,
although 'cannoneer par excellence' and a military genius, is just
a Corsican upstart and son of a tax collector turned entrepreneur called Carlo ".
"Yes, Yes, I do have some very fine ancestors indeed,
But what we really need now is a national hero:
Someone who can Wal Lee my Wegions,
and fwow this wabble wousing impewial imposter to the fwoor"
exhorts the Prince dramatically..
From a small side table Edmund removes an imperial purple colored table cloth, and wrapping it around his royal chum's shoulders states:
"Hail Caesar!" Nagle gives a good military salute that Herman Goering would be proud of.
"Deep Purple really suits you Sire, Let's get you dressed up in some new clothes Emperor :You will be our hero
Hail George Augustus !" Edmund then adds: "What is required is a cunning battle plan , Majesty,
Failing that I hear "Old Nosey" the "Sepoy General" Arthur Wellesley, is back from Spain and is looking for a job" ends Edmund dryly.
"Spwendid Nagle, vewy cwever, but I'm afwaid juth a new thet of purple thweads aint gonna get uth outa thith difficulthy, Bonaparte hath wegions, wegimenths, and dwugoons off hith own, Those wandy Fwenchmen will fowow him to gwory or deaf,"
the Prince exclaims having seemingly, ad lib, acquired more lisps..
"As we say in Latin ' nec asperra terrent' that is to say
in the English tongue: 'Let's not be afraid of difficulties', Your Majesty,"
...and after pausing a short moment seemingly in deep thought
Edmund adds: "How about rallying your imperial legions by issuing a new medal,?
A new badge of honor for all and sundry of your erstwhile sycophants.
A Guelphic Imperial insignia, throw in a good Latin motto,
add a Holy Cross for good measure, and start rewarding your commanders
ante-bellum , that is 'before the war', kind of like a 'thanking you in anticipation of your support' sorta thing. " finishes Edmund.
"Oh Hoorah! Spwendid !" exclaims the Prince
"Now if you'll allow me a moment on your harpsichord Majesty,
I've just had an idea for a catchy tune to accompany the bestowing
of the Guelphic Cross of Hannover. Edmund pulls out a stool and opens the keyboard and begins to play.
"Now, excuse me while I kiss the sky" he concludes .
The scene closes with ' our Ned' the boy from the Blackwater's backwater,
bashing out the opening bars of Jimmy Hendrix' hit ' Purple Haze
sincerely
Jude de Angulo, Kaikohe, New Zealand
1106/2021 Towards Sir Rowan Atkinson filming project "The Magic Flute":
R.A. San and Olice simultaneously made another sip. Miagi came into the parlour where they relaxed having a glass of the same German red:
- Would you like some, Miagi?
- That is most kind of you, R.A. San! Red wine is so good for your heart muscle!
Then Miagi frowned:
- Olice is Russian!
- No, she is not, - said R.A. San, - she is BBC One and BBC Two.
- I heard that Olice went barely alive out of the Rabbit Hole where she was watching Chess play...
- Some Snake decided to murder her there with electromagnetic poison...Only she wrote her Invoice to BBC - the Rats had started pulling her back into the Rabbit Hole...
- What would you say Olice?
- True, true!
R.A. San and Olice simultaneously made another sip. Miagi came into the parlour where they relaxed having a glass of the same German red:
- Would you like some, Miagi?
- That is most kind of you, R.A. San! Red wine is so good for your heart muscle!
Then Miagi frowned:
- Olice is Russian!
- No, she is not, - said R.A. San, - she is BBC One and BBC Two.
- I heard that Olice went barely alive out of the Rabbit Hole where she was watching Chess play...
- Some Snake decided to murder her there with electromagnetic poison...Only she wrote her Invoice to BBC - the Rats had started pulling her back into the Rabbit Hole...
- What would you say Olice?
- True, true!