Quentin Durward

Walter Scott (1771–1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, and playwright. Although he was an advocate and legal administrator by profession, Scott is most famous for his great literary works and activities in the Royal Highland Society. Set in medieval times, the plot of the historical novel “Quentin Durward” revolves around the rivalry between King of France Louis XI and his vassal Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold. To weaken his subject, Louis secretly incites the cities of Ghent, Liege, and Malin to revolt against Charles, their lord. Thanks to these machinations, the lives of many people, including the protagonist Quentin Durward, Scottish nobleman and the archer of the army of the King, are dependent on a political game that has no end.

The latter part of the fifteenth century prepared a train of future events that ended by raising France to that state of formidable power which has ever since been from time to time the principal object of jealousy to the other European nations. Before that period she had to struggle for her very existence with the English already possessed of her fairest provinces while the utmost exertions of her King, and the gallantry of her people, could scarcely protect the remainder from a foreign yoke. Nor was this her sole danger. The princes who possessed the grand fiefs of the crown, and, in particular, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, had come to wear their feudal bonds so lightly that they had no scruple in lifting the standard against their liege and sovereign lord, the King of France, on the slightest pretence. When at peace, they reigned as absolute princes in their own provinces; and the House of Burgundy, possessed of the district so called, together with the fairest and richest part of Flanders, was itself so wealthy, and so powerful, as to yield nothing to the crown, either in splendor or in strength. assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest excesses of fantastic oppression and cruelty... -- Sir Walter Scott

This eBook edition of "Quentin Durward" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Quentin Durward is an archer who has left behind poverty in Scotland to join the Archers of the French King Louis's Scottish Guard and finds him-self involved in the medieval rivalry between Louis XI of France and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. The conflict starts when Louis incites the citizens of Liège to revolt against Charles, and they murder Charles's brother-in-law, under the command of the bandit-captain William de la Marck. In the meantime, the Burgundian heiress Isabelle de Croye takes refuge at Louis's court, but Louis betrays her and decides to give her hand in marriage to the bandit-captain de la Marck. Quentin is appointed to be her personal guard on the journey to Flanders, and he is determined to prevent the treachery and earn the lady's love.