The Children of the New Forest
The
Children of the New Forest
is a children's novel published in 1847 by Frederick
Marryat. It is set in the time of the English
Civil War and the Commonwealth.
The story follows the fortunes of the four Beverley children who are orphaned
during the war, and hide from their Roundhead oppressors in the shelter of the New
Forest where they learn to live off the
land.
Plot summary
The
story begins in 1647 when King Charles I
has been defeated in the civil
war and has fled from London towards
the New
Forest. Parliamentary
soldiers have been sent to search the forest
and decide to burn Arnwood, the house of Colonel Beverley, a Cavalier officer killed at the Battle
of Naseby. The four orphan children of the
house, Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith, are believed to have died in the
flames. However, they are saved by Jacob Armitage, a local verderer,
who hides them in his isolated cottage and disguises them as his grandchildren.
Under
Armitage's guidance, the children adapt from an aristocratic lifestyle to that
of simple foresters. After Armitage's death, Edward takes charge and the
children develop and expand the farmstead, aided by the entrepreneurial spirit
of the younger brother Humphrey. They are assisted by a gypsy boy, Pablo, whom they rescue from a pitfall
trap. A sub-plot involves a hostile Puritan gamekeeper named Corbould who seeks to harm Edward and his
family. Edward also encounters the sympathetic Puritan, Heatherstone, placed in
charge of the Royal land in the New Forest, and rescues his daughter, Patience,
in a house-fire. Edward leaves the cottage and works as a secretary for
Heatherstone, but Edward maintains the pretence that he is the grandson of
Jacob Armitage.
Edward
eventually joins the army of the future King Charles II,
but after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Worcester,
he returns to the New Forest where he learns that Heatherstone has been awarded
the old Arnwood estate. Disillusioned by this, and by Patience's apparent
rejection of his declarations of love, Edward flees to France. His sisters are
sent away to be brought up as aristocratic ladies and his brother continues to
live in the New Forest. Edward learns that Patience does, in fact, love him,
and that Heatherstone had acquired the Arnwood estate for Edward, but he works
as a mercenary soldier
in exile until the Restoration
when they are reunited.
Setting
The
Children of the New Forest was
written during Marryat's years of retirement in Norfolk, and it was his last novel published during his lifetime.
Marryat would sometimes travel to Hampshire to stay at his brother George's country house, Chewton
Glen (now a five
star hotel), on the edge of the New
Forest.[1] It was here that he gathered material for his novel, which
is set in and around the real-life manor of Arnewood (spelled without the
"e" in Marryat's novel) just south of the village of Sway.[2][3] Three miles east of Arnewood is the coastal town of Lymington which also features in Marryat's novel.[2]
Themes
The
story is centred on the four Beverley children who learn to survive on their
own in the forest, and is particularly focused on the maturing of Edward
Beverley as the rather rash, eldest teenager.[4] It celebrates the ideals of chivalry and bravery, tempered
by modesty.[5] The four children in the novel eventually become ideal
models of manhood and womanhood, and even the gypsy boy Pablo is tamed into their
civilising ways.[6] The appearance of Pablo in the novel reflects the fact that
Romani people
were a common sight in the New Forest in the 19th century, and the association
of gypsies with the New Forest was familiar in the Victorian imagination.[7]
Marryat
had rather conservative political opinions,[8]
and his story favours the Royalist cause, following the fortunes of the children of a Royalist
officer.[9] However, one of the story's major characters is a
sympathetically portrayed Roundhead named Heatherstone, the Intendant given the task of
managing the Forest lands.[9] Marryat had been wounded several times in his naval career;
he understood the nature of war and makes clear his hostility to extremists on
both sides.[10] He suggests that good governance lies somewhere between King Charles's
insistence on the divine right of kings and Parliament's unjustifiable execution of him.[6] The homecoming and reconciliation at the end of the story
are deliberately associated with the restoration of the monarchy.[11] This message about reconciliation in 17th-century England
reflects the fact that he wrote the novel during the political chaos of the
1840s when the Chartists
were urging political reform in Britain, and shortly before the Revolutions of 1848
erupted across Europe.[10]
Legacy
The
Children of the New Forest was one
of the first historical novels written for a young audience,[12] and the first such novel which has endured.[4] It was particularly successful in fixing the image of the English
Civil War as a quarrel of opposites, with
dour Roundheads versus swashbuckling Cavaliers.[13]
Adaptations
The
BBC has adapted the novel four times for television. These
series were first shown in 1955 (5 episodes),[14] 1964 (6 episodes),[15] 1977 (5 episodes),[16] and 1998 (6 episodes).[17]
The
1998 series had a major departure from the original plot. Craig Kelly
starred as the villainous preacher Reverend Abel Corbould who was obsessed with
capturing and executing the Beverley family. He also pursued a romantic
relationship with Heatherstone's daughter Patience, but to no avail. Edward
Beverley and Corbould had a final confrontation at a watermill in the forest, which ended with Edward pushing Corbould
over the side of the wooden railings and onto the water wheel, dragging the
evil preacher down and under the water, drowning him.
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