Beau Brocade
Encyclopedia
Beau Brocade is a 1907 novel written by Baroness Orczy
Baroness Orczy
Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi was a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin. She was most notable for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel...

 and was followed by the play of the same name in 1908. It was adapted as a silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 Beau Brocade
Beau Brocade (film)
Beau Brocade is a 1916 British silent adventure film directed by Thomas Bentley and starring Mercy Hatton, Charles Rock and Austin Leigh. In eighteenth century Britain a disgraced gentlemen becomes a highwaymen...

in 1916. The Ballad of Beau Brocade, was an 1892 poem by English Poet Henry Austin Dobson
Henry Austin Dobson
Henry Austin Dobson , commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist.-Life:He was born at Plymouth, the eldest son of George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, of French descent. When he was about eight, the family moved to Holyhead, and his first school was at Beaumaris in Anglesey...

.

Plot summary

After their recent defeat, the hamlets and villages of Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

 are no longer ringing with the wild shouts of Bonny Prince Charlie's Highland Brigade
Highland Brigade
Highland Brigade is the name of several military units:* Highland Brigade , a historical unit of the British Army, which has been formed a number of times...

; instead troops loyal to King George
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...

 are looking for those accused of high treason and are offering a reward of twenty guineas for the death of any traitor or rebel.

Philip James Gascoyne, eleventh Earl of Stretton, is in hiding, in fear for his life after being wrongly accused by Sir Humphrey Challoner of being a traitor to the King.

For months Philip has been a fugitive, disguised in rough clothes and hiding in odd places, trusting no-one, but now he has been given shelter and a cover by honest John Stitch, the local blacksmith, and is pretending to be his nephew while trying to get a note to his sister, the beautiful Lady Patience Gascoyne.

John Stich is also friends with the notorious Beau Brocade, a masked highway man who roams the moors holding up coaches so he can steal from the rich and give to the poor. Beau Brocade is actually Captain Jack Bathurst of His Majesty's White Dragoons, a handsome but tragic figure on whose head the Government has put the price of a hundred guineas.

The blacksmith gets Beau Brocade to deliver a letter from Philip to his sister and a couple of days later she turns up at his forge in her coach. Reunited with his beloved sister, Philip gives Patience a packet of letters which prove his innocence and asks her to take them to London and clear his name.

Just as they are discussing when she can leave, they spot Sir Humphrey's coach in the distance, Philip goes back into hiding while Patience heads towards the inn in Aldwark village to get a couple of hours rest for herself and the horses before starting the journey to London.

External links

  • "The Ballad of Beau Brocade" at Open Library
    Open Library
    Open Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...

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