on ‘The hawthorn tree’ (or, this is not your Return of the King)

[regshoe]

Originally posted here on Tumblr.

Chapter 67, ‘The hawthorn tree’, is my favourite part of the book (narrowly beating chapters 45 and 68), for several reasons. There’s the obvious one, the beautiful writing of the scene in its little details, the trivial (he turns the bullet into a lapwing!), and everything to do with Childermass, but this post is about the more substantial reason.  I’ve written a little about this general point before, but I think it bears expanding on a bit: John Uskglass returns to England and this is how he does it.

Ever since he left England in 1434 the people (of the North, but all of them, really) have not forgotten him. They write folk songs about him, and tell silly irreverent stories where a humble charcoal burner gets the better of him, and consider his banner a sign of good luck, and paint him into murals on the walls of Windsor Castle. And they expect him, some day, to return. Childermass says that, as a North Englishman, ‘it is what I have wished for all my life’, and I think we can assume that this feeling is general. Uskglass is associated with the Johannites, a group of Northern English machine-breakers who paint the Raven-in-Flight on the walls of destroyed mills and who believe that the return of their King is imminent. He will come back to Newcastle to rule, drive away the forces that oppress them, return Northern England to its mediaeval glory. The Johannites cause a bit of trouble for the Southern English government, who certainly seem to take their predictions seriously: the return of John Uskglass is considered a real possibility.

Not only is it a real possibility for the characters, it’s foreshadowed to the reader throughout the book. From the very beginning we see the Raven King on his dark throne in the shadows, referred to by the characters and the narrator as a part of the novel’s invented history, and as the references build up and gradually reveal more information it slowly becomes clear to us just how important he is and will be to this story (or so we think). The prophecy makes things fairly obvious:

The rain shall make a door for me and I shall pass through it;
The stones shall make a throne for me and I shall sit upon it...
The nameless slave shall wear a silver crown;
The nameless slave shall be a king in a strange country...

It’s a familiar story in myth and fantasy: the return of the true King, the re-establishment of the old right order, the happy ending.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is not that story. After the best part of four hundred years and a thousand pages, John Uskglass does indeed return, and it is this: quiet, unobtrusive, introduced without fanfare or the trappings of a climactic moment in the story. He is not named—of course he isn’t named—but simply described as a ‘pale, thin, poetical-looking person’, explicitly looking unlike a gentleman, ‘uncouth’ and compared to ‘a Methodist preacher or a Romantic poet’. His arrival is witnessed by only one person, who he prevents from recognising him or from remembering what happens. Make no mistake: England still belongs to him—‘England was given to me to be mine forever’, and he says so when Childermass asks—but he will not return as its triumphant king.

Having effected the restoration of magic to the land, which he does through elegant if convoluted means that entirely obscure his own part in the effort to everyone except Vinculus, he leaves. Those lines in the prophecy that seemed to be foretelling his return as king are actually about Stephen, who at the same time becomes king in another strange country.

Strange & Norrell is a story that asks who ought to have power: over magic, over the land, over people. The actual government of England and the existing structure of English magic are questioned, as are both the opposing views of magic set up by the protagonists. It would be easy to conclude that John Uskglass, the Rightful King of myth and memory, is the correct answer to this question, but not so. The magic that returns at the end of the book is not centred around any king, but returns to everyone else—to Stephen, to Childermass, to Emma, to the new magicians of York—the power over their own story.

Tags: so i don't actually think that uskglass is no longer the king of english magic at the end of the book, he is and will be forever, but i do think he acts to end the dependence of magic on his presence, straying into speculation: he wants to stay away but still remembers england, and when things have gone wrong in his absence quietly sets them right again, and ensures they'll be alright from now on

Comments

[sovay]

After the best part of four hundred years and a thousand pages, John Uskglass does indeed return, and it is this: quiet, unobtrusive, introduced without fanfare or the trappings of a climactic moment in the story. He is not named—of course he isn’t named—but simply described as a ‘pale, thin, poetical-looking person’, explicitly looking unlike a gentleman, ‘uncouth’ and compared to ‘a Methodist preacher or a Romantic poet’.

The appearance of the Raven King is one of my favorite things about the novel and one of my least favorite things about the 2015 BBC adaptation.

[edit] I see that this crosspost originally dates from 2017; all I can say is that it just showed up on my reading page now.

[regshoe]

(Whoops, I had failed to appreciate that backdated posts would show up on chronological reading pages by actual posting date. I meant not to spam people with my crossposting, but comments are welcome regardless!)

Anyway—I totally agree. Argh, that adaptation caused me a lot of pain by how thoroughly it missed the point of the book—in this scene and the general handling of John Uskglass, and most especially in what it did to Stephen, about whom I also agree with what you say in that review. Thanks for the link!

[sovay]

I meant not to spam people with my crossposting, but comments are welcome regardless!

No worries! I was concerned they were an imposition.

Thanks for the link!

You're welcome! I enjoyed the adaptation very much right up until it failed to stick the landing, at which point I yelled about it on the internet.