Ivanhoe

CHAPTER XXXIV

1 (p. 342) epigraph: The lines are from Shakespeare’s King John (act 3, scene 3).

2 (p. 343) Ahithophel: Ahithophel was a co-conspirator with Absalom against his father, King David, in the Bible, 2 Samuel 15-17.

3 (p. 344) bloody … with speed: The quotation, slightly altered, is from Shakespeare’s Richard II (act 2, scene 3) .

4 (p. 348) Thomas-a-Becket … stained the steps of his own altar: The most notorious event of Henry II’s largely beneficent reign was the murder, at his suggestion, of his erstwhile friend Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. After Thomas’s elevation to sainthood three years later, Canterbury Cathedral, site of the killing, became a destination for pilgrims and is perhaps the most famous of England’s holy places. Waldemar Fitzurse, Prince John’s counselor in Ivanhoe, is a fictional son of one of Thomas’s murderers, Reginald Fitzurse.

5 (p. 348) Tracy, Morville, Brito: [Author’s note] Slayers of Becket. Reginald Fitzurse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Brito were the gentlemen of Henry the Second’s household who, instigated by some passionate expressions of their sovereign, slew the celebrated Thomas-a-Becket.