The Sparrowhawk Companion (3 page)

In contrast, Jack Frake is just as settled in his conviction that many men do not respond to reasoned principles but act inconsistently and often blindly according to whim, fear, or the irrational desire for advantage and power over others. Though Jack appreciates Hugh’s ambition to persuade his fellow burgesses and Parliament, and later even pens an argument of his own that Sir Dogmael Jones borrows to address Parliament, Jack never relinquishes the central conviction in his mind: that reconciliation is not possible between free men and those who wish to enslave and control other men. He knows that for other men “to recognize the nature of the coming clash, to know as well as he did that there was no fundamental
rapprochement
possible between the colonies and England, these men, many of them his close friends, would need to cast off the irrelevant sentiment of filial association, if they were ever to become men of their own making ….”

Jack’s greatness as a character results from his commitment to rationality and his refusal to subordinate a logical appraisal of the facts to anyone’s subjective desires, including his own:

In
Sparrowhawk
, the central conflict is seen, not in the struggle between the colonies and England, but in the relationship between Jack and Hugh, two virtuous men pursuing rational values. Though on different roads to their destination, Jack and Hugh recognize the same spirit and soul in one another. For Jack, Hugh is “a self that would never submit to malign authority; a self that was sensitive to the machinations of others, a self trained in the brittle, lacerating society of the aristocracy to be on guard against sly encroachments; a self that was proof against corruption, sloth, and violence; a self that recognized and cherished itself, and so was proud; a self that quietly gloried in its own unobstructed and unconquered existence. A self very much like his own.”

In
Sparrowhawk
, Cline portrays his heroes with a consistent emphasis on values in action. Each plot event is related to the characters’ moral values, and the plot is tightly structured upon the characters’ pursuit of their values. Absent in
Sparrowhawk
are pointless plot digressions unrelated to the story’s major themes or “humanizing” touches of characterization that detract from the heroes’ moral stature. As fictional characters, Jack and Hugh achieve a compelling reality through Cline’s focus on the chosen moral values that shape his characters’ minds and motivate their actions. The portrayal of free will, rationality, moral grandeur, and the integrity of the heroes’ souls convince readers that Jack and Hugh indeed represent what is possible to all men.

by Nicholas Provenzo

The value of tragedy in romantic literature rests in its ability to illustrate a warning:
Do not choose this—avoid this path
. In
Sparrowhawk Book Six: War
, novelist Edward Cline presents his readers with the tragic death of British Army Captain Roger Tallmadge during the battle of Bunker Hill. Tallmadge’s death at the hands of
Sparrowhawk
hero Jack Frake is lamentable in that Cline presents Tallmadge as an upright and moral man, yet a man without sufficient vision to boldly and consistently break free of the chains of tyranny that shackle him, as well as the American colonists. Cline presents Tallmadge as dying in the very service of the forces that ensnare him.

To fully appreciate the intricacies of Tallmadge’s tragedy, we must first establish who he is in relationship to
Sparrowhawk
’s main characters. The neighbor of Hugh Kenrick’s family in England, Tallmadge is married to Hugh’s sister Alice, and he thinks of Hugh as an elder brother and moral exemplar. To Hugh, Tallmadge represents Kenrick’s affinity for his home country—an affinity strained by the crown’s ruthless mistreatment of the American colonists and of Hugh’s martyred Pippins—yet an affinity that exists nevertheless. In fact, Tallmadge’s virtue and sympathy for the plight of the American colonists helps buoy Hugh’s hopes for a possible reconciliation between the colonists and a more civil England.

Tallmadge serves as an artillery officer in the British Army, seeing both combat and attaché duty in Europe, and he faithfully discharges his responsibilities. He is entrusted with the important mission of reconnoitering the American colonies and reporting the state of the colonists’ political sentiments and military readiness to his commander General Gage. When visiting Hugh’s plantation in Virginia, Tallmadge joins him in drawing swords and preventing the looting of Jack Frake’s Morland Hall by arch villain Jared Hunt and his gang of customs men and Royal Marines.

In such instances, Cline presents Tallmadge as acting valiantly in defense of the good, yet in a political and moral universe such as Tallmadge’s, his good deeds cannot go unpunished. He is betrayed by his jealous and scheming subordinate, along with Jared Hunt and his allies, and his treason in Virginia is revealed to General Gage. Hoping to leave military service and return to England and a seat in Parliament, Tallmadge is instead ordered by a magnanimous General Gage to remain in the colonies for another year rather than face the disgrace of certain court-martial in England.

It is at this time that Tallmadge places his tin gorget, a gift from Hugh inscribed with the words “A Paladin for Liberty,” at the bottom of his baggage, a poignant metaphor for his future actions. Tallmadge prepares his men for the inevitable clash with the American colonists and witnesses the British retreat from Lexington and Concord. Tallmadge writes to Hugh of his experiences, and these letters serve to contrast Tallmadge’s own mixed feelings over the injustice of the brewing conflict with his recognition of the grimly determined colonial spirit, as portrayed through his haunting, yet admiring account of a mortally wounded colonial militiaman spitting his last breath in contempt against his would-be overlords at Lexington Green.

Clearly Tallmadge does not want to engage the colonists in battle. He again expresses to Hugh in his letter that he wishes he would be relieved of his command and allowed to return to England, where he believes he can press for the colonial cause in Parliament. And thus it is here where Tallmadge’s choices turn tragic. The time for speaking has long ended; there is no one in power in England willing to even listen to
the colonists’ grievances, let alone willing to work to correct them. The machinations of ruthless men have deprived the colonists of their wealth, their freedom, and even the vague pretense that they enjoy the rights of Englishmen.

Worse for Tallmadge, it is precisely his virtues that are exploited for the purpose of subjugating the colonists. His efficacy as a commander, the loyalty he earns from his men, his level head and gallantry under fire are all used in furtherance of a purpose that he does not support. His life is placed in peril, yet he refuses to resign his commission or even acknowledge the possibility of such a choice. It is this failure to act that ultimately costs Tallmadge his life.

As Tallmadge and the redcoats stand upon one end of the battlefield of Bunker Hill, Jack Frake and his company of independent Virginia militiamen stand upon the other. In the contest between these two forces, Frake fires his musket at Tallmadge (whom he does not recognize until after his shot has been fired), striking dead this man who had once saved his home, dined at his table, and had been described as a man of honor by none other than Frake himself. Frake is not a man who sought to kill any Briton, but as one who realizes that their choices made it necessary. Frake’s internal questioning of his actions are short-lived, for he recognizes that Tallmadge willingly allowed himself to be placed between the colonists and their right to their lives, and that such a choice could be paid for only with Tallmadge’s own life.

Thus the tragedy of Roger Tallmadge reveals itself to be the tragedy of the half-fought battle—an internal conflict within a man who acts boldly when evil exists clearly before his eyes, yet who is unable to apply the same principles that initially compelled him to act upon broader and more abstract conflicts. Why would Tallmadge risk himself and his career in order to save Jack Frake’s home, only to dutifully serve with the forces that fought to attack all of the colonists’ homes—and threaten the colonists’ very lives? What mental error permits a man to willingly sacrifice himself in such a grotesque manner? As Frake coldly observes when he reports Tallmadge’s death to a distraught Hugh Kenrick, “[Tallmadge] couldn’t both sympathize with [the colonists’] cause, and help to crush it, too.”

Jack states a fact about Tallmadge which Hugh cannot ignore: “He was there.”

At root, Tallmadge’s error lay with his failure to grasp the true meaning of the American Revolution and apply its maxims to his own life. As Cline notes through the wisdom of his hero Hugh Kenrick, “One owns one’s own life; it is a thing that was never theirs to grant or give, covet, own, or expend; it is a thing never to be granted or surrendered to others, regardless of their number or purpose.” And as Cline, through Hugh Kenrick observes, “That truth is the source of all the great things possible in life.” Had Tallmadge taken full ownership of his own life, he would not have allowed its course to be piloted by those whose values and aims he did not share. Even if he would have still met death in the process, he would met death as a free and independent man, and not the mere pawn of others. For all his intelligence, virtue, and courage, Tallmadge ultimately stood disarmed against his real opponents. For this, he only had himself to blame.

It may be tempting for some today to look upon the tragedy of Roger Tallmadge with the knowledge of the colonists’ ultimate victory and blithely claim that they would never make such an error; that each of us would choose to act consistently in support of their freedom. It is the sad tenor of our times though that men and women bestowed with the birthright of freedom nevertheless willingly sacrifice their freedom, property, and very lives to lesser opponents than the founding patriots knew when facing down the power of the British Empire.

And thus the same question John Proudlocks asks a mournful Hugh Kenrick can just as easily be asked of us: “Between Jack and Captain Tallmadge, which man would you choose as a greater sibling in spirit to you?”

by Edward Cline

This essay is included with the confidence that it will not spoil a reader’s enjoyment of the
Sparrowhawk
novels if he has not yet read any of them; there are a number of “plot spoilers” in it, none of them key. Those who have read the series, however, have often wondered how and why I undertook the writing of this epic. I have never been reluctant to discuss those matters and welcomed the opportunity to put my answers on record.

Other readers, sensing the difference between
Sparrowhawk
and most contemporary literature and other American historical novels set in this period, have expressed surprised and pleased astonishment that it ever saw the light of day, but could not express the difference. That is one of the tasks of this essay, to identify the difference. I will say here that I had not expected
Sparrowhawk
to see daylight, at least not in my lifetime. Fortunately, against all the odds and against all the advice and wisdom of undertaking such a project, the series found a champion in its publisher, David Poindexter, founder of MacAdam/Cage and a restless rebel in his own right. The story goes that after he had finished reading the manuscript of
Book One: Jack Frake
, and knowing that I was at work on
Book Four: Empire
, and that I had two more titles in the series to complete, he wrote on top of his reader’s report: PUBLISH.

* * *

Where does
Sparrowhawk
fall in the literary scheme of things? Is it a Romantic novel? A historical novel? Or perhaps a combination of both genres? Let me briefly examine these questions.

“Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition,” wrote Ayn Rand in 1969.
¹
In 1968, she wrote, “Romanticism is the
conceptual
school of art. It deals, not with the random trivia of the day, but with timeless, fundamental, universal problems and
values
of human existence. It does not record or photograph; it creates and projects.”
²

In
Ayn Rand Answers
, she explains the difference between Romanticism and Romantic Realism. “My school of writing is romantic realism: ‘romantic’ in that I present man as he ought to be; ‘realistic’ in that I place men here and now on this earth, in terms applicable to every rational reader who shares these values and wants to apply them to himself. It is realistic in that it projects man and values as they ought to be, not as statistical averages.”
³

Again, in “What is Romanticism?” Rand dwells on the necessity of volition and moral values in Romantic fiction: “The events in their plots are shaped, determined and motivated by the characters’ values (or treason to values), by their struggle in pursuit of spiritual goals, and by profound conflicts.”
⁴