In my last post on the subject of Ivanhoe, I wrote about how female characters (especially if there’s only two in any given project) are inevitably used as narrative foils to one another, whether it’s in the role of love interest, the embodiment of womanhood, or just in general. Sometimes it’s deliberately done by the writer, though often the audience does the comparative work on their own. After all, what’s even the point of having more than one female character if we can’t unfavourably contrast one with the other?
And the binaries these women inhabit are very often based on the fact they’re women. We’ve got the Madonna and the Whore, the Good Girl and the Bad Girl, the Dark and Light Feminine, Betty and Veronica, the Tomboy and the Girly Girl – I could go on.
For example, MGM’s latest take on Robin Hood has a pretty clear-cut Madonna/Whore dynamic (albeit with a degree of nuance) at work with Marian and original character Priscilla. Marian is virginal and sweet-natured, while Priscilla is a sexually active manipulator. The show also introduces a third type: Ralph, a girl living rough in the forest in the guise of a boy, who is obviously much more tomboyish than either Marian or Priscilla, and who makes up the third point of a love triangle with Robin. That each woman exists as a direct contrast to the other two is very deliberate.
But now I want to take a closer look at Rowena and Rebecca as they exist within Walter Scott’s novel, and then William Makepeace Thackery’s parody Rebecca and Rowena. The point that fascinates me is that they are very seldom compared to each other in Scott’s original text, but Thackery’s treatment of each character is a quintessential case of how fandom (or audiences in general) is predisposed to judge women by pitting them against one another.
And in a way it’s a shame, as Scott’s text invites no such treatment of them.
Ivanhoe was first published by Sir Walter Scott in 1819, released in three successive volumes. As you’d expect from a book written at this time, there is a limited number of female characters, though Ivanhoe is notable for having more than one in what is otherwise a completely male-centric story, and for those two women to avoid many of the stereotypes that ensnare so many other fictional representations of the fairer sex at this point in time.
Rebecca in particular is a sympathetic and three-dimensional portrayal of a woman belonging to a marginalized group who is allowed to remain true to her ideals and her faith, at a time in which a “happier” (and more expected) ending for her character would be to convert to Christianity, à la Jessica in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
In fact, most of the negative stereotyping of the lead female characters is the work of fandom. Readers are constantly comparing and contrasting Rebecca and Rowena unfavourably with each other, though they’re never overtly pitted against each other in the text itself – in fact, they only meet twice, despite being aware of each other to varying extents. Any competition between them exists only in the minds of the readership.
But it’s understandable that such a competition emerges. It’s always bemusing to see perfect examples of certain tropes in existence many, many years before said tropes are named and defined, and Rebecca/Rowena, in how they’re characterized and compared with each other, are a quintessential Betty and Veronica – over one hundred and twenty years before the namesakes of that particular appellation even existed. (What’s more, Rowena’s “canonical endgame” relationship with Ivanhoe made her the target of one of the earliest Die For Our Ship campaigns in history, whilst Rebecca and Ivanhoe have long since been the Fan Preferred Couple, but we’ll get to that in good time).
More than any other feminine dichotomy defined on TV Tropes, it is Betty and Veronica that best fits the depiction of Rebecca and Rowena – more so than Good Girl/Bad Girl, or Tomboy and Girly Girl, or the Madonna/Whore Complex. They’re both virtuous women, neither are tomboyish, and though there’s an argument for Rowena being the Light to Rebecca’s Dark Feminine, it really only applies to their hair colour. Clearly Betty and Veronica are the best fit, with Rowena as the fair-headed Childhood Sweetheart and Girl Next Door, and Rebecca as the more mysterious and “exotic” Veronica.
But let’s be frank: there is no question that of the two characters, Rebecca the Jewess is infinitely more interesting and appealing than Rowena the Saxon. Not only is her storyline more compelling, in which she’s taken hostage by Byronic Anti-Hero Brian de Bois-Guilbert (another character who predates the trope he embodies so perfectly) but she saves the life of the protagonist with her healing prowess, has her faith tested, holds fast to her integrity in the face of death, and pines in unrequited love for our hero.
(Rowena is also captured, but her ordeal amounts to crying in a locked room until she’s rescued, after which she spends the rest of the book somewhere else entirely until the final few chapters).
Rebecca is the more interesting, and therefore better, character. To say that is not to pit the female characters against each other, but to simply state a fact.
But I’m also someone who usually feels the need to defend the less-popular female character in any given text, and the truth is that there’s nothing wrong with Rowena. She’s just the standard Princess Classic and Standard Hero Reward that you’d expect in a book of this nature. I always sympathize with the underdog in fandom, so I’m mounting a defence for Rowena – at least, as far as the text allows me to.
***
Ivanhoe introduces the two female leads quite differently, and in such a way that suggests the importance of one while downplaying the significance of the other. There is some anticipation surrounding the first appearance of Rowena regarding her station and vaunted beauty, while Rebecca appears at the tournament quite abruptly (her father appears some chapters before her, but we’re given no indication that he even has a daughter in these scenes).
When it comes to Rowena, suspense is generated for her first appearance. When a newly returned band of Crusaders meets the swineherd Gurth and jester Wamba upon the road, they ask directions to Rotherwood, the home of Sir Cedric, hoping for shelter against the coming night. After directions are given, it is revealed to the reader that the men have deliberately been sent the wrong way, for as Gurth says: “it were ill that [such men] saw the Lady Rowena.”
Why can be discerned fairly easily, especially when we’re privy to the conversation between the departing band of travellers, where it appears that Rowena’s beauty has been a topic of much discussion, to the point where they’ve placed a wager on whether or not she’s worth the visit. As Bois-Guilbert states: “I shall expect much beauty in this celebrated Rowena, to counterbalance the self-denial and forebearance which I must exert, if I am to court the favour of such a seditious churl as you have described her father Cedric.”
To this the prior Aymer replies: “Of her beauty you shall soon be judge; and if the purity of her complexion, and the majestic, yet soft expression of a mild blue eye, do not chase from your memory the black-tressed girls of Palestine...I am an infidel.”
This discussion leads into establishing some facts about her: that she’s not Cedric’s daughter but his ward, and that she’s technically descended from higher blood than he. Bois-Guilbert is warned to “be careful how you look at Rowena” for Cedric is a jealous man, and it’s rumoured that he banished his only son for forming an attachment with her. “This beauty... may be worshipped, it seems, at a distance, but is not to be approached with other thoughts than such as we bring to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin.”
From our point of view, it’s not a hugely auspicious introduction to the woman. We learn nothing of her personality or temperament, only that she’s a famed beauty and a highborn Saxon. Unfortunately, these attributes would have been the most important ones affixed to her, both during the period she lived in, and at the time Walter Scott was writing about her.
But Scott has successfully established a fairy tale air about her: a sense of mystery and suspense based on the rumour that she’s an exalted beauty, that she’s jealously guarded by her protector, and that at least one man has been banished for pursuing her. Even the band of Crusaders are primarily motivated to go and see what she’s like, risking the weather just for a glimpse at her.
The mystery is teased out further when the men arrive at Cedric’s lodgings and we’re told: “The Lady Rowena, who had been absent to attend an evening mass at a distant church, had but just returned, and was changing her garments, which had been wetted by the storm.” So I suppose we can add “pious” to the list of her attributes, which now number three, along with “highborn” and “beautiful.”
It’s at this point we finally get a sense of agency and personality from her. After Cedric realizes that his hall is about to be filled with rowdy Crusaders, he tells a serving maid: “Let thy Lady Rowena know we shall not this night expect her in the hall, unless it be her especial pleasure.” Her maid Elgitha (one of the few other named female characters) insists that she will attend, since: “she is ever desirous to hear the latest news from Palestine.”
Given Cedric’s crotchety response to this, it’s clear that his estranged son’s advances towards his ward were reciprocated by the lady.
Rowena does choose to attend the feast, and the waiting is over when she’s given a grand entrance, attended by ladies and given a seat of honour at Cedric’s right hand. Having promised his readership a sight to behold, Scott obliges by providing a lengthy description of her beauty:
Formed in the best proportions of her sex, Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eye, which sate enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown sufficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as melt, to command as well as to beseech.
If mildness were the more natural expression of such a combination of features, it was plain, that in the present instance, the exercise of habitual superiority, and the reception of general homage, had given to the Saxon lady a loftier character, which mingled with and qualified that bestowed by nature. Her profuse hair, of a colour betwixt brown and flaxen, was arranged in a fanciful and graceful manner in numerous ringlets, to form which art had probably aided nature. These locks were braided with gems, and being worn at full length, intimated the noble birth and free-born condition of the maiden.
A golden chain, to which was attached a small reliquary of the same metal, hung round her neck. She wore bracelets on her arms, which were bare. Her dress was an undergown and kirtle of pale sea-green silk, over which hung a long loose robe, which reached to the ground, having very wide sleeves, which came down, however, very little below the elbow. This robe was crimson, and manufactured out of the very finest wool. A veil of silk, interwoven with gold, was attached to the upper part of it, which could be, at the wearer’s pleasure, either drawn over the face and bosom after the Spanish fashion, or disposed as a sort of drapery around the shoulders.
Whew, that’s an exhaustive rundown of the woman’s appearance and bearing. We still haven’t learned that much about who she is as a person, only that her face suggests “a loftier character” than the “mildness” one would otherwise expect from a lady like this – though on noticing Bois-Guilbert’s gaze upon her, she promptly draws the veil around her face.
As Aymer will say later to Prince John, she’s: “a Saxon heiress of large possessions, a rose of loveliness, and a jewel of wealth, the fairest among a thousand, a bundle of myrrh, and a cluster of camphire.” Later the text informs us: “Whatever pretensions [Rowena’s betrothed] Athelstane had to be considered as head of the Saxon confederacy, many of that nation were disposed to prefer to his, the title of the Lady Rowena, who drew her descent from Alfred, and whose father having been a chief renowned for wisdom, courage and generosity, his memory was highly honoured by his oppressed countrymen.”
We’re also told: “It was in vain that [Cedric] attempted to dazzle her with the prospect of a visionary throne. Rowena, who possessed strong sense, neither considered his plan as practicable, nor as desirable, so far as she was concerned, could it have been achieved.” That she’s adulated by her people is clear when the bandits strike her travelling party, who are told: “Tell your tyrannical master, I do only beseech him to dismiss the Lady Rowena in honour and safety. She is a woman, and he need not dread her; and with us will die all who dare fight in her cause.”
Of her, Bois-Guilbert also says something interesting at the banquet: “I will drink wassail to the fair Rowena; for since her namesake introduced the word into England, has never been one more worthy of such a tribute. By my faith, I could pardon the unhappy Vortigern, had he half the cause that we now witness, for making shipwreck of his honour and his kingdom.”
This baffled me, and it took a deep-dive into Google to learn that “wassail” is a term for “cheers,” based on the Anglo-Saxon waes-hael (“to your health”) which was mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 1135 History of the Kings of Britain:
While Vortigern was being entertained at a royal banquet, the girl Renwein came out of an inner room carrying a golden goblet full of wine. She walked up to the King, curtsied low, and said “Lavert King, was hail!” When he saw the girl’s face, Vortigern was greatly struck by her beauty and was filled with desire for her. He asked his interpreter what it was that the girl had said and what he ought to reply to her. “She called you Lord King and did you honour by drinking your health. What you should reply is ‘drinc hail.'” Vortigern immediately said the words “drinc hail” and ordered Renwein to drink. Then he took the goblet from her hand, kissed her and drank in his turn. From that day to this, the tradition has endured in Britain that the one who drinks first at a banquet says “was hail” and he who drinks next says “drinc hail.”
Damn, that’s a deep-dive, Walter Scott.
Rowena attends the banquet in the attempt to learn more about what’s happening in Palestine, clearly hoping to get news on Ivanhoe (who unbeknownst to her, is already in the room in the guise of a pilgrim) but is largely silent until the talk turns to the prowess of Normans and Saxons in the field of battle. Bois-Guilbert ends up declaring that if Ivanhoe doesn’t answer his challenge on returning to England, he’ll proclaim him a coward, and Rowena takes umbridge: “My voice shall be heard, if no other in this hall is raised in behalf of the absent Ivanhoe. I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable challenge. Could my weak warrant add security to the inestimable pledge of this holy pilgrim, I would pledge name and fame that Ivanhoe gives this proud knight the meeting he desires.”
Finally, she speaks! Unsurprisingly, it’s in defence of the man she clearly loves, and there’s a bit of spunk at work when she makes the typical: “if I were but a man” lament. She’s not the first literary woman to express such a desire, and she certainly won’t be the last.
When Ivanhoe (still incognito) heads to the rough bed that’s been prepared for him, he’s waylaid by Rowena’s waiting-maid, who asks him to come and speak to her.
The Lady Rowena, with three of her attendants standing at her back, and arranging her hair ere she lay down to rest, was seated in the sort of throne already mentioned, and looked as if born to exact general homage. The pilgrim acknowledged her claim to it by a low genuflection.
She attempts to get more information about Ivanhoe from this pilgrim, describing him as: “the companion of my childhood,” but demonstrating a deeper concern and love for him, as well as cognizance of the misfortunes that will surround him on his return to England – not only dangers on the road, but that a warm welcome is not likely to be waiting for him from his father. She gives the pilgrim alms, but does not recognize him as Ivanhoe, despite having taken these steps to gather information about him.
This is essentially it for Rowena. This first appearance is the one in which we learn the most about her, and it’s really just bits and pieces concerning her namesake, her lineage, her beauty, and the reactions she inspires in others – nothing of Rowena herself, her day-to-day life, or her internal world. For the record, Aymer wins the barter he and Bois-Guilbert struck regarding her beauty, which makes sense since at this point we know nothing about her beyond the three lengthy paragraphs describing her physical attraction. It’s not until much later that Scott also mentions her “strong sense,” though this is never demonstrated in the story itself.
She does take steps to find out more about the whereabouts and wellbeing of Ivanhoe, though for whatever reason, he keeps his true identity a secret from her. (Most of the filmic adaptations do away with this ongoing subterfuge, for obvious reasons). But it’s not a lot to go on, and Scott speaks of her in such lofty terms that it’s enough to alienate the audience. There’s the sense that he’s put her on a pedestal, comparing her to the Madonna and to angels, which clearly doesn’t make for a particularly interesting or relatable character.
We do not see her again until the tournament at Ashby, where we also get our introduction to Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac, the Jewish traveller who stayed at Cedric’s abode the previous night, and was assisted by Ivanhoe when he learned there were plans to rob the man of his purse. At the tournament he is verbally abused while trying to take a seat in “the foremost row beneath the gallery for his daughter.” She is described as: “the beautiful Rebecca, who had joined him at Ashby, and who was now hanging on her father’s arm, not a little terrified by the popular displeasure which seemed generally excited by her parent’s presumption... terrified by the tumult, [she] clung close to the arm of her aged father.”
Her presence there is not explained in relation to her father’s travels, and neither do we learn why she wasn’t with him at Rotherwood, or her whereabouts while he was there – it almost feels like Scott just made her up on the spot and wrote her into the chapter as though she was there all along. As with Rowena, we’re given an extensive rundown of her form and attire:
The figure of Rebecca might indeed have compared with the proudest beauties of England, even though it had been judged by as shrewd a connoisseur as Prince John. Her form was exquisitely symmetrical, and was shown to advantage by a sort of Eastern dress, which she wore according to the fashion of the females of her nation.
Her turban of yellow silk suited well with the darkness of her complexion. The brilliancy of her eyes, the superb arch of her eyebrows, her well-formed aquiline nose, her teeth as white as pearl, and the profusion of her sable tresses, which, each arranged in its own little spiral of twisted curls, fell down upon as much of a lovely neck and bosom as a simarre of the richest Persian silk, exhibiting flowers in their natural colours embossed upon a purpose ground, permitted to be visible.
All these constituted a combination of loveliness, which yielded not to the most beautiful of the maidens who surrounded her. It is true, that of the golden and pearl-studded clasps, which closed her vest from the throat to the waist, the three uppermost were left unfastened on account of the heat, which something enlarged the prospect to which we allude. A diamond necklace, with pendants of inestimable value, were by this means also made more conspicuous. The feather of an ostrich, fastened in her turban by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another distinction of the beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by the proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied by those who affected to deride them.
Yes, Scott is pretty exhaustive when it comes to describing everyone and their outfits in great detail. It’s noted that Prince John: “was much more agreeably attracted by the beautiful daughter of Zion,” and not only orders them to have a seat in the gallery, but nearly causes a scandal among his retainers when he suggests that Rebecca be crowed the Queen of Love and Beauty, “were it only to mortify the Saxon churls.” (Yes, this honorific was a real thing, not just something George R.R. Martin came up with in Game of Thrones).
Like Cedric toward Rowena, Isaac is protective of the young woman in his care, as Prince John notes: “thy wife or thy daughter, that Easten houri that thou lockest under thy arm as thou wouldst thy treasure-casket.”
And thus an implicit comparison is formed between the two women: they are both exceedingly beautiful (dangerously so, considering they’ve attracted the attention of men like Bois-Guilbert and Prince John). Each one is “othered” to a certain degree, being either Saxon or Jewish, and both are ineffectively guarded by their fathers. Most pertinently, each one is a contender for the role of Queen of Love and Beauty, and soon enough, for Ivanhoe’s attention, since the knight who wins the tourney will be the one who choses the lady that will reside over the festivities.
But there are important differences too. Rowena is secure and strengthened by her position; she wants for very little and speaks with confidence and regal bearing. Rebecca on the other hand is described twice as “terrified” at being thrown amongst a hostile crowd and acutely aware of how little she belongs there. Rowena is often disfavourably compared to Rebecca by readers, but in the original text at least, she is bold while the latter is timid.
The Disinherited Knight – that is, Ivanhoe still in disguise – deposits the coronet at Rowena’s feet, making her the Queen of Love and Beauty (which causes some controversy among the Norman nobles). Having borrowed funds from Isaac in order to purchase a horse and armour, Ivanhoe sends Gurth to reimburse the man, though without her father’s knowledge, Rebecca ensures that he’s not charged interest, and gives Gurth a purse full of the full amount that was lent.
Here another similarity is drawn between the two women. With this act, as with Rowena giving the pilgrim alms in her chambers, each has shown a degree of agency and kindness without their father’s knowledge or approval, attempting to help Ivanhoe in secret (though in Rowena’s case, she's unaware that it is Ivanhoe she’s assisting).
Rowena learns of her former lover’s arrival at the end of the second day of tournament, when he removes his helmet to receive the victor’s chaplet from her, only to promptly collapse from his injuries. As stated: “Rowena had no sooner beheld him than she uttered a faint shriek; but at once summoning up the energy of her disposition, and compelling herself, as it were, to proceed, while her frame yet trembled with the violence of sudden emotion, she placed upon the drooping head of the victor the splendid chaplet,” before pronouncing his victor to the crowd: “in a clear and distinct tone.”
You can’t say the woman has no self-possession, for as an eyewitness says of her conduct: “I am not a man to be moved by a woman’s lament for her lover, but this same Lady Rowena suppressed her sorrow with such dignity of manner, that it could only be discovered by her folded hands, and her tearless eye, which trembled as it remained fixed on the lifeless form before her.”
Prince John tosses out the possibility that she could be married to the interested Norman De Bracy (who says of her: “if the lands are to my liking, it will be hard to displease me with a bride”) though Cedric is determined to wed her to Athelstane, to strengthen the alliance between various Saxon families – particularly those of high blood. We soon learn that the attachment between Ivanhoe and Rowena, which threatened this plan, is what led to his own son’s banishment, in the hope that his absence would lead to a waning of Rowena’s affection.
But as the text says: “in this hope he was disappointed; a disappointment which might be attributed in part to the mode in which his ward had been educated. Cedric, to whom the name of Alfred was as that of a deity, had treated the sole remaining scion of that great monarch with a degree of observance, such as, perhaps, was in those days scarce paid to an acknowledged princess.
Rowena’s will had been in almost all cases a law to his household; and Cedric himself, as if determined that her sovereignty should be fully acknowledged within that little circle at least, seemed to take a pride in acting as the first of her subjects.
Thus trained in the exercise not only of free will, but despotic authority, Rowena was, by her previous education, disposed both to resist and to resent any attempt to control her affections, or dispose of her hand contrary to her inclinations, and to assert her independence in a case in which even those females who have been trained up to obedience and subjection, are not infrequently apt to dispute the authority of guardians and parents. The opinions which she felt strongly, she avowed boldly; and Cedric, who could not free himself from his habitual deference to her opinions, felt totally at a loss how to enforce his authority of guardian.”
There is a degree of humorous irony in this description, though sadly it never leads to any character work or insight – in fact, the entire crux of Rowena’s character is told to us in this passage, and never dramatized on the actual page. It could have made for an amusing interlude to see Cedric stymied by Rowena’s stubbornness and loyalty to his son, or a poignant one when he tries to argue his case upon her, to her abject refusal.
Either way, this idea that he’s bewildered over the fact he raised a wilful girl who is used to getting her own way, only to end up with a wilful woman who is used to getting her own way, is never explored in any great sense. The theme of Rowena’s duty being at odds with her heart’s preference, or of Cedric being bamboozled by his ward’s disinterest in his scheming, is simply not part of the story (though we will see some of it in at least one of the adaptations).
Of Rowena’s feelings toward Athelstane, we’re told this: “Without attempting to conceal her avowed preference of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, she declared that, were that favoured knight out of the question, she would rather take refuge in a convent, than share a throne with Athelstane, whom, having always despised, she now began, on account of the trouble she received on his account, thoroughly to detest.”
Again, we see no evidence of this beyond what the narrator choses to tell us; throughout the course of the book, Rowena and Athelstane never even interact on the page.
Cedric is conflicted on seeing his own son collapse from his injuries, and though he doesn’t want to be seen acknowledging him, sends out his servants to find out what happened to him. One reports that Ivanhoe was: “placed in a litter belonging to a lady among the spectators, which had immediately transported him out of the press.” Somewhat mollified by this, Cedric speaks ill of his son, spurring Rowena to Ivanhoe’s defence, and an argument ensues:
“If to maintain the honour of ancestry, it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in execution – to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s –”
“Be silent, Lady Rowena! On this subject only I hear you not. Prepare yourself for the Prince’s festival: we have been summoned thither with unwonted circumstances of honour and of courtesy, such as the haughty Normans have rarely used to our race since the fatal day of Hastings. Thither will I go, were it only to show these proud Normans how little the fate of a son, who could defeat their bravest, can affect a Saxon.”
“Thither I do NOT go; and I pray you to beware, lest what you mean for courage and constancy, shall be accounted hardness of heart.”
There’s an odd misstep here, in that Rowena doesn’t inquire further after Ivanhoe or who has him in their custody, reappearing only when the Saxons attempt to travel back to Rotherwood after the tournament and happen upon Isaac’s company on the road, his bodyguards having deserted them for fear of bandits in the forest. Ivanhoe is secretly in the Jews’ care, Rebecca having tended to the injuries he sustained at Ashby. Athelstane spurns them, Cedric offers to leave them two horses and some attendants, but it is Rowena who offers genuine aid at the behest of Rebecca herself.
This is one of only two instances in which the women interact directly in the book, and it’s interesting to see how it compares with the screen adaptations (which we’ll get to in due course):
Rebecca, suddenly quitting her dejected posture, and making her way through the attendants to the palfrey of the Saxon lady, knelt down, and, after the Oriental fashion in addressing superiors, kissed the hem of Rowena’s garment. Then rising, and throwing back her veil, she implored her in the name of the God whom they both worshipped... she would have compassion upon them, and suffer them to go forward under their safeguard.
Rowena is sufficiently moved, “the noble and solemn air with which Rebecca made this appeal, gave it double weight with the fair Saxon,” and she tells Cedric: “Jews though they be, we cannot as Christians leave them in this extremity.” Holding authority over Cedric, he readily agrees with her.
It’s an interesting scene, for though Rebecca subjugates herself in front of the Saxons, she’s clearly trying to call upon feminine solidarity, identifying Rowena as her best bet in securing her and her father’s safety. If she has to humble herself (whether sincerely or performatively) to gain that security, then she’ll do it. She even tries to hint at Ivanhoe’s presence, though it’s unclear whether she’s divined his and Rowena’s relationship due to the crowning ceremony, or simply knows of the familial connection between them via Cedric: “It is in the name of one dear to many, and dear even to you, that I beseech you to let this sick person be transported with care and tenderness under your protection. For, if evil chance him, the last moment of your life would be embittered with regret for denying that which I ask you.”
In the face of Athelstane’s rudeness, Rowena goes on: “as if to make amends for the brutal jest of her unfeeling suitor, requested Rebecca ride by her side,” to which Rebecca replies: “it were not fit I should do so, where my society might be held a disgrace to my protectress.”
Again, it’s interesting to wonder how much of this is self-protection, bourn out of the “proud humility” that Scott imbibes Rebecca with. Sadly, Rowena’s response to Rebecca’s decision is not recorded, and this is the last time the women will interact with each other until the end of the book – but it is notable that Rowena extends kindness to Rebecca and her people, not only for its own sake, but because it (unbeknownst to her) saves Ivanhoe’s life.
It’s also worth saying at this point, that the book gives very little detail concerning Ivanhoe’s time in Rebecca’s care, and what we do get is discussed several chapters after this encounter with the Saxons, in retrospective. Naturally, the filmed adaptations are better suited to laying out all the story’s events in chronological order, and this interlude is the best opportunity in which Ivanhoe and Rebecca’s bond can be explored before all are held captive at Torquilstone. Again, we’ll get to how the various adaptations deal with this later.
After he’s injured at the tourney, Isaac and Rebecca take Ivanhoe into their care, though the former is afraid that if he were to die, they’d be blamed. But Rebecca is adamant, putting him in her litter and risking the stares of Gentiles by riding on a palfrey beside him. Isaac describes her healing arts thusly: “the lessons of Miriam, daughter of the Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium, whose soul is in Paradise, have made thee skilful in the art of healing, and that thou knowest the craft of herbs, and the force of elixirs.”
And yet here is a detail that is not captured in any of the adaptations, and which is strangely glossed over by the text itself: that it is Rebecca’s act of kindness towards Ivanhoe that throws her into the path of Bois-Guilbert, something that will bring grief to both of them before the book’s conclusion.
“The apprehensions of Isaac... were not ill-founded, and the generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed her, on her return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. The Templar twice passed and repassed them on the road, fixing his bold and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess, and we have already seen the consequences of the admiration which her charms excited, when accident threw her into the power of that unprincipled voluptuary.”
Every adaptation I’ve seen depicts Bois-Guilbert noticing her for the first time at the tournament, well before this calamity with Ivanhoe, thereby sparing our hero – and Rebecca’s compassion – from being the indirect (and unaware) reason behind the danger she’s thrown into. Which is a bit of a shame, as that’s a potent bit of dramatic irony that is lost.
Once the Jews reach safety, we’re told: “Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to their temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to examine and to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of romances and romantic ballads, must recollect how often the females, during the dark ages, as they are called, were initiated into the mysteries of surgery, and how frequently the gallant knight submitted the wounds of his person to her cure, whose eyes had yet more deeply penetrated his heart.”
Many of the adaptations take the opportunity offered by this interlude to establish the rapport between Rebecca and Ivanhoe, making it the scene of their first serious interaction, though they seldom delve into the finesse with which Rebecca knows her healing arts:
The beautiful Rebeca had been heedfully brought up in all the knowledge proper to her nation, which her apt and powerful mind had retained, arranged, and enlarged, in the course of a progress beyond her years, her sex, and even the age in which she lived. Her knowledge of medicine and of the healing art had been acquired under an aged Jewess, the daughter of one of their most celebrated doctors, who loved Rebecca as her own child, and was believed to have communicated to her secrets, which had been left to herself by her sage father at the same time, and under the same circumstances. The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the time; but her secrets had survived in her apt pupil.
Rebecca, thus endowed with knowledge as with beauty, was universally revered and admired by her own tribe, who almost regarded her as one of those gifted women mentioned in the sacred history. Her father himself, out of reverence for her talents, which involuntarily mingled itself with his unbounded affection, permitted the maiden a greater liberty than was usually indulged to those of her sex by the habits of her people, and was, as we have just seen, frequently guided by her opinion, even in preference to his own.
(This is another point of comparison between Rebecca and Rowena, as Isaac’s treatment of his daughter very akin to the way Cedric has a: “habitual deference to [Rowena’s] opinions.”)
We’re given a veiled glimpse of the exchanges that taken place between the Christian knight and the Jewish physician, in which Scott slathers on the praise of Rebecca, though with a rather pronounced “for a Jew,” sort of defensiveness (like someone who tries to give a compliment but can’t shed their internalized racism might say: “pretty for a Black girl”):
[Rebecca] performed her task with a graceful and dignified simplicity and modesty, which might, even in more civilized days, have served to redeem it from whatever might seem repugnant to female delicacy. The idea of so young and beautiful a person engaged in attendance on a sick-bed, or in dressing the wound of one of a different sex, was melted away and lost in that of a beneficent being contributing her effectual aid to relieve pain, and to avert the stroke of death.
The accents of an unknown tongue, however harsh they might have sounded when uttered by another, had, coming from the beautiful Rebcca, the romantic and pleasing effect which fancy ascribes to the charms pronounced by some beneficent fairy, unintelligible, indeed, to the ear, but, from the sweetness of utterance, and benignity of aspect, which accompanied them, touching and affecting to the heart.
She’s a foreign Jew engaged in a man’s work, but it’s okay because she’s just so lovely, you know?
Rebecca argues to her father that they go the extra mile to safeguard Ivanhoe by escorting him to York, insisting she’s not prepared to leave her healing phial of balsam with anyone else, and (more pertinently) that her patient is well-known to King Richard. Through him they might win favour with the king, a critical objective since: “Isaac had supplied his brother John with treasure to prosecute his rebellious purposes.” So along with everything else, Rebecca is very astute and clever, deducting that: “if he of the Lion Heart shall return to the land... then shall this Wilfred of Ivanhoe be unto me as a wall of defence, when the king’s displeasure shall burn high against thy father.” So it is for these reasons that Ivanhoe is travelling in the Jews’ company the following day.
This is a repayment, she tells Ivanhoe, of the services rendered to her father, though Ivanhoe also realizes that it was Rebecca who paid Gurth “a hundred zecchins.” This she disregards, as all she asks in return for healing him is: “to believe henceforward that a Jew may do good service to a Christian, without desiring other guerdon than the blessing of the Great Father who made both Jew and Gentile.” To this he responds: “it were a sin to doubt it, maiden.”
But what of the feelings between Ivanhoe and Rebecca? Scott is very coy when it comes to what passes between the two of them, particularly when it comes to any romantic inclinations, but what is made as explicit as possible is that Rebecca feels more for Ivanhoe than he for her – a decision that adaptations are seldom content to portray, as the heightening of emotional tension is always the prerogative of film and television. But Scott does give us this:
I know not whether the fair Rowena would have been altogether satisfied with the species of emotion with which her devoted knight had hitherto gazed on the beautiful features, and fair form, and lustrous eyes, of the lovely Rebecca; eyes whose brilliancy was shaded, and, as it were, mellowed, by the fringe of her long silken eyelashes, and which a minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays through a bower of jessamine.
But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her father’s name and lineage; yet – for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac was not without a touch of female weakness – she could not but sigh internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold, composed, and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that which expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an unexpected quarter, and from one of an inferior race.
It was not that Ivanhoe’s former carriage expressed more than that general devotional homage which youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that one word should operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could not be supposed altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a degraded class, to whom it could not be honourably rendered. But the gentleness and candour of Rebecca’s nature imputed no fault to Ivanhoe for sharing in the universal prejudices of his age and religion. On the contrary, the fair Jewess, though sensible her patient now regarded her as one of a race of reprobation, with whom it was disgraceful to hold any beyond the most necessary intercourse, ceased not to pay the same patient and devoted attention to his safety and convalescence.
Ivanhoe comes across as very cold and mechanical here, turning off his warmth and attraction as though flicking a switch after learning his benefactor is the daughter of Isaac. What’s more, the remembrance of Rowena is in the room with them, as Ivanhoe asks after her, though not by name, catching himself just before it’s uttered: “as if unwilling to speak Rowena’s name in the house of a Jew” and “feeling he had incautiously betrayed his deep interest in Rowena by the awkward attempt he had made to conceal it.” A bit later he oh-so-casually enquires after Cedric and asks: “went any lady with them to the banquet?”
“The Lady Rowena,” said Rebecca, answering the question with more precision than it had been asked. “Went not to the prince’s feast… she is now on her journey back to Rotherwood.”
Meanwhile the Nightingale Effect is clearly at work upon Rebecca, who is already going above and beyond in her attempts to save Ivanhoe’s life, and who is described as having: “a smile which she could scarce suppress dimpling for an instant a face, whose general expression was that of contemplative melancholy.”
So this is the state of affairs as all parties head out on the road: Ivanhoe grateful towards his benefactor (and perhaps a little attracted to her), Rebecca pining for the man whose life she’s just saved (but knowing he has a vested interest in the Saxon maid called Rowena), and Bois-Guilbert having taken covetous notice of Rebecca’s beauty as a consequence of her attentions toward the the Disinherited Knight.
Before departing their lodgings, Ivanhoe has warned Rebecca that ill-fortune seems to follow him, a portent that soon proves correct…
***
As the two companies travel together for safety, the injured Ivanhoe still incognito in a veiled litter, they are set upon by bandits, who are actually De Bracy, Bois-Guilbert and Front-de-Boeuf, engaging in a slightly unhinged attempt to impress the Lady Rowena, first by frightening her with the threat of bandits, then by “rescuing” her from their own men in a scheme that almost immediately goes awry. Their identities uncovered, they take all captured Saxons, Jews and assorted retainers to Castle Torquilstone. As De Bracy concentrates on Rowena, Bois-Guilbert seizes Rebecca, and their ordeal begins – though Rebecca’s will be considerably more fraught than Rowena’s.
At this point, the women are the closest they’ll ever be until the final chapter when they again meet face-to-face. Having been travelling together, a comparison between them naturally occurs when they each have to individually grapple with a kidnapping and an unwanted suitor, all the while trying to provide aid to an unconscious and badly-wounded Ivanhoe (Rebecca obviously knows of his whereabouts and is tending to him, though Rowena intially has no idea he’s even in the same castle as her).
They are separated not only from each other, but also from their menfolk, which not only removes them from paternal protection but also (whether Scott intends it or not) implies the threat of sexual assault. We’ll discuss Rowena first.
She’s taken to the chambers of the deceased Lady Front-de-Boeuf, where she refuses to sit when asked and is perceptive enough to see right through De Bracy’s foppish appearance, courtly manners and general ruse at being a saviour, telling him:
“I know you not, sir,” drawing herself up with all the pride of offended rank and beauty, “I know you not – and the insolent familiarity with which you apply to me the jargon of a troubadour, forms no apology for the violence of a robber... no man wearing chain and spurs ought thus to intrude himself upon the presence of an unprotected lady.”
Rather like Mr Collins and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (who also think they’re granting a great honour upon a potential bride of lower rank) De Bracy is baffled by her rebuffs, and ends up insulting her status and home, which she defends: “The grange which you contemn hath been my shelter from infancy; and, trust me, when I leave it – should that day ever arrive – it shall be with one who has not learnt to despise the dwelling and manners in which I have been brought up.”
It’s a strong scene for her, for though she does not face as much persecution as Rebecca does for being a Jew, she does stand as somewhat inferior in the eyes of the Normans for her Saxon blood, only to demonstrate she’s not ashamed of it, or willing to denounce it – nor either, her love for Ivanhoe. De Bracy picks up on this subtext, and tells her that: “this rival is in my power, and that it rests but with me to betray the secret of his being within the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, whose jealousy will be more fatal than mine.”
(De Bracy discovered Ivanhoe during the ambush, and though a latent sense of chivalry prevented him from killing or exposing the wounded man: “to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady Rowena, as the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfred’s previous banishment from his father’s house, had made matter of notoriety, was a pitch far above the flight of De Bracey’s generosity. A middle course betwixt good and evil was all which he found himself capable of adopting”).
And yet blackmailing Rowena with Ivanhoe’s safety is a tactic that backfires in an odd way:
Hitherto, Rowena had sustained her part in this trying scene with undismayed courage, but it was because she had not considered the danger as serious and imminent. Her disposition was naturally that which physiognomists consider as proper to fair complexions, mild, timid and gentle; but it had been tempered, and, as it were, hardened, by the circumstances of her education. Accustomed to see the will of all, even of Cedric himself, give way before her wishes, she had acquired that sort of courage and self-confidence which arises from habitual and constant deference of the circle in which we move. She could scarce conceive the possibility of her will being opposed, far less that of its being treated with total disregard. Her haughtiness and habit of domination was, therefore, a fictitious character.
So, what does she do? “After a few broken interjections, she raised her hands to heaven, and burst into a passion of uncontrolled vexation and sorrow.”
Yeah, it’s not exactly her finest moment, being unable to keep her composure simply because she’s not used to never getting her own way. All her prior dignity and strength is apparently “fictitious” because until this moment, it’s never been put to the test.
For all that, it’s precisely the right thing for her to do in these circumstances, for De Bracy has no idea how to respond when confronted with a weeping female. “De Bracy was not unmoved, though he was yet more embarrassed than touched. He had, in truth, gone too far to recede; and yet, in Rowena’s present condition, she could not be acted on either by argument or threats. He paced the apartment to and fro, now vainly exhorting the terrified maiden to compose herself, now hesitating concerning his own line of conduct.”
It’s an amusing scene, to see such a conniving warrior so undone by the puzzle of what to do with a woman in such a state, and so bewildered is he that he quickly departs the room. With this, Rowena’s part in the plot is largely over. The castle is stormed and she is freed, getting only a brief scene in which to thank her rescuers in a very “knight-and-lady” terms before disappearing from the story until its conclusion.
We’re left with a simple truth: that Rowena is simply not that compelling a character. We’re repeatedly told of her beauty and lineage – two entirely passive qualities – though the more interesting trait of hers that’s described in detail but seldom demonstrated, and which doesn’t become relevant to the story in any way (unless you want to count her response to her captivity), is how she was brought up to always get her own way.
With that in mind, William Makepeace Thackery’s low opinion of her can be discerned, even if it still doesn’t entirely add up with the letter of Scott’s text. She was after all, the only member of the Saxon travelling party to insist on providing succour to the Jews, an act of kindness which saves her beloved’s life, and which Thackery completely ignores in his parody sequel (which we’ll get to below). It’s also worth saying that most film/television adaptations of Rowena go in the opposite direction, making her considerably more defiant and fiery in this scene than her book counterpart – though again, we’ll explore that in another post.
If anything, Rowena’s conduct at Torquilstone forges another comparison with Rebecca. Though the latter has been so far been characterized with little more than timidity and healing abilities, her own crucible will soon demonstrate far greater strength of character. For all of Rowena’s air of confidence and a commanding nature, she’s completely unable to sustain either at the first brush of opposition, as faced with a man: “of a strong, fierce, and determined mind, who possessed the advantage over her, and was resolved to use it, she quailed before him.”
This precise scenario will also play out between Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert, and we’ll see just how profoundly different her response is.
***
Straight away, Rebecca’s ordeal is more fraught, firstly by being brought into the company of the novel’s only other significant female character, a crone called Ulfrida who does little to comfort the younger woman (and in fact, operating as a horrifying possibility of the life that awaits her, being a Saxon noblewoman who has been kept captive at Torquilstone for many decades).
Ulfrida takes one look at Rebecca and says: “What devil’s deed have they now in the wind? But it is easy to guess – bright eyes, black locks, and a skin like paper, ere the priests stains it with his black unguent. Ay, it is easy to guess why they send her to this lone turret, whence a shriek could no more be heard than at the depth of five hundred fathoms beneath the earth.” Rebecca begs the old woman not to abandon her (“stay for Heaven’s sake! Stay though it be to curse and revile me – thy presence is yet some protection”) but Ulfrida leaves, locking the door behind her.
Though there’s something a little comedic about Rowena’s tears (as De Bracy says: “This damsel hath wept enough to extinguish a beacon-light… never was such wringing of hands and such overflowing of eyes... a water-fiend hath possessed the fair Saxon”) Rebecca’s fear is deadly serious, and at this point the text does something it rarely does – explicitly compare the two women:
Rebecca was now to expect a fate even more dreadful than that of Rowena; for what probability was there that either softness or ceremony would be used towards one of her oppressed race, whatever shadow of these might be preserved towards the Saxon heiress? Yet had the Jewess this advantage, that she was better prepared by habits of thought, and by natural strength of mind, to encounter the dangers to which she was exposed. Of a strong and observing character, even from her earliest years, the pomp and wealth which her father displayed within his walls... had not been able to blind her to the precarious circumstances under which they were enjoyed.
Rebecca perpetually beheld... the sword which was suspended over the heads of her people by a single hair. These reflections had tamed and brought down to a pitch of sounder judgment a temper, which, under other circumstances, might have waxed haughty, supercilious, and obstinate.
From her father’s example and injunctions, Rebecca had learnt to bear herself courteously towards all who approached her. She could not indeed imitate his excess of subservience, because she was a stranger to the meanness of mind, and to the constant state of timid apprehension, by which it was dictated, but she bore herself with a proud humility, as if submitting to the evil circumstances in which she was placed as the daughter of a despised race, while she felt in her mind the consciousness that she was entitled to hold a higher rank from her merit, than the arbitrary despotism of religious prejudice permitted her to aspire to.
This is quite a turnaround from how these women were first introduced; Rowena as bold and proud and Rebecca as fearful and subordinate. At the first test of their changed circumstances, Rebecca resolves herself and Rowena can do nothing but cry. It feels like a bit of a Take That! directed at the Saxon girl, who does nothing as proactive as what Rebecca does – search the room for any means of escape, offer up her jewellery as ransom for her father, and speak with intelligence and wit when Bois-Guilbert makes his offer to her: “thy ransom must be paid by love and beauty, and in no other coin will I accept it.”
He makes his intentions towards her clear – not to rape her, but not to marry her honourably either. He wants her to submit to being his mistress, since he cannot take a wife due to his vows as a Templar. When she tells him: “we can have nought in common between us – you are a Christian, I am a Jewess, our union were contrary to the laws, alike of the church and the synagogue,” he replies: “thy narrow Jewish prejudices make thee blind to our high privilege. Marriage were an enduring crime on the part of a Templar; but what less folly I may practise, I shall speedily be absolved from at the next Preceptory of our Order... The protectors of Solomon’s Temple may claim license by the example of Solomon.” (Solomon of course, being the great king who acquired many foreign mistresses).
Yeah, he’s a real charmer. Since this post is specifically meant to be about Rebecca and Rowena, I can’t quote the whole exchange (though here is Rebecca’s immediate rebuttal: “if thou readest the Scripture only to justify thine own licence and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most healthful and necessary herbs”) but it’s a fascinating battle of wits, in which Rebecca is presented with the offer of submitting to this man to save her own life, but refusing for the sake of her own honour and religious belief.
Suffice to say that their stalemate ends with Rebecca flinging herself upon the window and balancing on the parapet, threatening to throw herself off the castle walls: “my body shall be crushed out of the very form of humanity upon the stones of that court-yard, ere it become the victim of thy brutality.”
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| For obvious reasons, this scene is a favourite with artists and illustrators |
While Rebecca spoke thus, her high and firm resolve, which corresponded so well with the expressive beauty of her countenance, gave to her looks, air, and manner, a dignity that seemed more than mortal. Her glance quailed not, her cheek blanched not, for the fear of a fate so instant and so horrible; on the contrary, the thought that she had her fate at her command, and could escape at will from infamy to death, gave a yet deeper colour of carnation to her complexion, and a yet more brilliant fire to her eye.
Though tears were an effective weapon against Rowena’s captor, there’s no denying this exchange between Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert is ten times more dramatic and memorable, or that Rebecca is by far the more courageous and daring of the two women. Her actions are enough to stay his hand, and he leaves, promising only that he will return.
Rebecca is not remotely tempted by Bois-Guilbert’s offer, and instead begins to pray for herself and her father:
Another name glided into her petition – it was that of the wounded Christian, whom fate had placed in the hands of bloodthirsty men... her heart indeed checked her, as if, even in communing with the Deity in prayer, she mingled in her devotions a recollection of one with whose fate hers could have no alliance – a Nazarene, and an enemy to her faith. But the petition was already breathed, nor could all the narrow prejudices of her sect induce Rebecca to wish it recalled.
Her unrequited love for Ivanhoe only deepens when Ulfrida returns to her chamber and escorts her to Ivanhoe’s sickbed, as the following chapter makes Rebecca’s feelings very clear:
In finding herself once more by the side of Ivanhoe, Rebecca was astonished at the keen sensation of pleasure which she experienced, even at a time when all around them was danger, if not despair. As she felt his pulse, and enquired after his health, there was a softness in her touch and in her accents, implying a kinder interest than she would herself have been pleased to have voluntarily expressed.
But how does Ivanhoe feel about all this? Well, we only get Rebecca’s response to his inquiries:
Her voice faltered and her hand trembled, and it was only the cold question of Ivanhoe: “is it you, gentle maiden?” which recalled her to herself, and reminded her the sensations which she felt were not and could not be mutual... “He calls me dear Rebecca,” said the maiden to herself. “But it is in the cold and carefully tone which ill suits the word. His war-horse, his hunting hound, are dearer to him than the despised Jewess! How justly I am punished by Heaven for letting my thoughts dwell upon him!”
From the room they’re in, Rebecca gives Ivanhoe a blow-by-blow account of the battle waging around them, while he laments his inability to join in. An argument takes place between them, in which Rebecca points out that any attempt on his behalf to fight would be vainglory; that in fact all warfare is senseless, to which he replies:
“Thou speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage, which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honour, raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace. Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprise which sanctions his flame. Chivalry! Why maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection, the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant – nobility were but an empty name without her.”
Way harsh, dude. I suspect this exchange is to further the rift between them, though it’s hard to know what side Scott expects us to be on. These days we’d agree with Rebecca’s conclusions regarding the grim cost of war, though it’s ultimately Ivanhoe’s impassioned defence of chivalry that will save her life. In this moment, Rebecca concedes the argument, though thinks to herself:
“How little he knows this bosom, to image that cowardice or meanness of the soul must needs be its guest, because I have censured the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would I to heaven that the shedding of my blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of Judah... the proud Christian should then see whether the daughter of God’s chosen people dared not to die as bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!”
It would seem that both are thinking of Rowena in this moment, either fondly or with jealousy.
The attackers – comprised of Saxon and outlaw forces, along with King Richard in disguise – overthrow the castle, though it is Cedric and not Ivanhoe who liberates Rowena: “the noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward’s apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety, and, with a crucifix clasped in agony to her bosom, sat in expectation of instant death.” Rebecca is not so lucky, with Bois-Guilbert bodily seizing her and dragging her from the room.
It’s at this point I think of modern fandom’s sensibilities concerning romance and wonder who they would find more appealing: Ivanhoe, who shouts: “Hound of the Temple, stain to thine Order, set free the damsel!” or Bois-Guilbert, who declares to Rebecca: “I have found thee, thou shalt prove I will keep my word to share weal and woe with thee – there is but one path to safety, I have cut my way through fifty dangers to point it to thee – up and instantly follow me!”
That her response is: “Savage warrior, rather will I perish in the flames than accept safety from thee!” would of course be ignored completely, as the only comparison that matters is the conduct between the man that wants to save you, and the man who wants you so badly that he’ll kidnap you. That Bois-Guilbert is described as protecting Rebecca as they make their escape is his character in a nutshell: bravely shielding a woman he’s in the midst of abducting against her will, dragging her into yet further danger by doing so. Let’s be honest: fandom would pick him every time.
Athelstane is badly wounded on confronting Bois-Guilbert, wrongly believing that his opponent is absconding with Rowena, and she gets another fleeting scene in aftermath of battle, described thusly:
HAH! You have to admit that’s funny. Rowena thanks the outlaws for their assistance in her rescue (“to have saved you requites itself; we who walk the greenwood do many a wild deed, and the Lady Rowena’s deliverance may be received as an atonement”) and De Bracey asks for her forgiveness, which she grants: “I forgive you, as a Christian, but I can never forgive the misery and desolation your madness has occasioned.”
With this she departs home to Rotherwood, where she will remain until the close of the book.
***
Rowena’s story has essentially ended, though Rebecca’s hardly begun. Bois-Guilbert has taken her to a Templar stronghold, where word soon gets out that he’s holding a Jewish woman captive, much to the consternation of the order’s Grand Master Beaumanoir. Isaac seeks out Ivanhoe for his assistance in contacting Bois-Guilbert to arrange a ransom, only for Beaumanoir to intercept the letter. He is appalled at its implications, and on learning of Rebecca’s training in the art of healing, his mind is made up:
“Was it not from that same witch Miriam, the abomination of whose enchantments have been heard of throughout every Christian land? Her body was burnt at a stake, and her ashes were scattered to the four winds, and so be it with me and mine Order, if I do not as much to her pupil, and more also! I will teach her to throw spell and incantation over the soldiers of the blessed Temple.”
Rebecca’s trial commences, and Bois-Guilbert founds himself between a rock and a hard place. If he argues for Rebecca’s innocence, it’ll only further convince Beaumanoir that he’s under a spell. If he turns his back on her, she’ll undoubtedly die. He could simply let her go, or renounce his status as a knight in order to keep her, but he’s not prepared to do this either – all his power and ambition would be forfeit. There’s only one course of action he can take which allows him to have his cake and eat it too, so as Rebecca is escorted to the trial, he slips her a note that advises her to request a champion to fight on her behalf.
But he is once more thwarted. Though Rebecca remains composed as she speaks in her own defence, she is eventually forced to resort to her kidnapper’s missive in demanding a trial by combat – but does not, and in fact cannot, choose Bois-Guilbert as her champion. Beaumanoir has already selected Bois-Guilbert to fight for the church, cunningly designing to give him the opportunity to save his own soul by becoming the instrument of Rebecca’s demise.
(Naturally all the adaptations are extremely similar when it comes to these scenes, because there’s no justification to change material this good).
In their last conversation together, Rebecca fires some truly amazing barbs at Bois-Guilbert: “thy resolution may fluctuate on the wild and changeful billows of human opinion, but mine is anchored on the Rock of Ages.” On being told she faces a prolonged and painful death: “and to whom – if such is my fate – to whom do I owe this? Surely only to him, who, for a most selfish and brutal cause, dragged me hither, and who now, for some unknown purpose of his own, strives to exaggerate the wretched fate to which he exposed me.” Finally she tears down his wounded pride and hypocrisy: “had thy purpose been the honourable protection of the innocent, I had thanked thee for thy care – as it is, thou hast claimed merit for it so often, that I tell thee life is worth nothing to me, preserved at the price which thou wouldst exact for it.”
You can almost hear her oh, just shut up already tone. She gets the best lines.
Now Bois-Guilbert makes his final offer, confident that if he fights against her champion, he will win and she will therefore die:
If I appear in the fatal lists, thou diest by a slow and cruel death, in pain such as they say is destined to the guilty hereafter. But if I appear not, then am I a degraded and dishonoured knight, accused of witchcraft and of communion with infidels – the illustrious name which has grown yet more so under my wearing, becomes a hissing and a reproach. I lose fame, I lose honour, I lose the prospect of such greatest and scarce emperors attain to – I sacrifice mighty ambition, I destroy schemes built as high as the mountains... and yet Rebecca, this greatest will I sacrifice, this fame will I renounce, this power will I forego, even now when it is half within my grasp, if thou wilt say, Bois-Guilbert, I receive thee for my lover.
Even now he applies a caveat to his mercy; unable to fathom not getting everything he wants, but she remains unyielding. Close to despair, he prepares to renounce all responsibility and flee, only for a fellow Templar to tell him:
“Wert thy to fly, what would ensue but the reversal of thy arms, the dishonour of thy ancestry, the degradation of thy rank? Think on it. Where shall thine old companions in arms hide their heads when Brian de Bois-Guilbert, the best lance of the Templars, is proclaimed recreant, amid the hisses of the assembled people? What grief will be at the Court of France! With what joy will the haughty Richard hear the news, that the knight that set him hard in Palestine, and wellnigh darkened his renown, has lost fame and honour for a Jewish girl, whom he could not even save by so costly a sacrifice!”
If no champion appears, then Rebecca will die anyway, for Beaumanoir will take Bois-Guilbert’s absence as definitive proof of Rebecca’s magical power over him. His abscondment would furthermore destroy his reputation in the process. Fleeing means losing everything – and losing it all for nothing. He must stay and fight.
Now Rebecca’s only hope lies with her message reaching Ivanhoe in time, and for his injuries to be sufficiently healed that he might defeat his opponent.
***
Back at Rotherwood, Rowena reappears briefly as part of the mourning party for Athelstane:
Four maidens, Rowena leading the choir, raised a hymn for the soul of the deceased.” The behaviour of the maidens was decorous, if not marked with deep affliction; but now and then a whisper or a smile called forth the rebuke of the severer matrons, and here and there might be seen a damsel more interested in endeavouring to find out how her mourning-robe became her, than in the dismal ceremony for which they were preparing. Rowena alone, too proud to be vain, paid her greeting to her deliverer with a graceful courtesy. Her demeanour was serious, but not dejected, and it may be doubted whether thoughts of Ivanhoe, and of the uncertainty of his fate, did not claim as great a share in her gravity as the death of her kinsman.
Ivanhoe reveals himself to his father and they are reconciled, though Cedric anticipates his son’s next words and insists that Rowena first complete two years of mourning for a betrothed husband before she wed anyone else. That is Athelstane’s cue to rise from the dead, his injuries not having been as serious as first believed. It’s here he proves his own brand of heroism by releasing Rowena from their betrothal, demonstrating a keener eye than he’s thus far been given credit for:
“The Lady Rowena cares not for me – she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred’s glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it – nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin.”
Unfortunately, we don’t get much in the way of how Rowena feels about this sudden turn of events, for just as Athelstane turns to Ivanhoe to give his blessing, it’s discovered that he’s disappeared. Having received word of Rebecca’s plight, he has rushed to her aid.
I mean, if you were a hardcore shipper writing up a manifesto about why it should be “Ivanecca 4Forever!” then this would be prime fodder for your impassioned insistence that Walter Scott got it all wrong, for at the moment of their joyous reunion, their impending betrothal, and the unfolding of a clear path to their happily ever after… Ivanhoe ditches Rowena to heed the S.O.S. of another woman.
The only thing we learn about Rowena in this moment is that she “had found her situation extremely embarrassing [and] had taken the first opportunity to escape from the apartment.” Is she embarrassed by Athelstane’s conduct or Ivanhoe’s disappearance? Unclear. She does not appear until the very final scene of the book, where she and Rebecca interact for the second and final time.
***
Ivanhoe reaches Rebecca in time, leaving Bois-Guilbert in the position of having to let the man he hates most defeat him in order to save Rebecca’s life, or slay his opponent and watch Rebecca die. Faced with this impossible choice, his brain malfunctions and he perishes: “unscathed by the lance of his enemy, he had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions.” Unsurprisingly, every single adaptation avoids this anticlimactic end, and depicts the two men engaged in a fight to the death – occasionally with Bois-Guilbert deliberately throwing the fight to save Rebecca.
In the tumult that follows, Rebecca is embraced by her father, who tells her they must thank Ivanhoe: “Not so, O no – no – no – I must not at this moment dare to speak to him – Alas! I should say more than – no my father, let us instantly leave this evil place.” Overcome with emotion, she cannot face Ivanhoe, and after pointing out to her father that King Richard is in attendance, is quickly ushered from the field of battle to the safety of a Jewish household.
She does not see Ivanhoe again (another detail that all adaptations uniformly ignore), and a few pages later, in the very same chapter, Ivanhoe and Rowena are wed: “the nuptials of our hero, thus formally approved by his father, were celebrated in the most august of temples, the noble Minster of York.”
And now comes the scene I’ve been most looking forward to writing about, the one that inspired this entire post. The second and final meeting between Rowena and Rebecca takes place on the second morning after the wedding, in which Rebecca uses Rowena as a proxy to thank Ivanhoe for saving her life. Rowena is told:
A damsel desired admission to her presence, and solicited that their parley might be without witness. Rowena wondered, hesitated, became curious, and ended by commanding the damsel to be admitted, and her attendants to withdraw.
[Rowena] entered – a noble and commanding figure, the long white veil, in which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect, unmingled by the least shadow either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to the feelings, of others.
Rebecca kneels, bends her head to the ground, and (as she did at their last encounter) kisses Rowena’s hem, after which she: “[rises] up and [resumes] the usual quiet dignity of her manner.” Their conversation is as follows:
“I may lawfully, and without rebuke, pay the debt of gratitude which I owe to Wilfred of Ivanhoe. I am – forgive the boldness which has offered to you the homage of my country – I am the unhappy Jewess, for whom your husband hazarded his life against such fearful odds in the tiltyard of Templestowe.”
“Damsel, Wilfred of Ivanhoe on that day rendered back but in slight measure your unceasing charity towards him in his wounds and misfortune. Speak, is there aught remains in which he or I can serve thee?”
“Nothing, unless you will transmit to him my grateful farewell.”
Rebecca discloses that she’s leaving England for Grenada, though Rowena asks her to stay – she would have protection under King Richard, saying: “but you maiden, you surely can have nothing to fear. She who nursed the sick-bed of Ivanhoe, she can have nothing to fear in England, where Saxon and Norman will contend who shall most do her honour.”
She seems sincere in this belief, but Rebecca replies: “thy speech is fair, lady, and thy purposes fairer; but it may not be – there is a gulf betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith, alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell – yet, ere I go, indulge me one request. The bridal-evil hangs over thy face; deign to raise it, and let me see the features of which fame speaks so highly.”
Rowena shows her face, and they gaze at each other for a spell. Along with a gift of jewels, Rebecca gives Rowena a slightly backhanded compliment, if you read closely: “Lady, the countenance you have deigned to show me will long dwell in my remembrance. There reigns in it gentleness and goodness; and if a tinge of the world’s pride or vanities may mix with an expression so lovely, how should we chide that which is of earth for bearing some colour of its original? Long, long will I remember your features, and bless God that I leave my noble deliverer with...”
She gets choked up at this point, and Rowena makes one last bid: “You are then unhappy! O, remain with us – the counsel of holy men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you.”
It’s a double-edged sword, for though Rowena is sincere, and though she demonstrates no hostile prejudice towards her religion, this offer clearly comes under the condition that Rebecca convert to Christianity. This Rebecca refuses, telling her she will be a healer:
“Among our people...have been women who have devoted their thoughts to Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to enquire after the fate of her whose life he saved.” There was an involuntary tremor on Rebecca’s voice, and tenderness of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have expressed.
With that she departs, never to see Ivanhoe or Rowena again. It’s not entirely clear whether Rowena gleans Rebecca’s love for Ivanhoe, or if she suspects that any feelings were reciprocal, but she passes on Rebecca’s message and we’re left with this final insight into their relationship:
The fair Saxon related the singular conference to her husband, on whose mind it made a deep impression. He loved long and happily with Rowena, for they were attached to each other by the bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from the recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union. Yet it would be enquiring too curiously to ask, whether the recollection of Rebecca’s beauty and magnanimity did not recur to his mind more frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have approved.
On that mildly ambiguous note, the story ends.
***
As it happens, Walter Scott was not blind to much of his readership’s disappointment that Ivanhoe ended up with the “wrong” woman (though he never had to deal with modern-day fandom which no doubt would have preferred Rebecca to end up with Bois-Guilbert). He provides justification for his choice in his 1830 introduction to the text:
The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena.
But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such a union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes.
In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly formed or ill-assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, verily Virtue has had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will show, that the duties of self-denial, and the sacrifice of passion to principle, are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty, produces on their own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace which the world cannot give or take away.
For Scott, the story in its entirety is about people rising to their better natures, and that he has a duty to instruct his readers on how they should behave. Putting that aside, I’d add that not pairing Ivanhoe with Rebecca makes for a better story than just giving his characters what they want with no difficulties. Readers will complain, but would Little Women be as memorable if Jo had married Laurie? Or if Anne of Green Gables hadn’t ended with Matthew’s untimely death? It’s the bittersweetness that makes these stories true to life; that keeps them lingering in our minds.
In the text of the story, Scott is a little coy about what Ivanhoe might truly feel for Rebecca, and of course, many of the adaptations take advantage of this ambiguity. In the 1982 and 1997 versions especially, there is definitely a mutual attraction between the two – to the point where you get the sense Ivanhoe may well have chosen Rebecca if circumstances had allowed. But not everyone was satisfied with this bittersweet note.
Ivanhoe was published in 1819, and thirty-one years later, William Makepeace Thackery (best known for writing Vanity Fair) wrote his own sequel to the novel, in which he set things right, and ended the story the way he thought it ought to end. Namely, that Ivanhoe should have married Rebecca instead of Rowena. (In fact, Thackery wasn’t the last to take umbridge to Ivanhoe’s marriage in print. In Knight’s Castle by Edgar Eager, a children’s book first published in 1956, this short exchange takes place:
Eliza looked up from her hot butterscotch ice-cream shortcake. “I don't see why he had to marry that old Rowena,” she said. “Rebecca was lots prettier. Why couldn't he have married her?”
“That wasn't what the author wrote,” said Roger, a bit shocked.)
Thackery certainly wasn’t shy about how aggrieved he was about how the book panned out, stating in his own foreword:
My dear Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, has always, in my mind, been one of these [characters of whom we ought to hear more]. Nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so admirable, so tender, so heroic, so beautiful, could disappear altogether before such another woman as Rowena, that vapid, flaxen-haired creature who is, in my humble opinion, unworthy of Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as a heroine. Had both of them got their rights, it ever seemed to me that Rebecca would have had the husband, and Rowena would have gone off to a convent and shut herself up, where I, for one, would never have taken the trouble of enquiring for her.
Must the disinherited knight, whose blood has been warmed in the company of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down contented for life by the side of such a frigid piece of propriety as that icy, faultless, prim, niminy-piminy Rowena? Forbid it Fate, forbid it poetic justice!
It’s a very early example of what we’d today call a Fix-It Fic. What’s more, it contains a textbook example of Die for Our Ship, in which a fictional character is completely lambasted for the crime of hooking up with another character that fandom wanted to pair up with someone else (usually the one they’ve projected themselves onto). The worst that Rowena could be accused of in Scott’s story is being not-particularly-interesting; perhaps a little haughty. The Rowena of Thackery’s novella is painted in a terrible light; it’s a complete hatchet job in comparison with her original characterization.
To make his story work, Thackery has to casually ignore that the novel states Ivanhoe and Rowena did live happily together, and that Rowena was the only character in the story (even more so than Ivanhoe) who offers unconditional assistance and friendship to Rebecca. Unlike Scott, Thackery thinks that because book characters aren’t real, they should get whatever they want. That’s the whole point of fiction, and the mere existence of a love triangle in Ivanhoe raises the question of what exactly such a story should be about, and what it should impart.
(It’s so hilarious how relevant his thought process is to modern-day fandom. How many times to we see fans wilfully ignore canon, disregard authors and completely rewrite characters to better align with what they want?)
What also interests me is that both Scott and Thackery treat love – that is, romantic love with a man – as the ultimate reward each female character must attain in order to “win” the story. This mentality is still prevalent in modern fandom – heck, it’s implied in the term Shipping War: that love is something to win or lose, and that love itself (with the wealth, status and importance in a man’s eyes that it confers, of course) is the reward that the worthiest female character should acquire by story’s end.
Thackery is extremely annoyed that Rowena “stole” this rightful honour from his beloved Rebecca, and lets his frustration be known throughout his comedic sequel. As was discussed by Matthew Sweet in the introduction of the edition I read:
It’s a novella for anyone who’s read a book and had doubts about the happiness of its ending. Scott’s quiet disposal of his heroine at the end of the book (she’s packed off to Spain with her father, as Rowena gets hitched to the hero) did not prevent her from becoming the focus of his reader’s attention.
In this, Thackery attempts to rectify the situation, showing blatant favouritism to Rebecca and writing quite a hit-piece on Rowena in the process. To wit:
No person... can doubt for a moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe and the Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during her maidenhood, her distinguished politeness, her spotless modesty of demeanour, her unalterable coolness under all circumstances, and her lofty and gentlewoman-like bearing, must be sure that her married conduct would equal her spinster behaviour, and that Rowena the wife would be a pattern of correctness for all the matrons of England.
(I’m not saying the Rowena of Scott’s text is necessarily dynamic, but she also sends her lady to fetch the pedlar in hopes of gleaning information about Ivanhoe, always speaks up in the absent Ivanhoe’s defence, refuses to attend Prince John’s banquet, and instructs her people to assist the stranded Jews when they were ready to abandon them on the road).
For miles around Rotherwood her character for piety was known. Her castle was a rendezvous for all the clergy and monks of the district, whom she fed with the richest viands, while she pinched herself upon pulse and water... She lit up all the churches in Yorkshire with wax candles, the offerings of her piety. The bells of her chapel began to ring at two o’clock in the morning, and all the domestics of Rotherwood were called upon to attend at matins, at complines, at nones, at vespers, and at sermon.
(Naturally, everyone under her roof is completely miserable at this joyless worship).
When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies – the poor gentle victim! – and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of her victory. But did you ever know a right-minded woman pardon another for being handsome and more love-worthy than herself?
(In truth, the original text has Rowena try to give back the jewels, explicitly saying she’s not worthy of them: “I dare not accept a gift of such consequence”).
Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women, never forgave Isaac’s daughter her beauty nor her flirtation with Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it), nor, above all, her admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in possession of them. In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe’s teeth. There was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian lady of fashion could never forgive the insult.
(She’s seethingly jealous of Rebecca, bringing her up at every opportunity. As such, Ivanhoe is trapped in a miserable marital state, going on frequent hunts to avoid his wife and longing to join King Richard in France).
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| The Assault on Chalus by Richard Doyle |
Rowena sat mum under her canopy, embroidered with the arms of Edward the Confessor, working with her maidens at the most hideous pieces of tapestry, representing the tortures and the martyrdoms of her favourite saints, and not allowing a soul to speak above his breath, except when she chose to cry out in her own shrill voice when a handmaid made a wrong stitch, or let fall a ball of worsted.
(Oh, come on, Thackery!)
Eventually Ivanhoe does leave home in order to fight with Richard in France, during which the king dies and Ivanhoe remains abroad. Believing him dead, Rowena quickly remarries the man she was originally betrothed to, none other than Athelstane himself, and bears him a son called Cedric.
She was a lady of such fine principles that she did not allow her grief to overmaster her, and an opportunity speedily arising for uniting the two best Saxon families in England by an alliance between herself and the gentleman who offered himself to her, Rowena sacrificed her inclination to remain single to her sense of duty, and contracted a second matrimonial engagement.
(This is despite Scott making it clear that Rowena “despised” Athelstane and dreaded their impending nuptials. But according to Thackery, she’s much happier with Athelstane, while Wamba discovers a clue as to where Ivanhoe’s heart truly lies: “he found a locket round his neck, in which there was some hair, not flaxen like that of my lady Rowena, but as black, Wamba thought, as the locks of that Jewish maiden whom the knight had rescued in the lists of Templestowe.”)
 |
| Athelstane and Rowena by Richard Doyle |
After Rotherwood is besieged by King John, Athelstane is killed and Rowena put under arrest, where Ivanhoe finds her some years later after she discovers he’s still alive and sends him a message:
My dearest Ivanhoe... Have I been near thee dying for a whole year, and didst thou make no effort to rescue thy Rowena? Have ye given to others – I mention not their name nor their odious creed – the heart that ought to be mine? I send thee my forgiveness from my dying pallet of straw. I forgive thee the insults I have received, the cold and hunger I have endured, the failing health of my boy, the bitterness of my prison, thy infatuation about that Jewess, which made our married life miserable, and which caused thee, I am sure, to go abroad to look after her. I forgive thee all my wrongs, and fain would bid thee farewell.
(By this point, she’s been languishing in prison for over a year, so surely Thackery can extend some sympathy to her at last?)
I picture to myself, with a painful sympathy, Rowena undergoing this disagreeable sentence. All her virtues, her resolution, her caste energy and perseverance, shine with redoubled lustre, and, for the first time since the commencement of the history, I feel that I am partially reconciled to her. The weary year passes – she grows weaker and more languid, thinner and thinner! She has preserved [her son’s] life at the expense of her own, giving him the whole of the pittance which her goalers allowed her, and perishing herself of inanition. There is a scene! I feel as if I had made it up, as it were, with this lady, and that we part in peace, in consequence of my providing her with so sublime a deathbed.
But there’s one more turn of the screw. On her deathbed, Rowena extracts a promise from her husband: that he’ll never marry a Jewess. It’s her final act of cruelty and resentment, to stake Ivanhoe’s honour against marrying the woman he loves.
***
As it happens, Rebecca herself isn’t seen until the novella’s very last chapter. Thackery has spent most of his page-count on hating Rowena rather than exulting Rebecca, which also feels very true to fandom’s priorities. As noted at the end of Scott’s novel, Rebecca has gone to Granada, and for the past few years has been rather like Penelope in her attempts to ward off all manner of suitors and their marriage proposals, using the excuse that she cannot marry someone of a different creed than her own:
She took their congratulations in a very frigid manner, and said that it was her wish not to marry at all, but to devote herself to the practice of medicine altogether, and to helping the sick and needy of her people. Indeed, although she did not go to any public meetings, she was as benevolent a creature as the world ever saw: the poor blessed her wherever they knew her, and many benefited by her who guessed not whence her gentle bounty came.
But there are men in Jewry who admire beauty, and, as I have heard, appreciate money too, and Rebecca had such a quantity of both that all the most desirable bachelors of the people were ready to bid for her. She invented a thousand excuses for her delay, and it was plain that marriage was odious to her. The only man whom she received with anything like favour, was young Bevis Marks of London, with whom she was very familiar. But Bevis had come to her with a certain token that had been given to him by an English knight...
She is eventually brought before her extended family and told she must choose one of her suitors, to which she states she’ll only ever marry Ivanhoe, having secretly converted to Christianity for his sake.
“I am of his religion.” Rebecca clasped her hands on her beating chest, and looked round with dauntless eyes. “Of his,” she said, “who saved my life and your honour – of my dear, dear champion’s. I never can be his, but I will be no other’s. Give my money to my kinsmen: it is that they long for. Take the dross, Simeon and Solmon, Jonah and Jochanan, and divide it among you, and leave me. I will never be yours, I tell you, never. Do you think, after knowing him and hearing him speak – after watching him wounded on his pillow, and glorious in battle (her eyes melted and kindled again as she spoke these words), “I can mate with such as you? Go. Leave me to myself. I am none of yours. I love him, I love him. Fate divides us – long, long miles separate us, and I know we may never meet again. But I love and bless him always. Yes, always. My prayers are his, my faith is his. Yes, my faith is your faith, Wilfrid, Wilfrid! I have no kindred more – I am a Christian.”
(This is bullshit on multiple levels, largely because Rebecca states several times in the book that she will never abandon her faith, as she makes clear to Rowena: “I may not change the faith of my fathers like a garment unsuited to the climate in which I seek to dwell, and unhappy lady, I will not be.”)
This declaration of conversation enrages her own people to such an extent that Rebecca is locked away in her rooms, not to be seen by the outside world:
She was not killed then, but, so to speak, buried alive, and locked up in Isaac’s back kitchen; an apartment into which scarcely any light entered, and where she was fed upon scanty portions of the most mouldy bread and water. Little Ben Davids was the only person who visited her, and her sole consolation was to talk to him about Ivanhoe, and how good and how gentle he was, how brave and how true; and how he married a lady whom Rebecca scarcely thought worthy of him, but with whom she prayed he might be happy; and of what colour his eyes were, and what were the arms on his shield...
(Again, Rebecca did think Rowena was worthy of him; she says as much in their final meeting together – to ascertain this was in fact the entire purpose of her visit to Rotherwood).
Meanwhile, Ivanhoe is under the erroneous belief that Rebecca has died, and for four years he fights battles in Spain while Rebecca keeps herself alive on bread and water. Finally, the city where she’s held captive is besieged and the pair are finally reunited. As Thackery puts it:
Who is it that comes out of the house – trembling – panting – with her arms out – in a white dress – with her hair down – who is it but dear Rebecca! Look, they rush together... now her head is laid upon Ivanhoe’s heart. I shall not ask to hear what she is whispering, or describe further that scene of meeting, though I declare I am quite affected when I think of it. Indeed, I have thought of it any time these five and twenty years – ever since, as a boy at school, I commenced the noble study of novels – ever since the day when, lying on sunny slopes of half-holidays, the fair chivalrous figures and beautiful shapes of knights and ladies were visible to me – ever since I grew to love Rebecca, that sweetest creature of the poet’s fancy, and longed to see her righted.
 |
| Though I can't verify it, this illustration by Richard Doyle appears to depict Ivanhoe and Rebecca's reunion. |
Like any contemporary fan-fiction writer, Thackery has written a straightforward Fix-It Fic to make right a text that he personally disapproves of, no matter how much character assassination has to take place to make it happen. And of course, being Thackery, he can’t help but end it all on a sardonic note:
That she and Ivanhoe were married follows of course, for Rowena’s promise extorted from him was that he would never wed a Jewess, and a better Christian than Rebecca now was never said her Catechism. Married I am sure they were, and adopted little Cedric; but I don’t think they had any other children, or were subsequently very boisterously happy. Of some sort of happiness melancholy is a characteristic, and I think these were a solemn pair, and died rather early.
***
So, what to make of all this? As stated in my introductory post on this subject, fandom (or just people in general) loves to make binaries out of female characters. Rebecca and Rowena might well be the Ur-Example of this tendency, since it’s apparent in Scott’s original text that they are not explicitly set up as rivals, nor overtly pitted against one another. Indeed, they only interact twice across the course of the entire novel.
Yes, they love the same man, but during their last and most involved meeting with each other, they are cordial and generous. Though Rowena may not grasp the full extent of what’s going on in Rebecca’s heart (despite what Thackeray thinks), she tells Rebecca in all sincerity: “I will be a sister to you.” Likewise, Rebecca gleans a sense of comfort from the fact Ivanhoe has married a good woman, in whose face: “reigns…gentleness and goodness.” They part on bittersweet but courteous terms.
Also worth noting is that even though Ivanhoe is grateful to Rebecca for saving his life, perhaps even attracted to her, the text makes it clear throughout that he won’t be reciprocating her feelings – partly out of loyalty to Rowena, and partly because he clearly perceives the obstacle of their differing religions. Even if Rowena was not a factor, it’s highly likely that because Ivanhoe and Rebecca are so cognizant of their different walks of life, they would have chosen their own people over any potential future together.
All of this is ignored by most readers of the story, who are predisposed to ignore anything that doesn’t support their preferred ship and assume that all female characters are engaged in competitions to secure the love of a man. For one female character to win, the other must lose. If one is revered, the other must be spurned and vilified – as so clearly demonstrated in Thackeray’s parody, regardless of how at odds it is with the characterization laid out in the source material.
That is the curse of women: we are always perceived to be fighting over male attention. The female solidarity so briefly established between Rowena and Rebecca becomes nothing more than rivalry in the eyes of readers, with all the nuance and complexity of their entanglements with Ivanhoe, Bois-Guilbert, and each other ignored for the sake of “undeserving winner” and “poor, helpless loser.”
They were not the first female characters to be treated this way, and they certainly wouldn’t be the last, but Rowena and Rebecca are such a renowned example of how audiences establish a Fan-Preferred Couple, engage in Shipping Wars, Die For Our Ship and Ron the Death Eater, and generally love to hate a female character, that they’ve become a perfect example of this tendency throughout fandom circles.
***
Now that the novel’s plot and characterization have been established, we can explore the ways in which various adaptations have handled this material, particularly the love triangle and the audience’s treatment of the two women; how they differ from not only the text, but also each other. More often than not, it reflects the audience’s preoccupation with the tropes discussed above, and their preconceptions about what happens when more than one female character exists in the same space.
Next up is Part III: The Films
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