The Queen of Spain’s Beard

Episode 4 of The Black Adder, The Queen of Spain's Beard is a tale of high politics, which results in marriage for Black Adder, but not to the woman he expects...

The episode starts with a lovers' tryst, high up on the castle battlements. The Lady speaks breathily with simmering passion for her lover. It is obvious that he is becoming somewhat over excited. At the end of her speech, she exclaims, 'For I am yours, and yours alone.' The spell is broken however and when Black Adder throws off his cape to reveal himself, she recoils in horror, 'I thought you were your brother', and pushes him backwards off the ramparts. He lands in the courtyard to be savaged by a dog.

Following the collapse of the Treaty of Insects, Europe was in turmoil. Richard's strategy for England included twin policies of bloodshed and marriage. Thus on one hand he dispatches the Earl of Wessex to pillage Geneva (to take advantage of the French just having been invaded by the Swiss), and on the other arranging for Harry to marry the Spanish Infanta. However, Harry already has a list of some 8 fiance or fiancees, one of whom is Princess Leia of Hungary. So it turns to Edmund to marry the Spanish Infanta.

However, following his run in with the dog, Edmund has vowed to steer clear of women, telling Percy and Baldrick to inform any that wish to speak with him that he is, 'a venomous reptile and women are his prey.' This of course changes when he is informed that he is to marry the Spanish Infanta, 'This is no ordiary woman, Percy. This a beautiful royal princess.' If only he knew, if only he knew...

Miriam Margolyes and Jim Broadbent play the Infanta and her interpreter, Don Speekenglish. Now, she is certainly not what Edmund is expecting when she first appears. Initially, he can only see Speekenglish, with his ridiculous tuft of hair on the end of his chin and after saying hello to him, is then serenaded by him (on behalf of the Infanta). Of course Edmund is still unaware that this guy is actually an interpreter, speaking the words of another, so he hits him on the nose. At last the Infanta reveals herself. Edmund, as one might expect is horror-struck...

There follow a number of schemes by Edmund, Percy and Baldrick to extricate Edmund from the marriage. Most memorably sending Baldrick into the Infanta's bedchamber to attempt to remove her virginity - Baldrick emerges, quite literally battered...

At the end of the day however, it is the political instability current in Europe which gets Edmund off the hook. The reprieve coming at the altar, due to the fact that France and the Swiss have made peace, joined a clandestine alliance with Spain, thus leaving England without friends in Europe, unless an alliance with Hungary could be struck. Step forward the ten year old Princess Leia...