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- Prince John turns to his Norman guests and asks in a faux-astonished voice if they hadn’t better get on ships now and return to France before the defeated Saxons get their fighting spirit up. He would continue, but Fitzurse counsels him to respect his guests’ feelings. The prince drinks a toast to Cedric and one to Athelstane.
www.litcharts.com/lit/ivanhoe/volume-1-chapter-14
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Prince John’s demand that a group of Saxons allow Jewish people—the lowest of the low in this social hierarchy—to have their seats contributes to the book’s negative portrayal of the Norman ruling class. It encapsulates the Saxons’ feeling of disinheritance and dispossession in a single moment.
To soothe the party, John has a goblet passed around, asking the Normans to drink to the Saxons and vice-versa. When his turn comes, Cedric, who has already refused to drink to Ivanhoe or to acknowledge him as his son, says that the only worthy Norman he can think of is King Richard.
A wealthy nobleman named Cedric, who is intent on restoring a Saxon to the throne, plans to wed Rowena, a beautiful young woman who is his ward, to the Saxon Athelstane of Coningsburgh. There’s just one small problem: Rowena has fallen in love with Cedric’s son, Wilfred of Ivanhoe.
The book lays out its concerns very clearly in this opening scene: readers find themselves in an oak grove (representative of English identity, but also of strength and perseverance) with not just two Saxons but two enslaved Saxons.
Prince John turns to his Norman guests and asks in a faux-astonished voice if they hadn’t better get on ships now and return to France before the defeated Saxons get their fighting spirit up. He would continue, but Fitzurse counsels him to respect his guests’ feelings.
Ivanhoe is still off at the Crusades, and no one knows what's happened to him. Heroic King Richard I is locked up somewhere in Austria, leaving the English throne to his horrible younger brother, Prince John. And power-mad Norman lords are bullying the Saxons. To sum up: times are tough.
Dec 19, 2011 · Ivanhoe was the first novel in which Scott adopted a purely English subject, portraying the enmity of Saxons and Normans during the reign of Richard I (1189-99). Various explanations have been offered for Scott's decision to turn to medieval England.
