Line #5 Literature/TheGrailQuest


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thegrailquest.jpg]]
2	''The Grail Quest'' series by Creator/BernardCornwell (originally a trilogy, but now extended to four books) is about an archer called Thomas of Hookton, bastard son of a French priest, who lives during UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar. When his DoomedHometown is attacked, he lends his archery skills to the English army, while hunting for the people who killed his father and stole a relic purported to be the lance of St. George. Eventually his path leads him on a quest for the HolyGrail.
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4	So far in the series are:
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6	* ''{{Literature/Harlequin}}''
7	* ''{{Literature/Vagabond}}''
8	* ''{{Literature/Heretic}}''
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10	And, [[TimeSkip set ten years later]], ''1356''. This time he and dark forces are after the purported sword of St. Peter.
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12	Another Cornwell novel, ''Literature/{{Azincourt}}'', is set in the same continuity but is more of a SpiritualSuccessor than a true sequel. Its protagonist Nick Hook is also an archer, but he's unrelated to the now-famous Thomas.
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14	Not to be confused with the ''Literature/GrailQuest'' series of gamebooks by J.H. Brennan.
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16	----
17	!!Tropes:
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19	* AnnoyingArrows: Usually averted, since longbows and crossbows are serious business on the field, arrows and bolts being able to pierce chain mail armour. However, they can't pierce the more expensive plate armour, though the force of enough hits can help wear down a man wearing it.
20	* AntagonistTitle: The first book. The main villain of the trilogy is Guy Vexille, called "the Harlequin", [[spoiler:and Thomas's cousin]]. Today "Harlequin" just refers to a kind of clown, but it's an Italian term meaning [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "the Devil's horseman"]] However, the English archers are also called the same thing in French, "hellequin".
21	* AntiHero: Thomas of Hookton.
22	* AnyoneCanDie: Just because you're Thomas' BFF doesn't mean you will live.
23	* AristocratsAreEvil: While the series has a fair amount of [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Reasonable Authority Figures]], others, such as Guy Vexille, Sir Simon Jekyll, and Duke Charles of Blois are thoroughly nasty individuals.
24	* ArmourIsUseless: Only against the right weapons, otherwise it's very useful.
25	* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: The archers in England's army fit this to a tee.
26	* AttackAttackAttack: Most of the French leaders have this mindset at Crécy, which leads to them being on the receiving end of a CurbStompBattle.
27	* BadassPreacher:
28	** Father Hobbe in ''Harlequin'', who holds his own in a melee with a staff, and later serves as an archer at Crécy.
29	** The Bishop of Durham is less interested in prayer than he is in smashing French skulls with a gigantic mace.
30	** In 1356, there's Fra Ferdinant, an old monk pushing 60. He kills three trained soldiers with an old sword which doesn't even have a proper handle.
31	* BigBadassBattleSequence: Many.
32	* BlingOfWar: Knights in shining armour, dressed in bright colours, with ostrich feathers on their helmets. Justified in that this is a way to aid identification on the battlefield; the text notes that when the Captal de Buch goes scouting, he switches to plain brown clothing.
33	* BloodKnight: Plenty. Perhaps the most notable is Sculley the Scotsman in ''1356'', who gets very upset when he realises he hasn't killed anyone in over a month.
34	* BraveScot: Sir Robbie Douglas, William Douglas, The Lord Douglas - basically if they're Scottish with the name Douglas in this series they aren't going to be a coward
35	* CelibateHero: Roland ''thinks'' he's this -- he believes the Virgin Mary has ordered him to remain chaste until he marries, and spends his life looking for worthy quests.
36	* ChristianityIsCatholic: Due to the setting. But Catharism, branded heresy, also plays a pivotal role in the plot. [[spoiler: The villainous Vexilles had sided with the Cathars a century before the story began, and their motivation throughout this series is to bring down the Church]].
37	* TheConspiracy: The Vexilles' plan [[spoiler: is to acquire the most holy relics of Christendom and ultimately to destroy the Roman Catholic Church]].
38	* CorruptChurch: A Cornwell staple, though individual priests are protagonists, and by ''1356'' Thomas has become remarkably devout, giving a lot of money to the church to make up for the men he has killed -- despite having been excommunicated.
39	* DeadpanSnarker: Many of the characters.
40	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Inevitable due to the setting. For instance, the revelation that her mother may have been a Jew is a major source of distress to Jeanette.
41	* TheDragon: Simon Jekyll briefly plays this role to Guy Vexille, [[spoiler: before getting a lance through the side at Crécy]].
42	* EyeScream: Father Marchant's preferred method of interrogation.
43	* FieldPromotion: King Edward makes Will Skeat a knight just before the battle of Crécy begins.
44	* FinalBattle:
45	** In ''Harlequin'', it's the famous Battle of Crécy.
46	** In ''1356'' it's the famous Battle of Poitiers.
47	* FriendlyEnemy: Sir Guillaume d'Eveque leads the raid that results in the death of Thomas's father. Later, he and Thomas become allies, and Thomas marries his daughter.
48	* FourStarBadass: The Earl of Northampton, who becomes Thomas's liege lord and orders-giver (sort of like [[Literature/{{Sharpe}} the Duke of Wellington to Sharpe]]), and fights in the thick of battles.
49	* GoodIsNotDumb: A minor example from Roland, a tournament champion notable for his chivalry and idealism. Ahead of the Battle of Poitiers he faces a French knight in single combat; his opponent's friends give him advice based on their knowledge of Roland's jousting technique. The knight is then shocked when the first thing Roland does is kill his horse, telling him: "This isn't a tournament."
50	* GoodScarsEvilScars: Sir Guillaume is brutally scarred from an encounter with the Harlequin. He isn't ''evil'', but he's definitely not someone you'd normally want to cross.
51	* GoodShepherd: Some priests are portrayed positively, despite the CorruptChurch. Notable examples are [[BadassPreacher Father Hobbe]] and Abbot Planchard, particularly the latter.
52	* HeroAntagonist: Let's face it -- the Sire Roland de Verrec in ''1356'' is a genuinely good and honourable man, especially compared to the antiheroic Thomas Hookton. He starts out as an enemy, before honour (and love) lead him to change sides.
53	* HeroesPreferSwords: Largely averted. When he has to fight hand-to-hand Thomas favours a falchion (still a sword, but more akin to a cleaver) or a pole-axe, while pretty much every man-at-arms on both sides will bring a mace or an axe to the field in order to defeat their enemies' armour.
54	* HeroicBastard: Thomas -- and the bastard son of a priest, no less. It doesn't stop him from occasionally laying claim to his father's family title.
55	* HeroicBSOD: Jeanette has one [[spoiler: after being raped by Duke Charles]].
56	* HiddenInPlainSight:
57	** [[spoiler: Father Ralph, the priest of Hookton and Thomas's father, is also believed to have had possession of a Holy Grail. He has an unassuming clay cup which he uses to give out communion wafers, and which several characters, including Thomas, take one look at and dismiss as rubbish.]] No points for guessing what it REALLY is.
58	** At the end of ''1356'', [[spoiler:Thomas disposes of ''La Malice'' by leaving it on a pile of discarded weapons, which the local smith plans to melt down and re-forge. It is supposedly the sword of St. Peter, but it looks like rusted-out junk, and Thomas can't even pick it out after he's thrown it on the pile.]]
59	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Before the Battle of Poitiers in ''1356'', Cardinal Bessieres gifts ''La Malice'' (supposedly the sword of St. Peter) to a Scottish knight and encourages him to kill Thomas with it. The next time Bessieres sees it, Thomas is wielding it. It is also the last thing he sees in his life.
60	** Cardinal Bessieres also dons a steel helmet when accompanying King Jean's forces to Poitiers; this gives Thomas a credible excuse to "mistake" him for a combatant instead of a priest, and Bessieres is desperately trying to tug off his helmet and reveal his ''biretta'' when ''La Malice'' takes his head off.
61	* HonourBeforeReason: King John of Bohemia allies with the French at the Battle of Crécy and dies charging into combat when the day is lost. He's also blind. In general, many of the more chivalrous knights in the series basically run on this mindset.
62	* HumansAreBastards: By the end of ''Heretic'', Thomas has seen enough to know that revealing the Holy Grail to the world would cause nothing but strife, madness, and death - not because it is an evil artifact, but because too many people in the world regard it as the ultimate prize. So he follows Abbot Planchard's recommendation [[spoiler:and throws it into the sea.]] Likewise, at the end of ''1356'', Thomas makes good on his vow not to turn St. Peter's sword ''La Malice'' over to his liege lord, but instead [[spoiler:drops it onto a blacksmith's junk pile, intending it to be melted down and recast into something harmless.]]
63	* IGaveMyWord: Robbie Douglas's reason for not wanting to fight the English.
64	* ImpoverishedPatrician: Despite his noble birth, Sir Simon Jekyll inherited his family's debt and is penniless as a result. The fact that many of the lowborn mercenary captains are wealthier than he is galls him to no end.
65	* InfoDump: Brother Germain gives one of these about midway through the first book, explaining the backstory and motivations of the Vexilles. Later on in the same book, Guy Vexille himself gives his own version of this.
66	* ItsAllAboutMe: Sir Simon Jekyll's default mode. He has a self-pitying tendency to see himself as the victim in all situations, and cast the people he has wronged [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming as the transgressors]].
67	* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: One skirmish in ''Harlequin'' is between equal numbers of English and French horsemen, arranged with a formal challenge. The archers mock them for thinking they're the "bloody Knights of the Round Table".
68	* LoveAtFirstSight: Roland and Bertille. To the point where he joins the English within a few hours of meeting her.
69	* TheMagnificent: By ''1356'', Thomas is known among the French as ''[[HeroicBastard Le Bâtard]]'', and often introduces himself as such.
70	* TheManTheyCouldntHang: Thomas in ''Harlequin''.
71	* MarketBasedTitle: ''Harlequin'' has the title ''The Archer's Tale'' in the US because of the ''Harlequin'' RomanceNovel brand. ''1356'' was also supposed to be named ''Slaughteryard''.
72	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The Grail and the other holy relics.
73	** At the end of ''Heretic'', Thomas hurls the Grail - a small clay bowl - across the ground with all his strength, and it doesn't even chip, much less shatter.
74	** ''La Malice'', supposedly the sword of St. Peter, is rusted, cheap-looking, and certainly looks old enough to date from the 1st Century AD, but it clashes with newer steel blades without chipping and cuts through armor and bone with ease.
75	* ModestRoyalty: The Earl of Northampton, something that endears him to his men.
76	* MoneyIsNotPower: Cardinal Bessieres's last words are to promise Thomas money in exchange for sparing his life. Considering everything he has done and ''knows'' he has done to Thomas and his family over the last ten years, the normally clever, scheming Cardinal is grasping the IdiotBall with both hands.
77	* NobleDemon: Sir Guillaume d'Evecque.
78	* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Scots and the Gascons are presented as this, in very different ways. The Scots are half-feral savages, worringly eager to kill the English and disdainful of negotiation and peace. The Gascons are courageous, chivalrous, and deadly.
79	* PunctuatedPounding: Father Hobbe.
80	--> [[BadassPreacher "IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER! AND OF THE SON! AND OF THE HOLY GHOST!"]]
81	* PutOnABus: Jeanette is not seen after the end of ''Vagabond''. A French nobleman mentions to Thomas in ''1356'' that she died of the pestilence.
82	* RapeAsDrama: [[spoiler: Jeanette comes to Duke Charles for refuge and financial aid, but the Duke rapes her and attempts to marry her off to a man of low status]].
83	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Played With. On the one hand, rape is largely seen as just another fact of life in this series, if a lamentable and morally wrong one. Thomas himself never partakes, though at the start of the series, he doesn't seem to show a particular aversion to it, his fellow 'hellequin' partake, and some of his best friends are - or were - vicious rapists, and he generally pays it no mind. However, after seeing [[spoiler: Jeantte's]] HeroicBSOD following her rape, and nursing her through it, he wonders how many other women his comrades and fellow hellequin left in such a state following their depredations. Later, he sees it as morally wrong, but not something he can really stop in instances such as the inevitable RapePillageAndBurn following a concluded siege.
84	* RapePillageAndBurn: How Thomas's DoomedHometown ends up, the ''chevauchée'' tactics work, and how sieges end for the losing town.
85	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Until circumstances force him to leave, Thomas first serves under a troop of archers and men-at-arms led by the commoner William Skeat, who becomes something of a father figure to him. Later Thomas hits it off well with the Earl of Northampton, who becomes his liege.
86	* RedBaron:
87	** Sir Guillaume d'Evecque is known as "the lord of the sea and of the land" because of his piratical tendencies.
88	** Guy Vexille calls himself "The Harlequin".
89	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: King Edward III, King Jean le Bon, and the Black Prince. The "something" here includes leading men into battle, and stealing Thomas's girlfriend. The Dauphin does his best, but is sadly ineffectual. In the second book, the King of Scotland personally fights a major battle despite sustaining a hideous arrow wound to the face early on.
90	* TheSiege: Often.
91	* ShoutOut:
92	** From ''1356'': [[Franchise/TheDarkTower "And so, in the dusk, Roland to the dark tower came."]]
93	** A few references are made to Arthur, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table, but by this point the tales have become heavily romanticized and bear little resemblance to the more realistic versions found in ''Literature/TheWarlordChronicles''.
94	* SmugSnake: Cardinal Bessieres and his flunkies, oh so much. Everyone in medieval Europe fears the Church's censure, but Bessieres fails to consider that Thomas, who has already been excommunicated, has nothing left to lose by killing a priest.
95	* TakeThat: The books contain a couple towards ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'', mostly around the blue facepaint.
96	* TallDarkAndHandsome: Thomas.
97	* ThisIsReality: In his historical note to ''Harlequin'', Creator/BernardCornwell ruefully wrote that when he started a series set in medieval Europe, he ''thought'' he would be telling tales of chivalry, knights on horseback, and grand set-piece battles. His research found that the more common daily picture of medieval life was sordid, petty, and altogether more human. This is frequently lampshaded InUniverse, by a series of noble characters who object to the "dishonorable" means of making war or settling individual disputes, and are promptly told to shut up and limit their notions of chivalry to the tournament fields.
98	* ThoseTwoGuys: Jake and Sam, two of Thomas's archers, [[spoiler: until Jake dies at the end of Heretic.]]
99	* UnskilledButStrong: Thomas, at first, when he has to fight in melee. He doesn't have any formal training to speak of, but as long as he's given the right weapon he can do some SERIOUS damage.
100	* WarForFunAndProfit: Many characters on both sides have this mentality, especially the English hellequin who are charged with pillaging and ravaging the French countryside.
101	* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: A rare heroic example in ''1356''. After the Battle of Poitiers, Thomas tells his wife, as a campfire story, how he tracked down and killed the priest who tortured her, and his boss, the corrupt Cardinal Bessieres.
102	* YouHaveFailedMe: King Philip pulls this on his Genoese crossbowmen at the Battle of Crécy. After they are badly beaten by the English archers in the opening skirmish, the frustrated king orders his horsemen to slaughter the rest of them.
103	* YoungFutureFamousPeople: The future Pope Gregory XI pops up briefly as a young student in ''1356''.

Context Literature / TheGrailQuest