Quentin Durward

by Sir Walter Scott Book 17 in the Waverley Novels series.

First published 1823

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Quentin Durward leaves poverty in Scotland to seek service with the Scottish Guard of Louis XI of France. At the king’s court he meets Isabelle de Croye, a Burgundian heiress resisting a forced marriage, and is assigned to escort her towards the protection of the Bishop of Liège. Quentin gradually discovers that Louis intends to deliver her into the hands of his violent ally William de la Marck.

The mission becomes part of the larger contest between Louis and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. When rebellion in Liège places Louis in Charles’s power at Péronne, the king must escape responsibility for the violence he helped provoke. Quentin’s loyalty to Isabelle draws him through ambush, urban revolt and court deception, while the novel portrays the decline of feudal chivalry and the rise of a more centralised, calculating monarchy.