Mr. E. Blackadder
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Edmund Blackadder, Esq. (1762-1830) was the main character in the third series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder. He was played by Rowan Atkinson.
The series was set in Regency England (1811-1820). It appears that the Blackadder dynasty has fallen upon hard times, as the Blackadder of this period is not royalty or nobility, but the butler to the Prince Regent, Prince George. Blackadder seems to make a living from stealing and selling the Prince's valuables (including, for some reason, socks). Indeed, George's wallet is often to be found in Blackadder's top pocket.
Throughout the centuries since his ancestor Lord Blackadder, the Blackadders seem to have maintained their rapier-like wit, and their penchant for theft, corruption, lies and insults. The Blackadder dynasty also seems to have maintained a close link with the Baldrick dynasty. Baldrick, by this stage, has lost whatever cunning his ancestors once had, and reached a level of childlike stupidity that is familiar to most viewers.
On the up side of things, somewhere between the Elizabethan period and the Regency period, Blackadder does seem to have managed to shake off Lord Percy's descendants. However, in his place stands the even stupider Prince George, whom Blackadder now has to serve. The relationship between the two is a fine example of how figure heads often act as puppets whose strings are pulled by those behind the scenes.
As butler to the royal household, Blackadder's jobs include announcing, supervising the linen maids, opening and closing doors and cleaning up the Prince's cock-ups. Most of his other duties appear to have been delegated to Baldrick. He also receives assistance from Mrs. Miggins, who appears to do much of the baking for the palace.
This Blackadder appears to have no real agenda other than helping the Prince make money so that he can steal it. As a result, he is often required to guide George so that he appears respectable to society. This includes speech writing, election rigging, wooing potential brides and advising the Prince on patronages. This often leads Blackadder into worse trouble, including having to re-write the dictionary in one night, being robbed by the elusive "Shadow" and being captured by an evil revolutionary.
Blackadder actually seems rather content to be middle class with "the toffs at the top, the plebs at the bottom, and me in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them". He dreams of being young and wild, then middle aged and rich and then he wants to be old and annoy people by pretending to be deaf. Edmund was also an author. Under the pseudonym 'Gertrude Perkins' he wrote "Edmund: A Butler's Tale", a giant rollercoaster of a novel in 400 sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century with some hot gypsies thrown in. Samuel Johnson believed it to be the only book better than the Dictionary, and it looked like Edmund was going to be rich, until Baldrick mistakenly threw the book on the fire.
In the final episode, after a saga which involves Edmund and the Prince swapping coats and assuming each other's identity to protect the Prince from the vengeance of the Duke of Wellington, George is shot dead by the Duke, who believes him to be a 'tiresome butler' called Mr. Blackadder. Blackadder leaps on the opportunity to claim that he is Prince George, and supposedly went on to become George IV of the United Kingdom.