A Crown of Straw

A Crown of Straw by Allen Upward

A Crown of Straw opens in Stuttgart, where four conspirators load a single-barrel pistol, seal the bullet with burning wax, and give it to a young man named Karl, chosen by lot, along with a sealed paper bearing the name Leopold. News then arrives that Leopold IX, the cruel and sane King of Franconia, has gone mad and cut his throat. The group disperses, but Johann, one of the four, keeps the pistol for Leopold's son Maximilian. The narrative explains the cursed line of Astolf, whose kings are watched by a Court physician ready to pronounce the word monomania. It also recounts Leopold's crimes against a jeweller, a red-bearded sergeant whose daughter died, the forester's boy Karl Fink, and the night-school printer Johann Mark. Ten years later Maximilian reigns, a shy dreamer devoted to art and music. In the forest near the Castle of Neustadt, he secretly courts Dorothea, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the forester Franz Gitten, under the name Herr Maurice. He brings his friend, the composer Auguste Bernal, and gives her a jewelled daisy brooch. Franz has agreed to sell his daughter's favour for a rangership and a pension. Dorothea innocently mentions her fear that the King might go mad. Her cousin Johann Mark, a Socialist printer, arrives, learns the truth from Franz, and storms toward the Castle. Maximilian confides to Bernal that he may marry Dorothea, and Bernal's startled cry of "Are you mad?" wounds him. Meanwhile Karl Fink, now the King's servant, spies for the King's aunt, the proud and embittered Princess Hermengarde. She is the widow of the mad Prince Otto and mother of the boy Prince Ernest. She tells Chancellor von Sigismark and his daughter Gertrude, a former favourite of the King, about the forester's girl. She also begins courting Gertrude for Ernest. Johann forces Karl to hide him in the Castle gallery with the old sealed pistol. The society behind him resents Maximilian's extravagance, especially the vast palace of Seidlingen. Johann confronts the King and Bernal. Maximilian answers him with calm dignity and proposes that Johann spend six months directing his government, after which Johann may fire the pistol if he still wishes. Johann learns the King loves his cousin Dorothea and means to make her his wife. Karl, repentant, has alerted the Princess and the Chancellor. Guards rush in, but Maximilian pardons Johann and lodges him in the Castle. That night Hermengarde visits Dorothea in disguise, reveals her rank, and invites her to the Castle. Next morning Johann proposes nationalising the land and the means of production. Von Sigismark is horrified and offers his resignation, and Maximilian despairs of his Ministers. Johann urges the King to take real power and be the liberator of mankind. Maximilian sends Johann to Dorothea as his ambassador. Dorothea tells Johann she will not marry the King, though she promises not to break with him. When Maximilian visits, she kneels, asks forgiveness, and agrees to try to love him. Afterwards she quarrels with her father and flees to Hermengarde at night. Hermengarde promises she need not marry the King, keeps her at the Castle, and tells the Chancellor she wants the affair made public to turn opinion against the match. She also reveals that Johann is Dorothea's cousin. Maximilian refuses his Ministers' call for arrests and martial law in Mannhausen. He demands a programme of reform, and Herr Moritz suggests a Commission. Maximilian slips away with Johann to Mannhausen in disguise. There they walk the Saturday-night slum market, where he sees ragged children, an old woman who has lost her husband and daughters to poverty and the streets, and a drunken potter who expects to die by fifty. A painted girl who reminds him of Dorothea accosts him, and he fills her hand with gold.

By Allen Upward · First published 1909 · Genre: Political fiction, Ruritanian romance, Political thriller · 26 chapters · 92,465 words

First lines

IN the inner room of a small, dimly lighted house, half hidden behind the dark walls of the arsenal of Stuttgart, in Germany, a group of three men were occupied in loading a pistol.

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fictional kingdom of Franconia · imperial Germany · political novel · royal romance · hereditary madness · monomania · dynastic curse · tyranny · conspiracy · assassination plot · sealed pistol · socialism

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A Crown of Straw is listed on Textopian as a novel by Allen Upward, dated 1909 CE.

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