Crispin: The Cross of Lead

Orson “Bear” Hrothgar is a travelling entertainer who serves as a mentor, father figure, and friend to Crispin. In fact, the name “Orson” is Latin for bear while the name Hrothgar and his red hair are suggestive of Danish Viking ancestry. Bear’s dualistic nature is suggested both by his hat, which splits into two ends hung with bells, and by his nickname, which suggests not only his physical characteristics but also his alternately gentle and ferocious nature. At first, Crispin finds Bear to be full of contradictions: He renounces tyranny, then claims Crispin as his servant. On another occasion, he tells Crispin that he likes to pray at masses when he visits villages, even though he earlier explained his disdain for ritualistic worship. To explain, Bear says, “What I think, Crispin, stays in my head. What I do is there for all the world to see” (103). Bear’s public persona is therefore distinct from his inward identity. He models for Crispin the difficult balance between holding ideals and living practically in a society that falls short of those ideals.

Though Bear has both religious and military training, he opts for the life of a jester after seeing other performers whose “music, tricks, and most of all, their laughter beguiled me” (84), as he explains to Crispin. To Bear, laughter is freedom in the form of escape from sorrow, as he both tells and demonstrates to Crispin. When he tells his life story, “everything he talked about was stitched with laughter […] except every now and then he’d cry out with an awful anger” (91). As a wandering entertainer, Bear serves as an outside observer, passing judgment on society. He conforms to the archetype of the wise fool, one whose jokes are laced with serious observations.

Bear’s development throughout the novel is not so dramatic as Crispin’s, but he does gradually distance himself from the position of Ball, whose plans he finds unrealistically ambitious, while growing to trust Crispin, whom he initially views as a helpless child. These arcs demonstrate his wisdom and resilience, as he moves away from an ultimately doomed political movement and refuses to give up Crispin even under the pressure of torture.

John Aycliffe is the steward of Stromford, who oversees the affairs of the village in the absence of Lord Furnival. As the antagonist, Aycliffe seeks to kills Crispin at the urging of Lady Furnival, whom he is related to. In fulfilling her charge, Aycliffe reveals himself to be a cruel and deceptive man, willing to kill a child to gain political favor. Along the way, he also authorizes the killing of Father Quinel, suggesting that nothing and no one is out-of-bounds in the pursuit of his goal.

Apart from his brief interactions with Crispin at the beginning of the novel when he treats Crispin with cruelty and disdain, Aycliffe remains mostly out of sight through the middle portions of the narrative, though he remains a constant threat. When Aycliffe and Crispin finally come face to face inside the Furnivals’ palace, Aycliffe responds to Crispin’s assertion that he is Lord Furnival’s son with the rejoinder, “You’re not even human” (241). Potentially, he is simply referring to Crispin’s status as a wolf’s head, which means that anyone is allowed to kill him legally, but since Aycliffe’s mistreatment of Crispin pre-dates Crispin’s declaration as a wolf’s head, Aycliffe’s statement is a revealing look at the way he feels not just toward Crispin but toward all of the peasants whose work he oversees. In his view, they are more like beasts of burden than they are people.

Despite Bear’s assertion elsewhere that there is good and bad in everyone, Aycliffe demonstrates few, if any, redeeming qualities. He even betrays his oath to Crispin when he publicly denounces and then attempts to kill him and Bear near the city’s gate. His impalement by his own soldiers poetically suggests that Aycliffe brought his own fate upon himself.

Father Quinel is the priest in Stromford village. A kindly, elderly man, Father Quinel is one of Crispin’s few friends in the village. According to rumors, Father Quinel is the illegitimate son of a previous Lord Furnival, which might explain why he takes Crispin under his wing. As a priest, Father Quinel administers to the spiritual and other needs of the peasants in Stromford and serves as something of a mentor and father figure to Crispin during his childhood. Unlike Crispin’s later mentor, Bear, however, Father Quinel does not see fit to critique English feudal society, instead encouraging Crispin to simply play his role. After Crispin is declared a wolf’s head, he even hints that Crispin could run away and live elsewhere as “a high-born lord . . . or a king” (32). Father Quinel’s death at Aycliffe’s hands after decades of religious service shows that the system he supported throughout his life turned against him as soon as he posed even a minor threat to it.

Widow Daventry is a tavern keeper, who provides support to Crispin and Bear while they stay in Great Wexly. A kind, jolly woman with a tragic past, she possesses a “brimming, bustling force” (151). As a longtime friend of Bear, whom she treats flirtatiously, she welcomes Crispin with parental concern and sternness. Aware of Bear’s association with Ball, Widow Daventry tries to convince Bear to stay away from Ball for his own safety. She also advises Crispin to flee from Great Wexly after Bear is captured. Both ignore her warnings, and Widow Daventry pays the price when her tavern is ransacked, and she is physically assaulted for helping them. Widow Daventry thus represents a certain resilient subset of the population who make the best of unfortunate circumstances; her business is a booming success, but she remains at the mercy and whims of the ruling class.