THE NAMING OF STEPHEN BLACK

In the novel 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' the character of Stephen Black seems at first to be a minor character, one of a trio of curious servants who decorate the lives of the more important characters. However, as the book progresses it becomes obvious that this is clearly not so. The book tells the tale of the restoration of English magic, the working out of the prophesy of the Raven King and, like almost everyone in the book, Stephen Black is one of those through whom the magic is worked. More significantly Stephen is one of only three people mentioned in that prophesy; two magicians and the Nameless Slave, and here he is aligned with the Raven King himself. They share an epithet, they share a destiny, only the tense is changed. In the prophesy as recited to Norrell by Vinculus the Raven King is the Nameless Slave who wore a silver crown, who was a king in a strange country. Stephen Black, as we come to learn, is the Nameless Slave who shall do these things, and this, before we have ever met him, is the first prefiguring of the destiny of the man known as Stephen Black. A destiny that is hinted at time and again throughout the book until finally he abandons England and walks into Fairy as a King.

When we first meet him Stephen Black seems very far from his eventual destiny, a butler in the house of Sir Walter Pole and his new wife he seems happy in his position of servitude, finding pleasure and fulfilment in the performance of his duties. The other servants may imagine him as an African King in disguise, but Stephen himself appears to have no ambition beyond those of a trusted and responsible butler to an important man. However it become apparent that this is only the public face of a far more private man. He may take pleasure in tying the perfect neck cloth, or satisfaction in the proper training of a servant, but beneath this is a man at odds with the world in which he lives, who wears his position as a cloak that gives him an identity, a place in the world he believes he would not otherwise possess. For Stephen Black is a negro in Regency England and even in the alternative England of the novel this means, as he says to vinculus, that a “man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences... that my friends do not always like to be seen with me... (that) I will never be anything but a curiosity – like a talking pig or a mathematical horse.” This is indeed true, throughout the book we see Stephen defined by others by his colour; to Strange he is 'Sir Walter's negro servant', to the carter he is a 'black lad'. We see him struck and we see him ignored all because of the colour of his skin. More importantly we see that Stephen has taken on the protective colouration of his oppressors and he seems more class concious, more reserved, more English than the English themselves. And when he rejects Johnson's proffered hand of friendship we see that he has even felt himself compelled to imitate the English rejection of the negro.

Only the gentleman with the thistledown hair seems oblivious to the import of Stephen Black's skin and he, judging him by a different, non English criteria, enslaves Stephen in a deeper and darker servitude that ever was practised by the 'wicked Sir Walter'. At the same time, by continually reminding Stephen of the evils the English have done to him the fairy brings to the fore all the repressed resentment and distrust that lies in Stephens heart. With a single word he conjures the rattle of chains in the horrifying hold of a slave ship and the dying breath of a mother lost because of the cruelty of the English race. At the same time the gentleman with thistledown hair leads Stephen forward as a partner in crime, standing the unwilling and helpless man at his side as performs and suggests all manner of wickedness. Time and again Stephen tries to mollify the gentleman's terrifying whims, but often unable to do so effectively Stephen is left feeling as though the blood is upon his hands too, that he is, in a way, responsible. So it is that that the fairy inures Stephen Black to a world of violence and horror, stripping away the carefully assembled veneer of servitude and Englishness until he is ready to step forward onto the great stage of the prophesy and play his part. Suddenly then, in the midst of of his despair and helplessness, the Nameless Slave is given the power of a god and all of England is there to do his bidding. Taught by a master of cruelty, he is tempted by thoughts of revenge, the desire to turn this power upon the English themselves, to subjugate them as they have subjugated him. Yet in the end his true nature asserts itself; at the sacrifice of his own name, his own true identity, he finally accepts himself as he is and rids both England and Faerie of the gentleman with thistledown hair before turning his back upon the country that has rejected him and embracing his destiny as the King of a strange country.

It would seem therefore that Stephen Black's true identity is lost, he himself has given it up and is content to be the nameless slave. It would certainly appear that the knowledge gleaned at such price from the ashes, the pearls, the counterpane and the kiss, the name given to him at birth by his mother, is lost with the death of the fairy. However it is still possible to glean something, perhaps even something surprising, from the contextual evidence contained within the novel. We are told little about Black directly, he first appears in 'the eerie, silent fashion peculiar to high trained London servants', without name, history and antecedents. Only slowly, as the novel progresses, are we able to pick out and stitch together fragments of his story.

The man known as Stephen Black was born, we are told, on board a ship, The Penlaw, sailing from Jamaica to Liverpool; his mother, a black slave being brought to England to be a household servant by Sir Walter Pole's grandfather, died immediately after the birth. The child was christened Stephen Black and educated first by old Sir William and then by Sir Walter, eventually becoming the trusted servant of the latter. The birth of Stephen black and the death of his mother appear to have taken place sometime around the year 1782 as evidenced by the gentleman with the thistledown hair's assertion that “After thirty or forty years, all that was left of your mother was four things...” As this is said in 1817 a median date for Stephens birth would be 1782, making him 25 in 1807 when we first meet him, and 17 years younger than Sir Walter Pole who was 42 in that year. Twenty five seems a little young to be in such a position of trust as Stephen Black was in after the marriage of Sir Walter, but it must be remembered that they had probably known each other for all of Black's life, they had shared food and fire together and would have known each other well. A strange position for a servant to be in, yet not so strange as the story of his mysterious mother and Sir William Pole.

Stephen's vision of chains and the dark and terrible hold of a ship conjures images of the horrifying slave ships such as the Brookes that plied the middle passage in the 1780's. However, although it may be true that Stephen's mother travelled to Jamaica on such a ship and endured that terrifying journey in such foul conditions, it would not have been so on her journey to Britain. She would not have been one slave in a shipment of hundreds packed into the bowels of a ship, she would have been a single slave hand picked by Sir William to accompany him home to freedom and to England where “the air... is the air of liberty.” Furthermore Sir William and his valet were also on board the ship and it is almost impossible to conceive that they would have travelled on a vile and monstrous vessel such as the Brookes. It is unlikely that the black woman travelled in the same cabins as Sir William and his party, it is more probably that she was placed below decks where the air would have been fetid and damp and the sound of chains would most certainly have been heard.. Yet this is a far cry from being chained as human cargo in a slave ship.

More importantly still, she was pregnant. At that time the journey from Jamaica to Britain could be expected to last from 6 weeks to three months depending on the ship, the weather and luck. Therefore it is inconceivable that Sir Walter was not aware of the pregnancy before they boarded for Liverpool. This is extraordinary, that he should choose a pregnant slave to bring home to England to be a servant in his house. It is so unlikely that it almost defies belief, and there is only one explanation that makes sense of it, that it was Sir Walter himself who had made her pregnant and who was the father of the child she was carrying. This explanation is reinforced as the likely truth by Sir William's subsequent actions. The child, born on board ship, was carried ashore in the arms of Sir William's personal valet, taken into Sir William's care, christened and educated by him. A process that was continued by Sir William's grandson and heir, Sir Walter who took charge of Stephen's education and well being, keeping the young man with him even in his direst poverty, sharing with him his food and his fire.

It would seem therefore that whilst the name given to Stephen Black is lost in the depths of the ocean, in the ashes, the pearls, the counterpane and the kiss, and in all the many, needless deaths that the gentleman with thistledown hair caused in order to retrieve it, the name given to him by his father is well known. It is Stephen Black, a name given not from master to slave, but as father to son.