List of Blackadder characters

Main characters

Edmund Blackadder

• Prince Edmund "The Black Adder" : The least intelligent of the Blackadder clan depicted in the series. He is very cowardly and often does not think things through. He despises but fears his family, and dislikes Lord Percy. His closest friend is Baldrick, his manservant. On becoming Prince, he initially wants to be called "the Black Vegetable", before Baldrick convinces him it is a bad idea. He accidentally kills his great-uncle, King Richard III, and is repeatedly visited by his ghost. He becomes Duke of Edinburgh and Lord of the Privy. It is a moot point as to whether or not he was the blood-son of the new king or the result of his mother maybe having an affair. At one point he becomes the Archbishop of Canterbury, but is eventually fired. He has an arranged marriage to the nine-year-old Princess Leia of Hungary, which displeases him. He possibly has some witch blood in him, as his mother had learnt voodoo-esque magic. He is eventually dethroned as Duke of Edinburgh and gathers the other six most evil men in all England to form the Black Seal. They plan to kill the rest of the royal family and claim the throne, but instead betrayed Edmund, too. He is wounded after being tied to a torture chair, which mutilates his ears, hands and private parts. All his family and the Black Seal mistakenly drink poison and die, making Edmund king, but for all of thirty seconds as he also drinks the poison and dies.
• Edmund, Lord Blackadder : The great-grandson of Prince Edmund, Lord Blackadder is in the service of Queen Elizabeth I. He is one of the queen's favourites, but is all too keenly aware of the limitations of this position. He despises Lord Percy even more than his predecessor did, and thinks of Baldrick as a stupid animal, though he does not physically abuse him as his descendants do. He and Melchett dislike but tolerate one another. Lord Blackadder spends most of his time dodging death, in a variety of forms and from a variety of sources. During his stint as High Executioner, for example, he executed the wrong man at the wrong time, thereby facing a death warrant from the Queen. On another occasion, he was unable to pay back a £1,000 loan that he had taken from the Black Monks, and was threatened with being impaled by the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells. He spent two years sailing the seas with Captain Rum, seeking a route around the Cape of Good Hope, but nearly died when he discovered that the captain has no crew and no ability to navigate a ship. He is eventually murdered by Prince Ludwig the Indestructible.
• Mr. E. Blackadder, Esquire, The Butler to the Prince Regent. He is devious, cheeky and probably the most intelligent of all the Blackadders. He has problems keeping the Prince Regent out of trouble. George is easy to trick and scam; Blackadder makes quite a profit out of selling George's possessions, such as socks, when he is not looking. He treats Baldrick with a great deal of contempt, and frequently physically abuses him. Always looking for a way to improve his position, Mr. Blackadder finally gets his chance when George is challenged to a duel by the renowned swordsman, the Duke of Wellington. He switches clothes with the Prince Regent, and is defeated by Wellington, but survives thanks to a conveniently placed cigarette box that Wellington had given to him. Wellington takes this a sign that God is preserving the prince for greater things, and then murders "the butler", feeling insulted by his disrespectful behaviour, leaving Blackadder free to continue posing as the Prince Regent. It should, perhaps, be noted that this is the only incarnation of Blackadder who we do not actually see killed at the conclusion of the series. It can be safely assumed that he went on to become King, since the TV film of the series, Blackadder Back & Forth eventually mentions King Edmund III.
• Captain Edmund Blackadder, a disillusioned and cynical British Army Captain. He joined the army in the late 19th century and earned his stripes in the battle of Mboto Gorge in 1892, where he claims the army fought "pygmies armed with sharpened kiwi fruit and mangoes". He therefore finds the prospect of fighting against armed soldiers who could actually kill him both distasteful and stupid. When the First World War started, he was sent to the trenches with Private Baldrick and Lieutenant George, both of whom he considers idiots but seems to have a genuine affection for. His service is further plagued by General Melchett, a maniac with seemingly no common sense or concern for the men under him, and Captain Kevin Darling, a short-tempered, by the books officer, who panders to Melchett in the hope of staying far away from the front line. Blackadder generally misses no opportunity to mock Darling's name and take him down a peg in Melchett's eyes. Captain Blackadder is a stone-cold realist and knows that if he and his men are sent "over the top", most or all of them will die, and he therefore spends much of his time coming up with plans to avoid this possibility. In the end he, Baldrick, George and Darling are, in fact, sent over the top. To the sound of a slow, minimal piano version of the title theme, the four are seen in slow-motion, charging into the fog and smoke of no man's land, with gunfire and explosions all around, before the scene fades into footage of a sunny poppy field and the sound of birdsong. The fate of the four is left ambiguous.
• Sir Edmund Blackadder : A cavalier during the English Civil War who risks his property and life by his fidelity to the defeated King Charles I. When Baldrick fails to hide Charles from Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads, Sir Edmund struggles to plan an escape as the King's execution draws closer. Baldrick takes up the offer of £1000 for executing the King, but Sir Edmund, initially enraged by this betrayal, declares he will do it himself. Just before the execution, Charles mistakes Sir Edmund's intentions for a cunning plan to trick Cromwell and allow Charles and his son, the future Charles II, to flee to France. Knowing he cannot admit to his greed, Sir Edmund panics and puts forward Baldrick's suggestion for saving the King: cut off a pumpkin passed off as Charles' head. Later, with his house surrounded by the Roundheads, Sir Edmund declares he must fight for his future sovereign, but, not being a man of honour, disguises himself as a Roundhead and denounces Baldrick as "royalist scum".
• Ebenezer Blackadder : The proprietor of a "moustache shop", aided by Baldrick, from which he makes a modest living every year. He is the nicest man in all England, giving away all of his money and property to anyone claiming to be in need. Of course, all his friends and neighbours see him as an easy touch and take full advantage of him, shamefully. For once, this Baldrick seems to be the more intelligent of the two, as he tries to convince Blackadder not to give so freely. One Christmas Eve, after giving away the year's profits, the Christmas tree, the modest Christmas gifts, and even his tiny turkey to a slew of greedy visitors, Blackadder is visited by a friendly spirit. The spirit inadvertently shows this Blackadder how his predecessors behaved and that his descendants will suffer if he continues to be so self-sacrificing, and how they will come to rule the galaxy if he changes his ways. Not a fool, Ebenezer decides to embark on a new way of life immediately. When Queen Victoria and Prince Albert come to grant him money and titles due to his kindness, he insults them, not realising they are the real Queen and consort, and in doing so loses out on fortune and wealth in his personal lifetime.
• Lord Edmund Blackadder / King Edmund III : A modern-day trickster and a charmer. On the eve of the year 2000, he invites his friends over for dinner, intending to make money off them through an elaborate practical joke. Using what he claims are plans from one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, he has Baldrick build a time machine; he then bets his friends that he can go back in time and obtain any object they desire. To his surprise, the time machine, intended as a prop, actually works, and he winds up changing history. Blackadder is later revealed, after altering history one last time, to be the absolute monarch King Edmund III, with Baldrick as his puppet Prime Minister and with Maid Marian revealed to become his queen and bride as Queen Marian of Sherwood.

  Baldrick

Lord Percy Percy

• The Black Adder – Percy is introduced in the first series as Percy, the Duke of Northumberland. In the first series, Percy accompanies both Prince Edmund and Baldrick on all their journeys. At one point, Percy becomes the bishop of Ramsgate when Edmund becomes the Archbishop of Canterbury; he also believes he has a finger bone belonging to Jesus Christ. However, Baldrick informs him that it is a fake by displaying his own collection of ten other "Jesus fingers". In the episode "The Black Seal", Percy accidentally puts poison in the castle's entire wine supply while trying to rescue Prince Edmund from a group of maniacs. While rescuing Edmund, Percy inevitably kills him and the whole royal court when they drink the tainted wine. Percy and Baldrick run in and futilely shout, "Don't drink the wine!" immediately after.
• Blackadder II – In this series, Lord Percy Percy is once again portrayed as a stupid "upper-class twit". Percy has a much larger role in series two, however; this is illustrated by his almost total involvement in all of Blackadder's pursuits. Percy is temporarily the best man at Blackadder's wedding, assistant Lord High Executioner and a shipmate on Blackadder's ill-fated voyage to France. At one point, while trying to master alchemy in an afternoon, Percy creates a green substance that Edmund sarcastically calls "Green" and attempts to turn it into something valuable. He is shown to have a terrible record with women; whilst the occasional girlfriend is mentioned, he is more often seen using rather unconvincing chat-up lines on various females, and, at one point, Baldrick, who was wearing a wig and a dress while acting as a bridesmaid. Percy promptly falls in love with him, not recognising Baldrick and even kissing him. Like the rest of the court, Percy dies at the end of the Blackadder II series finale episode, "Chains" at the hands of the psychopathic German Prince Ludwig the Indestructible.
• Blackadder the Third - The episode Nob and Nobility features McInnerny portraying a French aristocrat by the name Le Comte de Frou Frou, who in the last act is revealed to be a false persona of the masked vigilante going by the name of Scarlet Pimpernel. McInnerny's portrayal of the Pimpernel follows largely that of Percy, with his true identity being Sir Percy Blakeney in the Baroness Orczy novels where the character originates from.