Anthony Hope

Rupert of Hentzau Anthony Hope

This story commences three years after the conclusion of Zenda, and deals with the same fictional country somewhere in Germanic Middle Europe, the kingdom of Ruritania. Most of the same characters recur: Rudolf Elphberg, the dissolute absolute monarch of Ruritania; Rudolf Rassendyll, the English gentleman who had acted as his political decoy, being his distant cousin and lookalike; Flavia, the princess, now queen; Rupert of Hentzau, the dashing well-born villain; Fritz von Tarlenheim, the loyal courtier; Colonel Sapt, the King's Bodyguard; Lieutenant von Bernenstein, the loyal soldier. Queen Flavia, dutifully but unhappily married to her cousin Rudolf V, writes to her true love Rudolf Rassendyll. The letter is carried by von Tarlenheim and his servant Bauer to be delivered by hand, but Fritz is betrayed by Bauer and it is stolen by the exiled Rupert of Hentzau and his loyal cousin the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim. Hentzau sees in it a chance to return to favour by informing the pathologically jealous and paranoid King.