Blackadder: The Cavalier Years Blackadder: The Cavalier Years Blackadder: The Cavalier Years is a 15-minute one-off edition of "Blackadder" set during the English Civil War, shown as part of the first Comic Relief Red Nose Day on BBC1, broadcast on Friday 5 February 1988. The show featured all series regulars except Tim McInnerny and Hugh Laurie with Warren Clarke as a guest star. The episode begins in November 1648. King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland has already lost the Civil War. Only two men remain loyal to him: Sir Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), the sole descendant of the Blackadder dynasty at the
Edmund Blackadder There is a Clan Blackadder in reality. Dr Eric Blackadder, Chief Medical Officer at the BBC at the time of the first programme, claims that the series is named after him. Among historical members of the Clan, in 1502 Robert Blackadder Archbishop of Glasgow presided over a botched ceremony where James IV of Scotland swore to keep perpetual peace with England. At the first attempt the King read his oath from a paper where "France" was written instead of "England." George Buchanan introduced a real Edmund Blackadder in his "Rerum Scoticarum Historia", writing that Mary, Queen of Scots embarked on