The First Sir Percy

Set in Holland in 1624, The First Sir Percy, by Baroness Orczy, is another adventure featuring Sir Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes.

The book is a sequel to The Laughing Cavalier and picks up the story a couple of months after the events in the first book.

March 1624 and a lot has happened since the plot on the life of the Stadtholder was foiled two months earlier. With the help of Mynheer Beresteyn, Diogenes has finally met his real father, an English Nobleman, and realised his true identify as Sir Percy Blake of Blakeney, heir to a large estate in Sussex.

Now an English Lord, the once penniless soldier of fortune is getting married to Gilda Beresteyn, the woman he was paid to kidnap back in January. Mynheer Beresytn has arranged a double wedding for the pair along with his son Nicholaes and his bride to be, Kaatje van den Poele.

The day is to be one of great celebration, with guests coming from far and wide including the Stadtholder Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange who owes Diogenes his life for informing him of Lord Stoutenburg's plot against his life. Also due to attend are Diogenes' fellow 'philosophers' – Socrates and Pythagoras.

Pythagoras, however has fallen foul of Lord Stoutenburg after coming across the fugitive and his servant Jan, while lost in the Veluwe on the way to the wedding. Stoutenburg recognises the philosopher and after plying him with lots of wine, gets Jan to take him back out into the snow and kill him. Jan leads Pythagoras away from his planned route, shoots him in the back and leaves him for dead.

On the day of the wedding, Diogenes is concerned about his friend and sends Socrates and a group of men out to look for him. The wedding celebrations are torturous for the adventurer who is not used to formal Dutch traditions and just wants to whisk his new bride away to their new life in England. Diogenes enlists the help of the Stadtholder to break up the celebrations early so he can go against tradition and carry off his wife in the face of scandalised and protesting wedding guests but just as he is about to ride off, a curious spectacle presents itself to view.

Socrates arrives on horseback, with the barely alive Pythagoras across his saddle. The Stadtholder agrees to stay on so his personal doctor can administer to the adventurer and when he is eventually able to speak, he is able to relay Stoutenburg's new plans to assassinate the Stadtholder in some detail.