the duke

Also known as: Duke Ricardo / THE DUKE / duke / his excellence / his lord / lord / my lord / my lord and husband the duke / my lord and lady the duke / my lord the duke / your excellence · Family: the duke's household · Role: duke · First appears: Part 2, Ch. 30.1

In Part 2, Ch. 30, the duke and the duchess welcomed Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to their country house and invited them to the duke’s castle, where they arranged to treat Don Quixote as a knight-errant. The duke instructed his servants in the reception, promised that Dapple would be fed and Sancho Panza treated honorably, and continued the staged ceremonies even washing himself to conceal a jest played on Don Quixote. In Ch. 32, he granted Sancho Panza a government in Don Quixote’s name: “No, Sancho my friend, certainly not,” said the duke, “for in the name of Señor Don Quixote I confer upon you the government of one of no small importance that I have at my disposal.”

Through Chs. 33–45, the duke and the duchess devised successive knight-errantry entertainments, instructing their servants and the majordomo in how to carry them out. They arranged the hunt, made Sancho Panza’s government conditional on his submitting to the whipping and accompanying Don Quixote, received Countess Trifaldi, and orchestrated the Clavileño adventure. The duke promised Countess Trifaldi protection and assistance, embraced Don Quixote after the adventure, and then sent Sancho Panza to Barataria with a retinue, where he was ceremonially acknowledged as governor; Sancho Panza’s judgments were sent back to the duke.

In Chs. 46–56, the duke and the duchess continued their schemes, using bells and cats in a prank against Don Quixote and arranging attacks and deceptions around Sancho Panza’s government. The duke warned Sancho Panza of enemies and disguised assassins, refused to order the farmer to marry Doña Rodriguez’s daughter, and accepted Don Quixote’s challenge on behalf of his vassal. When the vassal was absent, he and the duchess substituted their lacquey Tosilos, instructing him to fight without killing or wounding Don Quixote; after Tosilos was revealed, the duke postponed the marriage and ordered him confined.