Blackadder turns up as butler to the Prince Regent in the late 18th Century. More correctly, this episode is in the early 19th Century, although it does contain anachronistic references to the late 18th Century. Unlike BA1, BA2, and BA4, the regular cast is limited to Atkinson, Laurie, Robinson, and to a lesser extent Atkinson-Wood, with one off appearances by Fry, McInnerny,, Richardson, Coltrane, and others. Also, unlike BA1,BA2, & BA4, this series is based upon a real person named Edmund who was indeed butler, groom and equerry, to the Prince Regent, and later King George IV, namely Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle. The costume worn throughout the series by Atkinson well copies the portraits of Admiral Nagle in the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Collection. Nagle also married a rich heiress with a plantation on Barbados, he was also famous for his own encounter with a highwayman on Shooters Hill near Blackheath. Nagle knew Dr. Samuel Johnson personally as he was the ward ,nephew, and heir of Edmund 'The Sublime' Burke, and is noted in contemporary regency era sources for his grace, intelligence, and rollicking Irish wit. Nagle also had familial and territorial disputes with Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, that were worthy of duels to the death. Elton & Curtis have not created this character, nor for the most part the major plot sequences. Baldrick in the first episode 'Dish & Dishonesty' parodies the other famous equerry of the Regent, Sir William Congreve, who attained a seat in the House of Commons via the most notoriously famous of Rotten-Boroughs, that of Gatton in Surrey. The character 'Shadow' is a direct copy of the 1983 film called 'The Wicked Lady' that starred Faye Dunaway, Miranda Richardson even mimics Dunaway's hairdo. Nagle, extraordinarily is also the model C S Forester used to create Horatio Hornblower !
