PERSONS REPRESENTED. KING JOHN. PRINCE HENRY, his Son. ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne. WILLIAM MARESHALL, Earl of Pembroke. GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex. WILLIAM LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury. ROBERT BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk. HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain to the King. ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE. PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, his Half-Brother. PHILIP, King of France. ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA. CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's Legate. MELUN, a French Lord. CHATILLON, Ambassador from France. ELINOR, Widow of King Henry II. CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur. BLANCH, Daughter to Alphonso, King of Castile. LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Lords, Ladies, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants. SCENE, sometimes in England, sometimes in Franco. KING JOHN. ACT I. SCENE I. Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and Others, with CHATILLON. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, In my behaviour,' to the majesty, The borrow'd majesty, of England here. Eli. A strange beginning!-borrow'd majesty? To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine; Which sways usurpingly these several titles, That is, by me; in the words and action I am now going to use. 2 As Richard I. died without lawful issue, the crown in the strict order of succession would have fallen to his nephew Arthur, Ike of Brittany, then in his twelfth year. But the crown was John. What follows, if we disallow of this? 3 Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The farthest limit of my embassy. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:' [Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE nen partly elective, the nation choosing from the members of the royal family the one they thought fittest for the office. Arthur held the duchy of Brittany in right of his father, Geffrey Plantagenet, an elder brother of John. Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, the ancient patrimony of the house of Anjou, were his by hereditary right. As Duke of Brittany Arthur was a vassal of Philip Augustus, King of France; and Constance engaged to Philip that her son should do him homage also for Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poictou, on condition that Philip should support his claim to the English crown. England having declared for John the play opens with Philip's interference in behalf of Arthur. 3 Control here means constraint or compulsion. H. 4 The Poet here anticipates the use of gunpowder by about a hundred years. Thus, again, in Act ii. he speaks of "bullets wrapp'd in fire." A similar anachronism occurs in Macbeth, Act i sc. 2: "They were as cannons overcharg'd with double cracks.' John's reign began in 1199, and cannon are said to have been first used at the battle of Cressy, in 1346. In all these cases Shakespeare simply aimed to speak the language that was most intelligible to his audience, rendering the ancient engines of war by their modern equivalents. Of course he is found fault with by those who in a drama prefer chronological accuracy to dramatic effect. That is, gloomy, dismal. H. Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said, How that ambitious Constance would not cease, Till she had kindled France, and all the world, Upon the right and party of her son?" This might have been prevented and made whole, With very easy arguments of love; 7 Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. John. Our strong possession, and our right for us. Eli. Your strong possession, much more than your right; Or else it must go wrong with you, and me: Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Come from the country to be judg'd by you, That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men? [Exit Sheriff. Our abbeys, and our priories, shall pay Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his bastard Brother. This expedition's charge. What men are you? • Elinor's hostility to Constance is thus accounted for by Holinshed: "Surely Queen Elinor, the king's mother, was sore against her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envy conceived against his mother, than upon any just occasion given in the behalf of the child; for that she saw if he were king how his mother Constance would look to bear most rule within the realm of England, till her son should come to lawful age to govern of himself." H. 7 That is, conduct, administration. So in Richard II.: "For the rebels expedient manage must be made, my liege." 8 We have already seen that Richard I. died without lawful issue. Holinshed, speaking of the first year of John's reign, says, "The same year also, Philip, bastard son to King Richard, to Bast. Your faithful subject I; a gentleman, Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? You came not of one mother, then, it seems. Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king; That is well known; and, as I think, one father: But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to Heaven, and to my mother: Of that I doubt, as all men's children may. Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. Bast. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it: That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out At least from fair five hundred pound a year. Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! John. A good blunt fellow. - Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? Bast. I know not why, except to get the land. But once he slander'd me with bastardy: But whe'r I be as true begot, or no, whom his father had given the castle and honour of Coynack, • Whether. H. |