PERSONS REPRESENTED. KING JOHN. PRINCE HENRY, his son; afterwards King Henry III. ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne, Son of Geffrey, late Duke of Bretagne, the elder Brother of King John. WILLIAM MARESHALL, Earl of Pembroke. GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex, chief Justiciary of England. WILLIAM LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury. ROBERT BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk. HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain to the King. ROBERT FAULCOnbridge, Son of Sir Robert Faulconbridge. JAMES GURNEY, Servant to Lady Faulconbridge. PHILIP, King of France. LEWIS, the Dauphin. ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA. CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's Legate. MELUN, a French Lord. CHATILLON, Ambassador from France to King John. ELINOR, the Widow of King Henry II. and Mother of King John. CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur. BLANCH, Daughter to Alphonso, King of Castile, and Niece to King John. LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, Mother to the Bastard and Robert Faulconbridge. Lords, Ladies, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. SCENE, sometimes in England, and sometimes in France. KING JOH N. ACT I. SCENE 1. Northampton. Northampton. A Room of State Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, King John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, In my behaviour1, to the majesty, The borrow'd majesty of England here. Eli. A strange beginning;-borrow'd majesty! K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy. Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim To this fair island, and the territories; To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine: Desiring thee to lay aside the sword, Which sways usurpingly these several titles; 1 In my behaviour probably means 'In the words and action I am now going to use." In the fifth act of this play the Bastard says to the French king: Now hear our English king, For thus his royalty doth speak in me.' And put the same into young Arthur's hand, K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this? Chat. The proud control2 of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. K. 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 furthest limit of my embassy. K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France; For ere thou canst report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard: So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, And sullen3 presage of your own decay.An honourable conduct let him have:Pembroke, look to't; Farewell, Chatillon. [Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE. 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 whol", With very easy arguments of love! Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. 2 Control here means constraint or compulsion. In the second act of King Henry V. when Exeter demands of the King of France the surrender of his crown, the king answers, 'Or else what follows? and Exeter replies: Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown 3 i. e. gloomy, dismal. Thus in King Henry VI. Part 11. Act i. Sc. 2: Why are thy eyes fixed on the sullen earth ?' And in King Richard II. Act i. Sc 3: The sullen passage of thy weary steps ' So Milton in his Sonnet to his friend Lawrence : help waste a sullen day.' 4 i. e. conduct, administration. So in King Richard II.:----for the rebels Expedient manage must be made, my liege. K. 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 Esser. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and This expedition's charge.-What men are you? Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge. K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? You came not of one mother then, it seems. Shakspeare in adopting the character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, proceeded on the following slight hint: "Next them a bastard of the king's deceas'd, 'Sub A hardie wild-head, rough and venturous.' The character is compounded of two distinct personages. illius temporis curriculo Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat' Mathew Paris.-Holinshed says that 'Richard I. had a natural son named Philip, who, in the year following, killed the Viscount de Limoges to revenge the death of his father. Perhaps the name of Faulconbridge was suggested by the following passage in the continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 24, 6:-'One Faulconbridge, th' erle of Kent his bastarde, a stoute-hearted man.' Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king, And wound her honour with this diffidence. Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? Bast. I know not why, except to get the land. And were our father, and this son like him;- I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee. K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here! Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face, The accent of his tongue affecteth him: Do you not read some tokens of my son 6 Whether. Shakspeare uses the word trick generally in the sense of 'a peculiar air or cast of countenance or feature.' Thus in All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 1: Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.' And in King Henry IV. Part 1.:-That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly mine own opinion; but chiefly a villanous trick of thine eye.' |