KING JOHN.

KING JOHN.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

PRINCE HENRY, his Son.
ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne.
MARESHALL, Earl of Pembroke.
FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex.
LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury.
BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk.

HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain.

ROBERT FALCONBRIDGE.

PHILIP, King of France.
LOUIS, the Dauphin.
Archduke of Austria.

PANDULPH, the Pope's Legate.
MELUN, a French Lord.

CHATILLON, Ambassador from

France to King John.

PHILIP, the BASTARD, his Half- CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur.

Brother.

JAMES GURNEY, Servant to Lady

Falconbridge.

PETER of Pomfret, a Prophet.

ELINOR, Mother to King John.

King of Castile.

BLANCH, Daughter to Alphonso,

LADY FALCONBRIDGE.

Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE. Sometimes in England, and sometimes in France.

ACT I.

SCENE I. - Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, Essex, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.

K. 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 !
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,
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control2 of fierce and bloody war,
T'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 farthest 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 cannon3 shall be heard:

1 "In the speech and action I am now going to use." So in v. 2, of this play: "Now hear our English King; for thus his royalty doth speak in me."

"

2 Control here means coercion or constraint. Hooker often uses the word in the kindred sense of to rebuke, censure, or chastise; as in Preface, ii. 4: "Authority to convent, to control, to punish, as far as excommunication," &c. And viii. 7: They began to control the ministers of the Gospel for attributing so much force and virtue to the Scriptures of God read." Also in Book vii. 16, 6: "Which letters he justly taketh in marvellous evil part, and therefore severely controlleth his great presumption in making himself a judge of a judge."

3 The Poet here antedates the use of gunpowder by more than a hundred

So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen 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 whole
With very easy arguments of love;

Which now the manage 5 of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession and our right for us. Eli. [Aside to JOHN.] Your strong possession much more than your right,

Or else it must go wrong with you and me :

So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

Which none but Heaven and you and I shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire who whispers ESSEX. Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,

years. So, again, in ii. 1, we have the expression, "bullets wrapp'd in fire." John's reign began in 1199, and cannon are said to have been first used in the battle of Cressy, 1346. Shakespeare was never studious of historical accuracy in such points: he aimed to speak the language that was most intelligible to his audience, rendering the ancient engines of war by their modern equivalents.

4 Gloomy, dismal, doleful are among the old senses of sullen. So in 2 Henry IV., i. I: "And his tongue sounds ever after as a sullen bell, remember'd knolling a departing friend." Also in Milton's sonnet to LawAnd by the fire help waste a sullen day." Trumpet, in the line before, is put for trumpeter. Often so. And, in the line after, conduct for escort; also a frequent usage. See vol. v. page 208, note 20.

rence:

"

5 Manage for management, conduct, or administration; a frequent usage. So in The Merchant, iii. 4: “I commit into your hands the husbandry and manage of my house until my lord's return."

Come from the country to be judged by you,
That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?
K. John. Let them approach. -

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

This expedition's charge.

[Exit Sheriff.

Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FALCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP his

bastard Brother.

What men are you?

Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman

Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,

A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
K. John. What art thou?

Rob. The son and heir to that same Falconbridge.
K. 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

e;

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!

K. 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 whêr6 I be as true begot or no,
That still I lay upon my mother's head;
But, that I am as well begot, my liege,
Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!
Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.
If old Sir Robert did beget us both,

And were our father, and this son like him,

O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee

I give Heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

K. John. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven sent us here!
Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;

The accent of his tongue affecteth him :8
Do you not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examinéd his parts,
And finds them perfect Richard.—Sirrah, speak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?

Bast. Because he hath a half-face, like my father,
With that half-face would he have all my land:
A half-faced groat9 five hundred pound a year!
Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father lived,
Your brother did employ my father much,-

Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother.
Rob.

And once dispatch'd him in an embassy

6 A frequent contraction of whether.

7 Trick, as here used, is properly an heraldic term for mark or note; hence meaning a peculiarity of countenance or expression. See vol. iv. page 16, note 18.

8 To affect a thing is, in one sense, to draw or incline towards it; that is, to resemble it. The meaning here is, that the Bastard's speech has a smack of his alleged father's.

9 The groats of Henry VII. differed from other coins in having a halfface, or profile, instead of a full-face. Hence the phrase half-faced groat came to be used of a meagre visage. So in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: "You half-fac'd groat, you thin-cheek'd chitty face."