That were the servants to this chosen infant,
Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him.
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
50
His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations. He shall flourish,
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him. Our children’s children
Shall see this and bless heaven.
KING Thou speakest wonders.
55
CRANMER She shall be to the happiness of England
An aged princess. Many days shall see her,
And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
Would I had known no more. But she must die:
She must, the saints must have her. Yet a virgin,
60
A most unspotted lily, shall she pass to th’ ground,
And all the world shall mourn her.
KING O lord Archbishop,
Thou hast made me now a man. Never before
This happy child did I get anything.
This oracle of comfort has so pleased me
65
That when I am in heaven I shall desire
To see what this child does and praise my maker.
I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,
And your good brethren, I am much beholding:
I have received much honour by your presence,
70
And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords:
Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye –
She will be sick else. This day, no man think
’Has business at his house, for all shall stay:
This little one shall make it holiday. Exeunt.
75
Enter EPILOGUE.
EPILOGUE ’Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here. Some come to take their ease,
And sleep an act or two (but those, we fear,
We’ve frighted with our trumpets, so ’tis clear
They’ll say ’tis naught), others to hear the city
5
Abused extremely and to cry ‘That’s witty!’
(Which we have not done neither), that I fear
All the expected good we’re like to hear
For this play at this time is only in
The merciful construction of good women,
10
For such a one we showed ’em. If they smile
And say ’twill do, I know within a while
All the best men are ours – for ’tis ill hap
If they hold when their ladies bid ’em clap. Exit.
King John
The date and sources of King John are difficult to determine with any certainty because of the intricate and disputed relationship between the Folio text of this play and that of a play called The Troublesome Reign of King John which was published anonymously as a quarto in 1591 and reprinted with an attribution to ‘W. Sh.’ in 1611. The many parallels between the works in plot and structure (though not in language) indicate either that one was a source for the other or that they both drew on the same common source; scholars have been unable to agree on these matters, though they do agree that the Folio play was probably written between 1590 and 1595. It uses material from John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1583, often referred to as ‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’) and the second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587); it was listed amongst Shakespeare’s ‘tragedies’ by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia in 1598.
King John stands outside the historical sequence of the two ‘tetralogies’ – the eight ‘Richard’ and ‘Henry’ plays covering the period of English history from the events leading up to the deposition of Richard II (1399) to the overthrow of Richard III at Bosworth (1485). The play accordingly appears as the first of the histories in the First Folio. John’s reign was much earlier (1199-1216), and was mainly noted by Tudor historians for the monarch’s defiance of the Pope, which allowed him to be seen as a proto-Protestant figure (the Troublesome Reign is rather more anti-Catholic than King John). The one event most English people associate with King John today – the signing of the Magna Carta – is not highlighted in Tudor accounts. A feature of Shakespeare’s play is the focus on the Bastard, Philip Faulconbridge, an essentially fictional figure based on one fleeting reference in the chronicles who also appears in the Troublesome Reign. His engaging and often satirical commentary on morality, war and politics serves to expose the opportunism and cynicism of most of the other characters. Ironically, he seems better equipped to be king than either of the legitimate claimants, John and Arthur; Shakespeare in fact altered his sources to make both their claims weaker: by suggesting John rules by might rather than by right and by making Arthur younger than he really was.
There are no records of any pre-Restoration performances, but it was revived in the mid-eighteenth century and also adapted by Colley Cibber as Papal Tyranny in the Reign of John (1745). It had a reasonably steady stage history from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century and was traditionally seen as a good vehicle for actors because of the number of strong roles and the opportunities for big set-piece debates and confrontations. Despite his earlier cynicism, the Bastard’s final speech has aroused patriotic fervour at times when the play’s concern with foreign invasion has seemed topical.
During the nineteenth century in particular, King John’s popularity seems to have depended on some spectacular productions including large casts and elaborately detailed historical sets. These were also notable for the presence of star performers in the role of Constance, from Sarah Siddons to Sybil Thorndike. Like King Richard III it has four significant roles for women (Eleanor, Lady Faulconbridge and Blanche, as well as Constance); their roles as the mothers and wives of powerful men underline the play’s concern with legitimacy and usurpation. The tolerant attitude taken to the adultery of Lady Faulconbridge is in marked contrast to Shakespeare’s attitude elsewhere in the canon, as the positive representation of the Bastard contrasts with his portrayals of Don John in Much Ado About Nothing and Edmund in King Lear.
The Arden text is based on the 1623 First Folio.
LIST OF ROLES
KING JOHN
PRINCE HENRY
son to the king
ARTHUR
Duke of Brittany, nephew to the king
The Earl of SALISBURY
The Earl of PEMBROKE
The Earl of ESSEX
The Lord BIGOT
ROBERT Faulconbridge
son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge
Philip the BASTARD
his half-brother
HUBERT
a citizen of Angers
James GURNEY
servant to Lady Faulconbridge
PETER of Pomfret
a prophet
KING PHILIP
of France
LEWIS
the Dauphin
Limoges, Duke of AUSTRIA
MELUN
a French lord
CHATILLON
ambassador from France to King John
Cardinal PANDULPH
the Pope’s legate
Queen ELEANOR
mother to King John
CONSTANCE
mother to Arthur
BLANCHE
of Spain, niece to King John
LADY FAULCONBRIDGE
widow to Sir Robert Faulconbridge
Lords, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers and other Attendants
King John
1.1 Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELEANOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY and attendants, with them CHATILLON of France.
KING JOHN
Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
CHATILLON
Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
In my behaviour to the majesty,
The borrow’d majesty, of England here.
ELEANOR A strange beginning: ‘borrow’d majesty’!
5
KING JOHN Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
CHATILLON Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geoffrey’s son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island and the territories:
10
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.
15
KING JOHN What follows if we disallow of this?
CHATILLON
The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
KING JOHN
Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment: so answer France.
20
CHATILLON
Then take my king’s defiance from my mouth,
The farthest limit of my embassy.
KING 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:
25
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
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.
30
Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke.
ELEANOR 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
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With very easy arguments of love,
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful-bloody issue arbitrate.
KING JOHN Our strong possession and our right for us.
ELEANOR
Your strong possession much more than your right,
40
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 a sheriff.
ESSEX My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
Come from the country to be judg’d by you,
45
That e’er I heard: shall I produce the men?
KING JOHN Let them approach.
Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
This expeditious charge.
Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his Bastard brother.
What men are you?
BASTARD Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
50
Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
KING JOHN What art thou?
55
ROBERT
The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
KING JOHN Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.
BASTARD Most certain of one mother, mighty king;
That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
60
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.
ELEANOR
Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother
And wound her honour with this diffidence.
65
BASTARD 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!
70
KING JOHN
A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
BASTARD 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,
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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
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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!
KING JOHN
Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
ELEANOR He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion’s face;
85
The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
Do you not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?
KING JOHN Mine eye hath well examined his parts
And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
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What doth move you to claim your brother’s land?
BASTARD Because he hath a half-face, like my father!
With half that face would he have all my land:
A half-fac’d groat five hundred pound a year!
ROBERT My gracious liege, when that my father liv’d,
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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 261
