That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love Thisby.’ ’Tedious’ and ‘brief’? 40

PHILOSTRATE

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as ‘brief as I have known a play;

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it ’tedious’; for in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player fitted. 45

THESEUS What are they that do play it?

PHILOSTRATE

Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,

Which never laboured in their minds till now,

And now have toiled their unbreathed memories

With this same play against your nuptial. 50

THESEUS

Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.

Exit Philostrate

HIPPOLYTA

I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged

And duty in his service perishing.

KING JOHN

A PLAY called The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, published anonymously in 1591, has sometimes been thought to be a derivative version of Shakespeare’s King John, first published in the 1623 Folio; more probably Shakespeare wrote his play in 1595 or 1596, using The Troublesome Reign—itself based on Holinshed’s Chronicles and John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563)—as his principal source. Like Richard II, King John is written entirely in verse.

King John (c.1167―1216) was famous as the opponent of papal tyranny, and The Troublesome Reign is a violently anti-Catholic play; but Shakespeare is more moderate. He portrays selected events from John’s reign—like The Troublesome Reign, making no mention of Magna Carta—and ends with John’s death, but John is not so dominant a figure in his play as Richard II or Richard III in theirs. Indeed, the longest—and liveliest—role is that of Richard Coeur-de-lion’s illegitimate son, Philip Falconbridge, the Bastard.

King John’s reign was troublesome initially because of his weak claim to his brother Richard Coeur-de-lion’s throne. Prince Arthur, son of John’s elder brother Geoffrey, had no less strong a claim, which is upheld by his mother, Constance, and by King Philip of France. The waste and futility of the consequent war between power-hungry leaders is satirically demonstrated in the dispute over the French town of Angers, which is resolved by a marriage between John’s niece, Lady Blanche of Spain, and Louis, the French Dauphin. The moral is strikingly drawn by the Bastard—the man best fitted to be king, but debarred by accident of birth—in his speech (2.1.562-99) on ’commodity’ (self-interest). King Philip breaks his treaty with England, and in the ensuing battle Prince Arthur is captured. He becomes the play’s touchstone of humanity as he persuades John’s agent, Hubert, to disobey John’s orders to blind him, only to kill himself while trying to escape. John’s noblemen, thinking the King responsible for the boy’s death, defect to the French, but return to their allegiance on learning that the Dauphin intends to kill them after conquering England. John dies, poisoned by a monk; the play ends with the reunited noblemen swearing allegiance to John’s son, the young Henry III, and with the Bastard’s boast that

This England never did, nor never shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Twentieth-century revivals of King John were infrequent, but it was popular in the nineteenth century, when the roles of the King, the Bastard, and Constance all appealed to successful actors; a production of 1823 at Covent Garden inaugurated a trend for historically accurate settings and costumes which led to a number of spectacular revivals.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

KING JOHN of England

QUEEN ELEANOR, his mother

LADY FALCONBRIDGE

Philip the BASTARD, later knighted as Sir Richard Plantagenet,

her illegitimate son by King Richard I (Coeur-de-lion)

Robert FALCONBRIDGE, her legitimate son

James GURNEY, her attendant

Lady BLANCHE of Spain, niece of King John

PRINCE HENRY, son of King John

HUBERT, a follower of King John

Earl of SALISBURY

Earl of PEMBROKE

Earl of ESSEX

Lord BIGOT

KING PHILIP of France

LOUIS THE DAUPHIN, his son

ARTHUR, Duke of Brittaine, nephew of King John

Lady coNSTANCE, his mother

Duke of AUSTRIA (Limoges)

CHÂTILLON, ambassador from France to England

Count MELUN

A CITIZEN of Angers

Cardinal PANDOLF, a legate from the Pope

PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet

HERALDS

EXECUTIONERS

MESSENGERS

SHERIFF

Lords, soldiers, attendants

The Life and Death of King John

1.1 [Flourish.] Enter King John, Queen Eleanor, and the Earls of Pembroke, Essex, and Salisbury; with them Châtillon of France

KING JOHN

Now say, Châtillon, what would France with us?

CHÂTILLON

Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France,

In my behaviour, to the majesty—

The borrowed majesty—of England here.

QUEEN ELEANOR

A strange beginning: ‘borrowed majesty’?

KING JOHN

Silence, good mother, hear the embassy.

CHÂTILLON

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,

To Ireland, Poitou, 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.

KING JOHN

What follows if we disallow of this?

CHÂTILLON

The proud control of fierce and bloody war,