DRAMATIS PERSONE

KING JOHN.

PRINCE HENRY, his son; afterwards King Henry III.

ARTHUR, duke of Bretagne, son to Geffrey, late Duke of Bretagne, the

elder brother to 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 FALCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Falconbridge.

PHILIP FALCONBRIDGE, his half-brother, bastard son to King Richard

the First.

JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Falconbridge.

PETER of Pomfret, a prophet.

PHILIP, king of France.

LOUIS, the Dauphin.

ARCHDUKE of Austria.

CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate.

MELUN, a French lord.

CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John.

ELINOR, widow of King Henry II. and mother to King John.

CONSTANCE, mother to Arthur.

BLANCH, daughter to Alphonso, king of Castile, and niece to King John. LADY FALCONBRIDGE, mother to the Bastard and Robert Falconbridge.

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

SCENE-Sometimes in England, and sometimes in France.

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.

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 control 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 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 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 of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession and our right for us. Eli. [aside to K. 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,

Come from the country to be judg'd 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;
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 whêr 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 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

(1) lent] Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 117) would read "sent."

In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examinèd 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 (2) would he have all my land:
A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!

Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
Your brother did employ my father much,-

land:

Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my
Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother.
Rob. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy
To Germany, there with the emperor

To treat of high affairs touching that time.
Th' advantage of his absence took the king,
And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's;
Where how he did prevail, I shame to speak,—
But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
Between my father and my mother lay,-
As I have heard my father speak himself,-
When this same lusty gentleman was got.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
His lands to me; and took it, on his death,
That this, my mother's son, was none of his;
And if(3) he were, he came into the world
Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father's land, as was my father's will.

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate,-
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him;
And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
Which fault lies on the hazards() of all husbands
That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,

(2) With that half-face] Theobald's correction. The folio has "With half that face."

(3) And if Here Walker (Crit. Exam., &c., vol. ii. p. 153) would read "An if," "-as Hanmer does.

(4) hazards] Qy. “hazard"?