16MONTFORT John de Montfort (1293–1345), half-brother of John III, Duke of Brittany, who, after the Duke’s death in 1341, and with the support of Edward III, claimed the duchy of Brittany against the rival claimant, John III’s niece Joan de Penthièvre. Joan had Philip VI’s support, as the house of Valois was close to the family of her husband, Charles de Blois. The play’s presentation of the acquisition of Brittany is more symbolic than historical. Froissart, 178–9, describes ‘Howe the erle Mountfort dyd homage to the kyng of England for the duchy of Bretayne’ in 1341. In 1347 his rival, Blois, was captured, rather than killed (9.2), by the English (Froissart, 323). From these two episodes the play contrives to sketch in a further English victory (Montfort himself appears briefly only in Sc. 9). Although Montfort did seek support from Edward, his campaign for the duchy was short-lived as he was imprisoned in 1341 in the Louvre (Froissart, 185); his wife, the Countess of Montfort, took up the cause, but in 1343 sought refuge in England along with her son. In 1345, her husband briefly escaped from France and came to England to rally Edward’s support, but on his return to France he fell ill and died in the same year. It was Montfort’s son (also John) who took part in the battle where Blois was killed in 1364, finally resolving the struggle for the duchy in his favour. In Q, Montfort (the familiar English form of the name) is referred to primarily as ‘Lord Mouneford/Mountford’, ‘Mountfort’. Once he is misnamed ‘Charles de Mountford’ (see 18.99n.).

  17GOBIN de Grâce In Froissart, 290, ‘Gobyn a Grace’ is a French prisoner of war, a ‘varlet’, who in 1346, before the battle of Crécy, reveals to the English a ford in the Somme at Blanchetaque that the English can use at low tide to cross the river (Sc. 6). In Holinshed he is called variously ‘Gobin de Grace’ and ‘Gobin Agace’ (3.371). Q has ‘Gobin de Graie’, and Melchiori emends ‘Graie’ to ‘Grace’ in line with the chronicles, assuming compositorial error. In the chronicles he is rewarded with his freedom, ‘a hundred nobles’ and ‘a good horse’ (Froissart, 292, Holinshed, 3.371), rather than the play’s ‘five hundred marks in gold’ (6.10: see n.). Nashe uses his name to insult Gabriel Harvey in Have with you to Saffron-Walden (1596): ‘I haue prouided harping yrons to catch this great Whale; and this Gobin a grace ap Hannikin by Gods grace shall be met and combatted’ (Nashe, 3.31; see Nashe, 5.126, n. 3). See p. 86.

  18KING DAVID David II of Scotland (1324–71), son of Robert I (Bruce, 1274–1329). The play presents him as securely King of Scotland, thus pointing to the years 1341–6, when he returned to Scotland from protective exile in France. His early years had seen alternation between himself and Edward Balliol as king, his alliance with France set against English support of Balliol. He raided England in 1341, when Edward III retaliated in person (Sc. 2), and again in 1346 at the instance of Philip VI of France, when he was defeated and captured at Neville’s Cross, near Durham (Scs 10, 18).

  19DOUGLAS Sir William Douglas (c. 1310–53), Lord of Liddesdale, eldest son of Sir James Douglas of Lothian (d. before 1323). Active in opposition to Edward III in the 1330s, he was Scottish Warden of the Marches from 1330. He proved to be one of David’s best military commanders, gaining many rewards from the King (Sc. 2). He accompanied King David on his ill-fated invasion of England in 1346 and was captured with him at Neville’s Cross, returning to Scotland from the Tower in 1350 to negotiate David’s ransom. His SPs in Q are ‘Dou’ (1), ‘Dug’ (1), ‘Du’ (1); once his SP is misprinted as ‘Da’ (2.45, sig. B2r), possibly by confusion with King David or ‘foul case’ error of type substitution.

  21KING JOHN His role combines the reigns of the first Valois King of France, Philip VI (1294–1350; Scs 4–8), and his son, John II (1319–64), captured at Poitiers in 1356 (Scs 11–18). As Duke of Normandy, John was a commander in several of his father’s campaigns from 1338 onwards. He was recalled from Gascony before Crécy, but his force arrived too late to take part in the battle. It was John who agreed in 1346 to the safe-conduct of Walter Manny (an episode transferred in the play to his son Charles and the Earl of Salisbury (Scs 9, 13 and 18)). According to Sumption, 1.556, he did indeed fall out with his father when the latter ignored the passport and imprisoned Manny in the Louvre: ‘John, who had issued the safe conduct in question, was as angry as Edward was and, although he was eventually able to procure Mauny’s [sic] release, he appears to have withdrawn from court for several months.’ In Q his SPs are unambiguous variations of ‘King’, ‘John’ and ‘King John’, but at 13.70 (sig. I1r) it is misprinted as ‘En:Io’, a likely ‘foul case’ error of type substitution.

  22CHARLES The role combines the careers of John, Duke of Normandy (see LR, 21n.), whose military career began in 1338 and who succeeded his father Philip VI in 1350 as King John II (Scs 4, 6, 11), and his son Charles (1338–80; Scs 11–17), who escaped capture at Poitiers (the only significant battle in which he took part) and was to succeed in 1364 as King Charles V. The absence of Charles from Sc. 18, following his capture in Sc. 17, is either a gesture towards historical fact, an inconsistency arising from collaborative authorship or an expedient imposed by casting constraints (see 18.182n.).

  23PHILIP Philip, fourth son of John II, was born in 1342, two years after Sluys (Sc. 4, in which he makes his first appearance) and a teenager at the time of Poitiers (Scs 13–17). Created Duke of Burgundy in 1363, and known as Philip the Bold, he died in 1404. Philip, rather than his older brothers, Louis and John, is included in the play presumably because of his capture at Poitiers with his father, his brothers having escaped (see Froissart, 379, and 17.11.1n.). Melchiori, 200, claims that Charles’s sibling is confused with King John’s brother, also Philip, Duke of Orléans, who led one of the battles at Poitiers. The Duke, unlike the younger Philip, however, fled the battle to avoid capture (Froissart, 374).

  24LORRAINE Raoul, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1346), a powerful ally of Philip VI. He is mentioned several times by Froissart, before his death at Crécy (where his role in the play ends in Sc. 7, though without mention of his subsequent death). In Q, his SP is ‘Lor’, except on sig. E1v (4.7, 19), where it appears as ‘Lo’, a variation that may have arisen from a compositorial confusion with Lodwick: see LR, 11n. His name would have resonated with Elizabethan audiences, in relation to the Catholic Guise family, made notorious by Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris (performed 1593), and by many news pamphlets of the period: ‘Surcharg’d with guilt of thousand massacres, / Monsieur of Lorraine, sink away to hell!’ (Massacre at Paris, 21.93–4). Henry of Lorraine (Duke of Guise from 1563) was accused of orchestrating the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), in which the leader of the Huguenots, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral de Châtillon, was murdered along with thousands of other Protestants. These events gave rise to the so-called ‘Black Legend’ of the house of Lorraine.

  25VILLIERS Froissart’s unnamed honourable ‘knyght of Normandy’, who is ‘kynne to the duke of Normandy’ (Charles in the play but historically his father, John – Scs 9, 11). He is held prisoner for ransom by Walter Manny (Salisbury in the play), and is used as a go-between to get Manny safe-conduct to Calais (Froissart, 306–7). The source for the name is unclear: Melchiori, 209, suggests a French place-name rather than the name of a person. An alternative possibility occurs in Froissart, 270–1 (a little before the ‘safe-conduct’ episode used in the play), where the honesty of the Duke of Normandy is tested (and exploited) at the French siege of Angoulême. At the end of this episode, the town pays homage to the Duke, who then makes ‘Antony Vyllers’ captain of the town. The name occurs in other works of the period: the governor of Rhodes is one ‘Philip of Villiers’ in Wotton (1578), the source for Soliman and Perseda (not used in the play), and a minor but honourable merchant of Rochelle takes the name later in The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600). The name may have registered with Elizabethans, as a notable ‘Villiers’ of the 1590s was the French governor of Newhaven and Rouen, whose name occurs in various accounts of the English siege of Rouen in 1591 (see, e.g., T. Coningsby, Journal of the Siege of Rouen, 1591 (1847)).

  30CAPTAIN The Captain of Calais is named by Froissart, 304, as Jean de Vienne, but is unnamed in the play (Sc. 10). He wrote a letter to Philip VI, who had failed to relieve the siege of Calais, to tell him of the terrible plight of the inhabitants: ‘We can now find no more food in the town unless we eat men’s flesh.’ Apparently the English retrieved the letter from the sea and Edward attached his own seal to it and forwarded it to Philip, but to no avail, as the relief convoy sent by the French King was captured (see Sumption, 1.577).

  31Six POOR FRENCHMEN The exodus of hundreds of the weak and vulnerable from Calais is reduced in the play (Sc. 10) to a theatrically viable six, thus bringing them into balance with the six burghers (Sc. 18). In Q, sig. G3v, their SPs are ‘Poore’ (10.15) and ‘So’ (10.27, presumably a ‘foul case’ error), and are interpreted in this edition as one representative voice rather than a collective. The aid they receive (along with their freedom) from Edward in the play in the form of victuals and money comes from Froissart, 305, but according to Sumption, 1.577, ‘The English would not let them pass through the lines. They drove them back towards the walls where they remained in the town ditch starving to death within sight of both sides.’

  32Six CITIZENS The play’s six citizens of Calais are the six burghers celebrated in historical mythology and in Rodin’s famous statuary group. Froissart, 330, names four of them: Eustache de Saint-Pierre, Jean d’Aire, Jacques de Wiessant and Pierre de Wiessant. The play leaves them unnamed (Sc. 18): their SPs are ‘All’ (2), sig. I3v, the second of which is interpreted in this edition as a single speaker as it seems implausible that they all speak a seven-line speech in chorus (18.12–18); and ‘Two’ (2), sig. I4r, interpreted as a second speaker or citizen (18.27, 56).

  35BOHEMIA John (1296–1346), Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, known as ‘John the Blind’ (Scs 4, 6, 8). ‘[T]he son of one German Emperor and the father of another but by adoption a life-long French courtier who faithfully served Philip VI’ (Sumption, 1.187). Famous for his involvement at Crécy, where, despite his blindness, he courageously fought on hearing of the dire predicament of the French, and where he subsequently died. His death at the hands of Prince Edward is the play’s invention (see 8.60.3 LN). He speaks only briefly at 4.40, and is referred to variously as ‘Boheme’ or ‘Bohemia’ (‘Boheme’ is a variant of ‘Bohemia’: see 8.73n.).

  THE REIGN OF KING

  EDWARD THE THIRD

  [Sc. 1 ] Enter KING EDWARD, DERBY, [1.1]

  PRINCE EDWARD, AUDLEY[, WARWICK]

  and ARTOIS.

  KING EDWARD

  Robert of Artois, banished though thou be

  From France, thy native country, yet with us

  Thou shalt retain as great a seigniory,

  For we create thee Earl of Richmond here.

  5 And now go forwards with our pedigree:

  Who next succeeded Philip le Beau?

  ARTOIS

  Three sons of his, which all successfully

  Did sit upon their father’s regal throne,

  Yet died and left no issue of their loins.

  KING EDWARD

  10 But was my mother sister unto those?

  ARTOIS

  She was, my lord, and only Isabel

  Was all the daughters that this Philip had,

  Whom afterward your father took to wife;

  And from the fragrant garden of her womb

  15 Your gracious self, the flower of Europe’s hope,

  Derived is inheritor to France.

  But note the rancour of rebellious minds:

  When thus the lineage of Beau was out,

  The French obscured your mother’s privilege

  20 And, though she were the next of blood, proclaimed

  John of the house of Valois now their king.

  The reason was they say the realm of France,

  Replete with princes of great parentage,

  Ought not admit a governor to rule

  25 Except he be descended of the male:

  And that’s the special ground of their contempt,

  Wherewith they study to exclude your grace.

  KING EDWARD

  But they shall find that forged ground of theirs

  To be but dusty heaps of brittle sand.

  ARTOIS

  30 Perhaps it will be thought a heinous thing

  That I, a Frenchman, should discover this;

  But, heaven I call to record of my vows,

  It is not hate, nor any private wrong,

  But love unto my country and the right

  35 Provokes my tongue thus lavish in report.

  You are the lineal watchman of our peace,

  And John of Valois indirectly climbs.

  What then should subjects but embrace their king;

  And wherein may our duty more be seen

  40 Than striving to rebate a tyrant’s pride

  And place the true shepherd of our commonwealth?

  KING EDWARD

  This counsel, Artois, like to fruitful showers,

  Hath added growth unto my dignity;

  And by the fiery vigour of thy words

  45 Hot courage is engendered in my breast,

  Which heretofore was racked in ignorance

  But now doth mount with golden wings of fame,

  And will approve fair Isabel’s descent

  Able to yoke their stubborn necks with steel

  50 That spurn against my sovereignty in France.

  Sound a horn.

  A messenger. Lord Audley, know from whence.

  Enter a messenger, LORRAINE.

  AUDLEY

  The Duke of Lorraine, having crossed the seas,

  Entreats he may have conference with your highness.

  KING EDWARD

  Admit him, lords, that we may hear the news.

  55 Say, Duke of Lorraine, wherefore art thou come?

  LORRAINE

  The most renowned prince, King John of France,

  Doth greet thee, Edward, and by me commands

  That for so much as by his liberal gift

  The Guyenne dukedom is entailed to thee

  60 Thou do him lowly homage for the same.

  And for that purpose here I summon thee

  Repair to France within these forty days,

  That there, according as the custom is,

  Thou mayst be sworn true liegeman to our King;

  65 Or else thy title in that province dies,

  And he himself will repossess the place.

  KING EDWARD

  See how occasion laughs me in the face;

  No sooner minded to prepare for France

  But straight I am invited – nay, with threats,

  70 Upon a penalty enjoined to come.

  ’Twere but a childish part to say him nay.

  Lorraine, return this answer to thy lord:

  I mean to visit him, as he requests.

  But how? Not servilely disposed to bend,

  75 But like a conqueror to make him bow.

  His lame unpolished shifts are come to light,

  And truth hath pulled the visor from his face

  That set a gloss upon his arrogance.

  Dare he command a fealty in me?

  80 Tell him the crown that he usurps is mine,

  And where he sets his foot he ought to kneel.

  ’Tis not a petty dukedom that I claim

  But all the whole dominions of the realm,

  Which if with grudging he refuse to yield,

  85 I’ll take away those borrowed plumes of his

  And send him naked to the wilderness.

  LORRAINE

  Then, Edward, here, in spite of all thy lords,

  I do pronounce defiance to thy face.

  PRINCE EDWARD

  Defiance, Frenchman? We rebound it back,

  90 Even to the bottom of thy master’s throat.

  And, be it spoke with reverence of the King,

  My gracious father, and these other lords,

  I hold thy message but as scurrilous,

  And him that sent thee like the lazy drone

  95 Crept up by stealth unto the eagle’s nest,

  From whence we’ll shake him with so rough a storm

  As others shall be warned by his harm.

  WARWICK

  Bid him leave off the lion’s case he wears,

  Lest meeting with the lion in the field

  100 He chance to tear him piecemeal for his pride.

  ARTOIS

  The soundest counsel I can give his grace

  Is to surrender ere he be constrained.

  A voluntary mischief hath less scorn

  Than when reproach with violence is borne.

  LORRAINE

  105 Degenerate traitor! Viper to the place

  Where thou was fostered in thine infancy,