BASTARD

  110 O, let us pay the time but needful woe,

  Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.

  This England never did, nor never shall

  Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror

  But when it first did help to wound itself.

  115 Now these her princes are come home again,

  Come the three corners of the world in arms

  And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue,

  If England to itself do rest but true. Exeunt.

  LIST OF ROLES not in F; first provided by Rowe

  2 KING JOHN (b. 1166, reigned 1199–1216), eighth child and fourth and last son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. His sobriquet, ‘Lackland’, derives from his father’s initial difficulty in finding territories to provide him with, having already had to take care of Henry, Richard (later known as ‘Lionheart’) and Geoffrey (later the father of the posthumous Arthur, the legal rival of John for the throne of England).

  3 ELEANOR (1122–1204), Eleanor of Aquitaine, widow of Henry II, mother of John, to whom, as the last of her children, she gave birth at the age of 45; a woman of great stamina and high energy, the wife of two kings, Louis VII of France and Henry II, and the mother of two more, Richard I and John

  4 PRINCE HENRY (b. 1207), son of John, king in succession to his father, ruling as Henry III from 1216 to 1272. Knowledgeable members of the audience would be aware of the pessimistic future of thirteenth-century England under Henry, rather as audiences of 1H6 would know from the very beginning of the play the outcome of the drama under Henry VI.

  5 BLANCHE (1188–1252), granddaughter of Eleanor, niece of King John and wife to Lewis the Dauphin (later Louis VIII). She was historically the mother of Louis IX (St Louis).

  6 SALISBURY William Longsword, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (c. 1176–1226), illegitimate half-brother of John but a supporter of Constance, Arthur’s mother

  7 PEMBROKE William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (c. 1146–1219), historically a knightly champion, loyal to John (although his son was not), and regent during the first years of the young Henry III

  8 ESSEX Geoffrey Fitzpeter, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1162–1213), appointed Chief Justiciar of England by King Richard in 1198

  9 BIGOT Roger Bigot (or Bigod), 2nd Earl of Norfolk (d. 1221); one of the leading barons instrumental in securing John’s signature on Magna Carta, a now-famous historical document that is absent from the play

  10 Robert FAULCONBRIDGE, younger brother of Philip Faulconbridge and heir to his father’s land when Philip accepts his status as a bastard, but the bastard of a king (Richard I). Robert was probably first played by the notoriously thin actor John Sinklo.

  11 PHILIP the BASTARD, in many ways the most interesting character in the play, was created by Shakespeare from a single reference in Holinshed (1.ii.160/2/69, cited in Boswell-Stone, 48): ‘Philip, bastard sonne to king Richard, to whome his father had giuen the castell and honor of Coinacke, killed the vicount of Limoges, in reuenge of his fathers death, who was slaine (as yee haue heard) in besieging the castell of Chalus Cheuerell.’ The bastard Duke of Orleans anticipates Philip’s crucial decision: ‘my noble corage telleth me, that I am the sonne of the noble Duke of Orleaunce; more glad to be his Bastarde, wyth a meane liuyng, then the lawful sonne of that coward cuckolde Cauny, with hys foure thousande crounes [a year]’ (Boswell-Stone, 49). The Bastard chooses to accept his illegitimacy as the son of Richard I, preferring the status of a Plantagenet without land (another Lackland) to the ownership of property without royal blood. In the play, the royal-blooded Philip, though without legitimacy, fuses aspects of right and might lacking in one way or another in John and Arthur.

  12 HUBERT, loyal intimate of John, not a nobleman (although the historical Hubert de Burgh was an aristocrat and Chief Justiciar of England). Perhaps some element of the nimbus of glory carried by the historical figure touches the play’s more complex character.

  14 James GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge

  21 KING PHILIP Philip II of France (b. 1165, reigned 1180–1223), known as Philip Augustus, joint leader with Richard the Lionheart of the Third Crusade. His partnership with Richard disintegrated, with consequent wars between England and France together with captures and ransoms and shifting alliances and betrayals.

  22 DAUPHIN (1187–1226), heir to the throne of France as Louis VIII; father of Louis IX (St Louis). F uses ‘Dolphin’, while this edition uses the form Dauphin throughout. Although Dauphin is anachronistic in terms of the time in which the play is set, it was commonly used – however anachronistically – by the Elizabethans (Braunmuller).

  23 CHATILLON French ambassador to England. Historically, Chatillon was the cognomen of the Huguenot leader Admiral Coligny (assassinated 24 August 1572), referred to by both Marlowe and Chapman with the first syllable of the name spelled ‘Shat’ (Braunmuller).

  24 MELUN French lord with an English grandfather who, dying, warns the English noblemen who have sided with the invading French that they are to be killed as traitors if the Dauphin is victorious

  28 ARTHUR (1187–1203), son of Geoffrey of Brittany (1158–86), Henry II’s third son, born posthumously. Historically, about 15 years of age, but in the play made much younger, perhaps eight or nine. Until replaced at the urging of Eleanor in Richard I’s will by John, he was genealogically the heir to the English throne. For Arthur’s titles, see 2.1.551–2n.

  29 CONSTANCE (d. 1201), widow of Geoffrey Plantagenet and mother of Arthur, dramatically an emblem; historically twice more married

  30 AUSTRIA, ally of the King of France, sometimes called Limoges. Shakespeare conflates two historical opponents of Richard the Lionheart, one who captured him (Austria) and one who slew him (Limoges). See 2.1.5n.

  31 PANDULPH a papal legate, fusion of several ambassadors from Rome to England

  1.1.0.1 The RSC 2001 production had a delay between the flourish and the entrance of the King and Queen, suggesting the lack of organization at court. In addition, the Queen entered before the King in a manner suggesting to the audience that she was the ruler, as indeed she in many ways is.

  Enter KING JOHN Actors in the role of John can convey by body language and facial movement, along with tone of voice, a great range of attitudes from perpetual insecurity to frequent stretches of extreme self-confidence. Added tension to the characterization of John is sometimes achieved by having the King’s voice being full of condescension even as, when he is enthroned, his legs, a bit too short to reach the floor, swing nervously from side to side.

  1 Cf. Cym 3.1.1, ‘Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?’ Honigmann notes the parallel expression in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1587), a play which Shakespeare seem to have been reading or recalling during the composition of KJ (see 2.1.137–8n.): ‘Now say, Lord General, how fares our camp?’ (Spanish Tragedy, 1.2.1).

  Chatillon In the RSC 2001 production, the first syllable of Chatillon’s name was accentuated by the King, suggesting with vulgar humour that the name contained the word ‘shat’. See LR 23n.

  France the King of France, son of Louis VII, but not by Eleanor of Aquitaine. Philip historically was a mere one year older than John of England. See LR 21n.

  3 In my behaviour in my person; behaviour = ‘the bearing of the character of another; personification, “person” ’ (OED n. 1c, citing this line). Cf. the Bastard speaking for his king, 5.2.128–9, ‘Now hear our English king, / For thus his royalty doth speak in me’.

  4 borrowed majesty usurped sovereignty; an insulting phrase that sounds here for the first time the note of usurpation heard frequently in the play. Etymologically, the word has nothing to do with ‘owe’, but the sense of derivative and temporary majesty is enhanced with owe speaking out from within borrowed.

  England the King of England

  * * *

  1.1.0.1 Flourish] Oxf 0.2 the Earls of] Oxf1 0.3 1, 2attended] this edn CHATILLON] Rowe subst.; Chattylion F Ambassador] this edn

  5 strange eccentric, unusual, because foreign (Fr. étranger). Eleanor responds to the insult with an analysis of the form of the expression rather than with a direct indictment.

  6 Silence John can deliver this order in any one of several tones. Some Johns have been hardly demanding, others shockingly forceful and, for the moment, apparently independent of Eleanor’s good will and support.

  embassy ambassador’s message (according to OED 2, which cites this instance). Some would understand embassy as (1) ambassador and then (2) his message.

  7–15 For the tenor of these lines, cf. a similar embassy delivered by Exeter to the French King (H5 2.4.77–84), ‘He wills you, in the name of God Almighty, / That you divest yourself and lay apart / The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven, / By law of nature and of nations, longs / To him and to his heirs, namely the crown / And all wide-stretched honours that pertain / By custom and the ordinance of times / Unto the crown of France’; also 91–5, ‘And when you find him evenly derived / From his most famed of famous ancestors, / Edward the Third, he bids you then resign / Your crown and kingdom indirectly held / From him the native and true challenger.’

  7 in right … behalf hendiadys for ‘under the legally just benefit of’, in support or by virtue of the claim of; in the right of (Onions). Cf. 2.1.153, ‘In right of Arthur do I claim of thee.’ KJ has the highest frequency of the word right in Shakespeare; it is the issue underlying the play’s many debates.

  8–11 Cf. Holinshed, 157a, b: ‘For by the generall consent of the nobles and peeres of the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, Arthur was received as the liege and sovereigne lord of the same countries … he [Arthur] seemed by most right to be their cheefe lord, forsomuch as he was sonne to Geffrey elder brother to John.’

  8 deceased deceasèd

  Geoffrey’s son son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond (1158–86), who was the fourth son of Henry II and eight years older than the fifth son, John

  9 Plantagenet All the eight rulers from and including Henry II down to Richard III were members of this internecinely competitive family, whose name comes from the Latin term for the broom plant, Planta genista. A sprig of broom was worn in his cap by Geoffrey of Anjou, Henry II’s father. It helps to remember that the civil slaughters of the subsequent War of the Roses are not only political but also familial.

  10 this fair island i.e. England

  territories lands or countries belonging to or under the dominion of a ruler or state (OED n. 1b). Shakespeare follows Troublesome Reign: ‘king to England, Cornwall and Wales and their Territories’ (Pt 1, 2.3.222–3).

  11 Poitiers … Maine four provinces possessed by England in central and western France which therefore form part of the claim that the French are making on Arthur’s behalf. Poitiers (F ‘Poyctiers’, Holinshed ‘Poictiers’) is probably meant for the province (Poitou) rather than the town. These territories were lands inherited by Arthur directly from his father, Geoffrey. Chatillon’s message expands the demands on behalf of Arthur to include, as would be expected for one claiming the English throne, England, Ireland and the province where the English would later win a famous victory under the Black Prince in 1356.

  12 Desiring requesting, commanding

  12–13 sword … sways sword = the sword of state, emblem of a king’s military authority; sways = rules, governs as a sovereign (OED sway v. 9, citing this line); cf. 2.1.344, ‘That sways the earth’. For the collocation of sword and the idea of state see R3 4.4.469, ‘Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?’

  13 usurpingly i.e. illegally, unjustly. The topic of usurpation and the consequent collision of right and might is frequent in Shakespeare from 1H6 through Ham to Tem.

  several individually separate; different (OED a. 2b)

  14 young Arthur Arthur is described in such terms some 18 times in the play to emphasize his vulnerability and helplessness. Cf. Holinshed, 158a: ‘For as John was 32 years old, so Arthur duke of Britaine was but a babe to speake of.’ Arthur was actually about 15 years old at the play’s beginning, as Troublesome Reign tells us, but is portrayed throughout as much younger, one of Shakespeare’s pathetic ‘little princes’; cf. R3.

  Arthur’s hand the first of many references to manual possession and support, both literal and symbolic

  16 disallow of refuse to accept with approval; reject (OED disallow v. 3b. intr. with of, citing this example)

  this John is reluctant to state explicitly what the demonstrative refers to, the demand by France.

  16–17 Cf. H5 2.4.96–7, ‘FRENCH KING Or else what follows? / EXETER Bloody constraint’.

  17 proud vigorous, forceful, mighty (OED a. II 7a, ‘Of a warrior, or deeds of a warrior’)

  * * *

  11 Anjou, Touraine] Rowe; Aniowe, Torayne F

  19–20 Here … controlment The eighteenth-century scholar George Steevens compared lines from Kyd’s 1 Ieronimo (1605): ‘ “And. Thou shalt pay trybute, Portugalle, with blood. / Bal. Trybute for trybute, then: and foes for foes. / And. I bid you sudden warres” (Kyd, 309)’ (Ard2). John responds to Chatillon with lofty rhetoric in near-stichomythia, picking up Chatillon’s specific words war and control, the better to reject the ideas they contain, in the manner of speakers earlier in the canon, e.g. Richard of Gloucester in dialogue with Lady Anne in R3 3.1.2.

  19 Here i.e. in response

  blood for blood proverbial: Tilley, B458, ‘Blood will have blood’. Cf. 2.1.329, ‘Blood hath bought blood’; Mac 3.4.120; Genesis, 9.6.

  20 Controlment restraint, check (OED n. 3 = control, citing this example). Cf. MA 1.3.19, ‘you may do it without controlment’; Edward II, 1.4.390, ‘Let him without controulement have his will’.

  22 i.e. ‘the fullest extent of what I was instructed to say to you in my power as ambassador, beyond which I am not permitted to go’. As royal messenger Chatillon has limits to his responses, but here it is less that he can say no more without permission than that there is hardly anything to say beyond the statement of defiance.

  23 depart in peace Shaheen, following Noble, notes the Nunc dimittis of BCP’s Evening Prayer, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’, as in Luke, 2.29. The expression may be only an echo, but if an allusion it raises John’s hubris to new heights, rivalling that of King Richard in R2.

  peace i.e. safety

  24–6 The idea is proverbial: Tilley, L281, ‘There is lightning before thunder’; cf. Ecclesiasticus, 32.11, and Exeter’s description of Henry’s arrival in France, H5 2.4.99–100, ‘Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, / In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove’. John hyperbolically transcends nature itself in his promised speed.

  25 report give an account of; make a resounding noise, i.e. as of thunder. The pun combines the images of John’s threat: Chatillon may appear (like lightning) before King Philip, but before he can announce his message (report), John’s own arrival (thunder) shall be heard first. John does arrive in fact before Chatillon can complete his message to King Philip (see 2.1.57–9, 76–8). The French profit by the instruction: see 4.2.113–15, ‘The copy of your speed is learned by them, / For when you should be told they do prepare, / The tidings comes that they are all arrived.’

  25 there in France

  26 Not only will John be faster than the speed of light in arriving in France, but he will have transported his artillery so quickly that the cannon can be positioned and fired. This thunder and lightning show is anachronistic inasmuch as gunpowder was not yet in use in the West.

  27 hence depart

  27–8 trumpet … decay Even as Chatillon is reduced from ambassador to herald, so he is ironically announcing his own death (see 4.3.154).

  27 trumpet i.e. herald

  28 sullen gloomy (OED a. 1a), solemn, serious (OED a. 2), often used by Shakespeare ‘in funereal contexts, as John may intend here’ (Braunmuller).

  presage portent, or warning of that which is about to happen (OED n. 1)

  decay downfall, destruction, ruin (OED n. 1b)

  29 honourable conduct distinguished escort, a guard appropriate to Chatillon’s status as ambassador

  32 that ambitious Constance Shakespeare follows Holinshed’s description of Eleanor’s animosity toward Constance: ‘Surelie queene Elianor … was sore against hir nephue Arthur, rather mooued thereto by enuie conceiued against his mother, than vpon any iust occasion giuen in the behalfe of the child, for that she saw if he were king, how his mother Constance would looke to beare most rule within the realme of England, till hir sonne should come to lawfull age, to gouerne of himself’ (158a). Eleanor fears for her own eminence insomuch as Arthur’s being king would make Constance the Queen Mother, the very role of the historically politically ambitious Eleanor.

  33 kindled ignited; the first of many images of fire and burning in the play, a drama of familial as well as political strife with kin in kindle subconsciously drawing attention to this theme.

  France (1) the King of France; and therefore (2) the French nation

  34 the right and party an instance of the characteristic Shakespearean tactic of hendiadys (see Wright), where we would expect ‘right party’ with ‘right’ (= just) as an adjective rather than a noun

  the right justifiable claim, on legal or moral grounds (OED right n.1 II 7a)

  party side in a dispute, a contract, or the like; cause, interest (OED n. 5)

  35–6 Cf. H5 3.6.110–12, ‘for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.’

  35 prevented both ‘anticipated’ and, therefore, ‘avoided’

  made whole set right, brought to a satisfactory agreement

  * * *

  30 SD Exeunt] Warburton; Exit F attended] this edn

  36 arguments of love expressions of friendship

  37 manage action or manner of managing; management; conduct (of affairs); administration, direction, control (OED n. 1b obs.); also figuratively, the handling, training or directing of horses in their paces (see OED v. 2b obs.). There may be a subtle allusion to manage in the sense of the ‘age at which one becomes a man; one’s majority’ (obs.; although OED’s first instance is 1611) and the incapacitating youthfulness of Arthur.