52 Nature and Fortune the two great determining principles in life. It is seldom that an individual is both so physically attractive and so lucky as to be born royal. Nature was a constant but Fortune fickle, and with the sexist vocabulary of the day thought, therefore, to be a woman, an immoral woman at that. See, again, Ham 2.2.224–31, and AYL 1.2.40–2, ‘Nay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office to Nature’s; Fortune reigns in gifts of the world not in the lineaments of Nature’.

  53–4 lilies … rose considered the two most beautiful of flowers, the former associated with France (fleur-de-lis), the latter with England

  54 half-blown blossoming, not yet fully opened, but perhaps with the negative suggestion of already past its prime, spoiled by this latest turn of events. See Cleopatra’s lament, ‘Against the blown rose they may stop their nose / That kneeled unto the buds’ (AC 3.13.40–1).

  56 Sh’adulterates she commits adultery. F’s spelling reflects the elision, and the metre requires the pronunciation ‘adult’rates’.

  hourly continually (with a pun on ‘whore-ly’)

  57 golden hand i.e. hands full of gold by which Fortune has bought Philip’s allegiance to Arthur’s cause. Oxf1 notes the anticipatory parallel ‘Fortune … with golden hands’ in Peele’s city pageant Descensus Astraeae (35–6), performed on 29 October 1591 and perhaps in print at the same time.

  plucked on induced, incited

  59 The subject of Constance’s diatribe is the way regard for kingship in general has been undermined by the corrupted majesties of the French and English kings: here Constance is saying that Philip has corrupted his majesty by performing the role of pimp (bawd) to the majesty of the English side (theirs).

  his King Philip’s

  bawd pander, sexual go-between

  62 forsworn perjured (i.e. Philip has sworn falsely by breaking his oath)

  65 bound to underbear destined to endure

  68 sorrows griefs personified and amenable to instruction

  proud i.e. too proud to go even when summoned by kings

  69 Grief’s supremacy makes those who are burdened with it bow down under it.

  70 state court, throne as in 74, ‘Here is my throne’. Editors compare Falstaff’s role-playing, ‘This chair shall be my state’ (1H4 2.4.368), as well they might, for Falstaff begins his comments with the word of agreement, ‘Content’, even as Constance resists Arthur’s request that she be content (42), saying that she would be so only if Arthur were grim, / Ugly and prodigious, etc.: ‘I then would be content,’ (48).

  72 supporter the conventional meaning, but with a play on a royal sustainer (OED 1) and also one of the heraldic figures which holds up a shield (OED 4); both are in keeping with the royal court of grief which Constance has created for herself.

  * * *

  63 Envenom] F2; Euvenom F

  73 I … sit The action of sitting on the stage seems to have been a conventional theatrical trope for grief: cf. R3 4.4.29, ‘Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful earth’; R2 3.2.155–6, ‘For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground / And tell sad stories of the death of kings’; Spanish Tragedy, 1.3.5–17. Some productions suggest more recent sit-down protests in other political times. As Susan Engel, who played Constance in the celebrated Deborah Warner production of 1988 and 1989 at Stratford-upon-Avon and London, said, ‘sitting is what you do when you protest, in Vietnam or in Westminster’ (in Cousin, 116).

  75 ’Tis true The phrase suggests the actors enter in mid-conversation.

  75–6 this … festival Ard2 cites R.W.’s Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (1590), ‘By my consent one day shal serve us all, / Which shall be kept for ever festival’ (sig. H2).

  77–8 sun … course Philip alludes to the biblical tale in Joshua, 10.13–14.

  78–80 plays … gold Like the alchemist who attempted to turn base matter into gold, the sun’s warmth was said to turn the barren (meagre), lumpy (cloddy) earth into precious metals. Cf. Son 33.1–4, ‘Full many a glorious morning have I seen / Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, / Kissing with golden face the meadows green, / Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy’.

  82 Cf. R3 2.1.74, ‘A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.’

  * * *

  73 SD] Steevens (Theobald, Capell, subst., following 74); after up. Kittredge 74.1] Theobald (scene contd); Actus Tertius, Scæna prima. F Flourish] Oxf 74.1–3] Enter King John, France, Dolphin, Blanch, Elianor, Philip, Austria, Constance F 75 SD] Oxf1 83 SD] Theobald subst.

  85 golden letters special script or print. Calendars marked Sundays and religious feast days in red ink or paint (a colour associated with gold in Shakespeare, see 2.1.316n.); cf. LLL 5.2.44, ‘My red dominical, my golden letter.’

  86 high tides major religious festivals (e.g. Christmastide, Eastertide)

  87 turn … week Cf. Job cursing the day of his birth: ‘let them make it feareful as a bitter day … let it not be ioined vnto the dayes of the yere, nor let it come into the count of the moneths’ (Job, 3.5–6; see Noble, 115).

  89–90 Editors cite echoes of Christ’s comments on the end of the world: ‘And wo shalbe to them that are with childe, and to them that giue sucke in those dayes’ (Matthew, 24.19), and Braunmuller adds the passage 10 verses on: ‘Immediately, after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken’ (Matthew, 24.29, in Oxf1).

  89 stand still yet remain, with the secondary reminder of 78 and the sun standing still

  89–94 let … end Elizabethan almanacs provided astronomical data which designated favourable or unfavourable days of the month for events such as birth, travel, making bargains, etc.

  90 burdens … fall babies may not be born

  91 prodigiously be crossed i.e. be thwarted (crossed) by monstrous births (in creating a prodigy, see OED prodigy 2b); prodigiously also = ‘ominously’, ‘portentously’ (OED 1, citing this line). See 46n. for the combined meanings.

  93 ‘let all agreements made on this day be broken’

  94 begun … end Cf. Tilley, B261, ‘An ill (bad) beginning has an ill (bad) ending’ (varied from 1580).

  98 pawned … majesty pledged my word as a king

  * * *

  92 But … day] Dyce (Rowe); But (on this day) F

  99 counterfeit coin not truly gold, which could nonetheless bear the King’s stamped image; the counterfeit is thus a false portrait of King Philip. The coin imagery is carried on in the next two lines.

  100 touched and tried alludes to the process of testing (OED try v. 7) the quality or the worthlessness of gold by rubbing it on the touchstone; the determination was based on the nature of the streak left on the stone. Cf. R3 4.2.8–9, ‘Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch / To try if thou be current gold indeed’.

  102–3 in arms … arms with weapons of war … embraces. The second instance of the phrase refers ‘perhaps [to] the quartering of the arms of England and France in the marriage of Blanche and Lewis’ (Ard2).

  106 our oppression i.e. your oppression of us (Constance and Arthur)

  107–8 Constance’s appeal to the heavens and to God has powerful biblical precedents: see e.g. Exodus, 22.22–4, ‘Ye shal not trouble any widowe, nor fatherles childe’; Psalms, 68.5, ‘He is a Father of the fatherles, and a Iudge of [defendeth the cause of] the widowes’; and Isaiah, 54.4–5, ‘yea thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, & shalt not remember the reproche of thy widdowhead anie more. For he that made thee, is thine housband’. See also R2 1.2.42–3, ‘DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER Where then, alas, may I complain myself? / GAUNT To God, the widow’s champion and defence.’

  110 *Wear … day Theobald’s emendation makes sense of the line. Constance is in a hurry: she wants trouble to erupt between the kings ere sunset. F’s ‘Weare out the daies’ may reflect the author’s, copyist’s or compositor’s recollection of the more common phrase with its biblical origin (Job, 36.11), noted by Braunmuller.

  110–11 ere … kings Cf. Ephesians, 4.26, ‘let not the sunne go downe upon your wrath’ (Ard2).

  * * *

  102 enemies’] Capell; enemies F 107 kings!] Capell (Rowe); Kings F 108 cries;] Capell; cries, F Lord,] (Oxf subst.); (heauens) F 110 day] Theobald; daies F

  111 armed armèd

  114 Limoges … Austria Shakespeare again conflates Widomar, Viscount of Limoges, and Leopold, Duke of Austria, as does Troublesome Reign.

  115 bloody spoil i.e. the lion’s skin taken from Richard the Lionheart and worn by Austria. The lion’s skin as spoil, according to Ard2, is an echo of Ovid’s ‘spolioque leonis’ (Met., 9.113).

  116 valiant … villainy a paronomasia (repeated words nearly but not precisely alike in sound)

  117 strong … stronger the figure is antanaclasis (repeating a word, shifting from one of its meanings to another); Austria is determined, resolute (strong) to side with those who have the more powerful position (stronger).

  119 her humorous ladyship i.e. Fortune. Fortune is said to be fickle, various in her moods (humorous); see OED humorous 3.

  121 sooth’st up greatness flatter those in power by expressing assent or approval (OED soothe v. 4, with ‘up’ 4b); ‘soothe up’ as a form of flattery first cited in 1616 (OED soothe v. 5b)

  122 ramping raging with violent gestures (see OED ramp v. 4, and ppl. a. 3, citing this line); pretending to be a lion in your actions. Cf. the dying Warwick’s description of the fallen cedar ‘Under whose shade the ramping lion slept’ (3H6 5.2.13).

  127 fall go

  128 Thou … hide? The question points sarcastically to Austria’s appropriation of a symbol of valour; see 2.1.144n.

  Doff put off

  129 calf’s skin Commentators suggest that Constance is calling Austria either a fool or a coward, or is possibly combining the two insults in one. ‘When fools were kept for diversion in great families, they were distinguished by a calf’s-skin coat … that they might be known for fools’ (Sir John Hawkins, cited by Furness); ‘Constance, by clothing Austria in a “calf’s-skin”, primarily means to insinuate that he is a coward. The word “recreant” seems to favour such a supposition’ (Malone). The idea of Austria’s wearing a calf’s skin as opposed to the lion’s hide (128) clearly satirically demotes his valour to cowardice. Since Constance calls Austria a coward at 115 and a fool at 121–2 it is not at all impossible that both insults combine in the term: so the Bastard’s enthusiastic appropriation of it implies.

  recreant cowardly, faint-hearted, craven (OED a. 1b, in attributive use, citing this line)

  130 Ard2, following Dyce, cites Sidney’s Arcadia (1590): ‘O God (cried out Pyrocles) that thou wert a man that used these wordes unto me’ (486).

  134 this i.e. the Bastard’s mocking of Austria

  134.1 In performance, the papal legate often arrives in the impressive red robe of a cardinal, or, less frequently, in papal white, suggesting, ironically, purity of purpose.

  135 legate ambassador, the Pope’s deputy, armed with his authority

  * * *

  129, 220 calf’s skin] Calues skin 131, 133, 199, 299 calf’s skin] Calues-skin 134 SD] this edn 135 SD] this edn

  136 anointed … God Kings argued that they were rulers by divine authority; their sacramental coronations were accompanied by the pouring of oil in the sacred rite. OED anointed ppl. a. cites this line. Cf. R2 3.2.54–7, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; / The breath of worldly men cannot depose / The deputy elected by the Lord.’ See also 2.1.365n.

  138 cardinal highest ranking ecclesiastic in the Roman Church below the Pope, and one of the council that, having elected him, advises him

  139 Pope Innocent Innocent III, under whose rule the Church had its greatest extent of temporal power. He excommunicated John in 1209, having prohibited England from receiving the sacraments in 1208.

  140 religiously solemnly, ceremoniously (OED adv. 1b, citing this instance)

  141–4 John had caused the Church some trouble when his own candidate for archbishop was rejected by the Pope; see Holinshed, 171a: ‘The king sore offended in his mind … caused forthwith all the goods of the moonks of Canturburie to be confiscate to his vse … and herewith wrote his letters vnto the pope, giuing him to vnderstand for answer, that he would neuer consent that Stephan … should now enioy the rule of the bishoprike and dioces of Canturburie.’

  142 spurn kick (i.e. oppose ‘in a scornful or disdainful manner’, OED v.1 I 3)

  force perforce by violent compulsion; cf. 2H6 1.1.255, ‘And force perforce I’ll make him yield the crown’.

  143 Stephen Langton The Pope’s choice, an Englishman skilled in diplomacy, was opposed by John on the grounds that it was the King’s right to choose the archbishop. After the papal interdict on England and the excommunication of John (see 139n.), Langton took office and was subsequently one of the architects of Magna Carta (1215), an event not mentioned in Troublesome Reign or KJ.

  144 see properly, the official ‘seat’ (sedes) or ‘throne’ of a bishop which stands in the cathedral of the diocese; hence the town or place where the cathedral is located is also itself known as the bishop’s see (ODCC, ‘see’).

  * * *

  144 see] F4; Sea F

  147–8 ‘What earthly authority (earthy name) can require an anointed king to spend his breath in answering questions?’ The disparity between a king’s divine authority and the impotence of his inferiors is similarly expressed in R2: ‘The breath of worldly men cannot depose / The deputy elected by the Lord’ (3.2.56–7); ‘And shall the figure of God’s majesty / … Be judged by subject and inferior breath’ (4.1.126–9).

  147 name person of whatever title (picking up Pandulph’s use of the word in respect of the Pope at 145)

  148 *test F reads ‘tast’, meaning test, as in TN 3.4.237–8, ‘some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour’. The frequent emendation to ‘taste’ is confusing, given our gustatory sense of the word, as Oxf1 notes. Theobald’s suggestion of ‘task’ is tempting.

  152–60 In Holinshed (quoted in Bullough, 4.35–6) John expresses his defiance in a letter, asserting ‘that he would never consent that Stephan which had beene brought up & alwaies conversant with his enemies the Frenchmen, should now enjoy the rule of the bishoprike and dioces of Canturburie. Moreover, he declared in the same letters, that he marveled not a little what the pope ment … He added hereto, that for the liberties of his crowne he would stand to the death, if the matter so required.’

  153 Italian priest John stresses, belittlingly, both the foreign nature of the Pope and the artificial inflation of the ecclesiastic title. The nationalism that was so much a part of the Reformation is revealed in this ethnic reference. Cf. Troublesome Reign, Pt 1, 5.979–81, ‘and say John of England said it, that never an Italian Priest of them all shall either have tythe, tole, or poling penie out of England’. The term priest is often used contemptuously in Shakespeare; see meddling priest, 163, and cf. 1H6 1.3.30, 3.1.8 and 45, and H8 2.2.18–20, in all of which cardinals are the targets for verbal defiance and attack in a similar manner (especially 1H6 1.3.30ff.).

  154 Holinshed says, ‘there came more gains to the Romane church out of that kingdome [England], than out of any other realme’ (171a).

  155–8 See Holinshed, 173b: ‘He went about also to prooue with likelie arguments, that it apperteined not to the pope, to have to doo concerning the temporall possessions of any kings or other potentats touching the rule and gouernment of their subiects, sith no power was granted to Peter (the speciall and cheefe of the apostles of the Lord) but onlie touching the church, and matters apperteining therevnto.’

  155 under … head an anachronistic appropriation: by the Act of Supremacy of 1534 Henry VIII had been given the title ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England after God’; here, an obvious Protestant rallying-cry.

  * * *

  148 test] (tast); taste F3; task Theobald 155 God] Ard2 (Collier MS, after TR); heauen F

  God Troublesome Reign has John state, ‘I raigne next under God, supreame head’ (Pt 1, 5.982).

  156–8 supremacy … hand ‘In the confession of faith of the reformed church, the forty-two articles of 1552 place no restriction on the royal supremacy. The thirty-sixth article reads: “The King of England is Supreme Head in Earth, next under Christ, of the Church of England and Ireland. The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England”’ (Greenewald, 57).

  159 set apart perhaps set aside, but possibly ‘acknowledged’, with heavy irony

  161 Brother common form of address used between sovereigns; cf. H5 2.4.115, ‘FRENCH KING Back to our brother England.’

  blaspheme talk profanely. OED 1 cites this line.

  163 grossly palpably (OED 2); stupidly (OED 6); materially (as in association with money and as opposed to spiritually; see OED 5)

  164 curse … out i.e. excommunication, that can, however, be lifted for a monetary payment. See Ham 3.3.57–60, ‘In the corrupted currents of this world / Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice, / And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself / Buys out the law’.

  164–6 In Troublesome Reign, Pt 1, 5.994ff., the principle of good bad-faith is presented as unqualified. Shakespeare, on the other hand, offers the more limited maxim about allegiance to an apostate prince that can be found in Aquinas: ‘as soon as a sentence of excommunication is passed on a man on account of his apostasy from the faith, his subjects are ipso facto absolved from his authority and from the oath of allegiance by which they were bound to him’ (Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1941), cited in Klause, 412).

  164–7 money … pardon John here rehearses one of the commonest Protestant complaints against the papacy, the sale of indulgences, the key issue in the beginning of the Reformation.