165 merit pun alluding to the doctrine of merit: ‘In the theological sense of the term, merit designates man’s right to be rewarded for a work done for God’ (ODCC, ‘merit’). The Catholic doctrine of merit believed that good works were the means to the forgiveness of sins and to salvation, a doctrine which led to abuse through the selling of indulgences whereby one could replace the doing of good works by instead purchasing merit (hence ‘Purchase corrupted pardon’ in 166).

  dross worthless matter

  169 juggling cheating, deceptive, tricking

  witchcraft superstition; standard anti-Catholic abuse found in most Protestant writings; cf. Foxe, ‘their crafty iuggling by their fained prophet’ (251, i).

  revenue with stress on second syllable

  170 alone, alone The customary definition of the heroic situation is the defence of a vulnerable place against odds. John, as defender of little England against all Catholic Europe, represents himself as a proto-Protestant hero.

  172 lawful in accordance with the rules or laws imposed by authority in matters of faith, morals and discipline (canon law)

  173–9 cursed … life Cf. Doctor Faustus, 3.1.906–7, ‘We will depose the Emperour for that deed, / And curse the people that submit to him; / Both he and thou shalt stand excommunicate, / And interdict from Churches of priviledge, / And all society of holy men’.

  174–5 revolt … heretic proverbial for the Roman Catholic doctrine of ‘No faith with heretics’ (Dent F33)

  174 blessed blessèd

  176–9 meritorious … life Regarding regicide, Klause makes a telling observation about Pandulph’s claim: ‘the point to be noted is that in The Troublesome Raigne, Pandulph offers a problematic version of Roman Catholic teaching on sin and forgiveness, a theological solecism, which in King John Shakespeare is careful to avoid. No sin can be pardoned before it is committed; and none when committed may be forgiven by religious authority (and sacrament) without the sinner’s contrition’ (Klause, 424–5). Klause notes, however, that ‘[e]ven the judicious Aquinas was able to consider some kinds of tyrannies worthy of praise and reward’ (425, fn. 33).

  176 meritorious deserving of reward; the word underscores the tension between doctrines of salvation by works (Catholic) or faith (Protestant). The idea that assassination can lead to heavenly reward casts aspersions not only on this particular deed, but on the idea of works in general as being salvific.

  177 Canonized Ard2 suggests topically here: ‘An audience would think first of Jaques Clement, the murderer of Henry III [of France], whose proposed canonization was causing great indignation.’

  worshipped Strictly speaking, saints are not worshipped, but venerated.

  178 secret course presumably assassination, perhaps by poison

  180 have room can join

  Rome The ease with which this word was sounded like other proximate terms is illustrated in 1H6 3.1.51, ‘WINCHESTER Rome shall remedy this. GLOUCESTER Roam thither then’, and JC 1.2.155, ‘Now is it Rome indeed and room enough’.

  181–2 cry … curses an allusion to the service of ‘Commination, or Denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgements Against Sinners’ in BCP (appointed to be read on Ash Wednesday and at least four times a year). The congregation was directed to say ‘Amen’ after each of ten curses recited by the minister.

  182–3 for … right ‘You need to include the injustices done to me and mine in order to curse John properly.’

  185–90 Constance plays upon the various senses of law, right and wrong in the specific context of cursing but applied to the general context of John’s usurped authority and the denial of Arthur’s right. Cf. Romans, 4.15, ‘for where no Law is, there is no transgression’.

  190 SD*Editors and directors differ as when to put Philip’s grasping of John’s hand, some hold for a moment as early as 161.

  191 a curse excommunication

  192 Let … hand an internal stage direction stipulating that the two kings must already be in a handclasp (also at 195, 226, 240, 244, 261–2) and remain so until King Philip breaks away at 320. Braunmuller, Furnivall and Jowett alone among the play’s editors specify the action in a SD. Other editors see the two kings already holding hands (as a visual emblem of their new league) upon their entrance at 74 (an idea suggested by Constance’s ‘But now in arms’ at 103).

  * * *

  181‘Amen’] Oxf1; amen F 185 too; … right,] Rowe subst.; too, … right. F 190 SD] this edn

  193–4 By virtue of the ban of excommunication King Philip is bound by canon law to oppose John (Greenewald, 79). See Holinshed: the Pope admonished Christian princes ‘to pursue king Iohn, being thus depriued, forsaken, and condemned as a common enimie to God and his church’. Innocent commanded Pandulph ‘to exhort the French king to make warre vpon him [John], as a person for his wickednesse excommunicated’ (175b).

  196–7 Constance responds to Eleanor’s trepidation by addressing her as devil, saying that if France breaks off from John, hell will be deprived of King Philip’s soul.

  196 Look to that take care, beware

  199 The Bastard’s third repetition of the line in contempt of Austria, but the use of his for those (the only variation in the line from his and Constance’s previous use) may suggest that the Bastard includes the Cardinal in the insult (perhaps with a false etymology playing on calf’s skin as papal ‘bull’?).

  200 pocket up … wrongs a common saying meaning to ‘swallow or put up with insults’: see Dent, I70, ‘To pocket up an injury (wrong); cf. 1H4 3.3.160–1, ‘And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong’, and H5 3.2.50–1, ‘it is plain pocketing up of wrongs.’

  201 Your breeches which have pockets; perhaps Austria is to be depicted as a large man with large pants. Trousers of eccentric cut made for humour in the sixteenth century. See the illustration of Gabriel Harvey in Nashe’s mock biography of the Cambridge don in Have With You To Saffron Walden (1596) (Works, 2.38).

  * * *

  196 that,] Pope; that F

  204 father his actual father, Philip, not the cardinal priest, Pandulph, the ecclesiastical father, as is the case in line 224

  difference the amount by which one quantity differs from another (OED 2); the Dauphin thus distinguishes the choice his father must make which will ‘purchase’ one of two results in quantitative terms.

  205 purchase acquisition, with the added sense of buying (i.e. the heavy curse)

  206 light in opposition to heavy but also continuing in the sense of the quantitative terms which the Dauphin is using

  208–9 devil … of The devil takes many shapes, and Shakespeare provides examples of the phenomenon with syntax similar to Hal’s comment about Falstaff: ‘There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man’ (1H4 2.4.435–6).

  209 untrimmed untrimmèd; unbedded (i.e. virgin). Constance alludes to the sexual temptation which Blanche represents as a yet undeflowered bride; see Williams, ‘trim’, as a term for copulation. Cf. Tit 5.1.94–6 for various sexual plays on ‘trim’. The more common meaning of untrimmed as ‘unadorned’ may be extended to ‘naked’. For the temptation parallel, cf. E3 12.132, ‘danger woos me as a blushing maid.’

  210–11 speaks … need says not what she truly believes (faith) but what she must say because she is in distress or extremity (need) (i.e. over her cause which is in danger of being lost)

  213 need … needs distress … out of necessity

  infer imply, draw as a conclusion (OED 3)

  214 a rhetorical inversion of 212: ‘belief can be revived once more by the extermination of my distress’ (i.e. if France will remain true to his oath and break away from John).

  215–16 tread … trodden ‘Destroy my distress and belief will then be restored; sustain the reason for my distress and belief will be destroyed.’ ‘The submerged image of these lines is of scales, or of buckets in a well, or of a treadmill’ (Oxf1).

  217 John’s description of the bemused Philip dissonantly echoes Catesby’s ‘The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip’ (R3 4.2.27).

  moved disturbed, troubled

  218 removed quibbling on moved in 217, but also emphasizing the handclasp from which Constance wants King Philip to remove himself

  220 lout country bumpkin, clown; the Bastard likes this term of abuse, having already referred to the Dauphin as ‘so vile a lout’ (2.1.509).

  221 Oxf notes the parallel in word and rhythm of Hermia’s ‘I am amazed, and know not what to say’ (MND 3.2.344) and in the situation with the Citizen of Angiers in Act 2.

  perplexed puzzled; Oxf cites OED v. 1, ‘Confuse, puzzle’, and points out that OED cites this line as the earliest example.

  222 perplex word-play on perplexed in 221, with the additional connotation of ‘entangle’ (see OED v. 2, and ppl. a. 2); ‘to confuse or bewilder’ (OED v. 1, citing this line as the earliest example)

  224 make … yours put yourself in my place

  225 bestow conduct, deport

  226–9 King Philip makes the argument for the religious significance of the sign of faith invoked by handclasps. Cf. 3H6 3.3.246–50, ‘QUEEN MARGARET Therefore delay not: give thy hand to Warwick, / And, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable … PRINCE EDWARD … And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand’; R2 2.3.50, ‘My heart this covenant makes; my hand thus seals it.’

  226–7 knit … souls Donne, we know, attended a performance of R2, possibly the notorious one of 7 February 1601 (Richard E. Barbieri, ‘John Donne and Richard II: an influence’, SQ, 26 (1975), 57–62). Might Donne have seen KJ before composing ‘The Extasie’: ‘as our blood labours to beget / Spirits, as like soules as it can, / Because such fingers need to knit / That subtle knot, which makes us man’ (61–4)?

  * * *

  218 SD] Oxf1

  227–9 Philip uses a single metaphor with a double application: the joining (conjunction) of the two kings is emphasized by the conjunction (marriage) between Lewis and Blanche by which the two kings are Married in league (joined by the literal marriage and joined in friendship); both marriages have been solemnized with sacred vows (Oxf1) Similar language is used to describe the league between the English and French kings in H5 (see 5.2.352–66).

  233 e’en even (i.e. just)

  but new before just immediately preceding, just now (a parenthesis qualifying truce)

  234 No longer than i.e. so that there was hardly time

  wash our hands The image of Pilate clearing himself of responsibility hovers in the background.

  235 clap … bargain proverbial expression for the handshake sealing an agreement: Dent, H109.1, ‘Clap hands and a bargain’. Cf. H5 5.2.129–30, ‘Give me your answer, i’faith do, and so clap hands and a bargain’; clap up means to make, settle or concoct hastily (OED clap v.1 IV 13b, citing this line); cf. TS 2.1.329, ‘Was ever match clapped up so suddenly?’

  236 besmeared Cf. Son 55.4, ‘besmeared with sluttish time’.

  over-stained suffused with colour

  237 pencil a (thick) paint-brush (Ard2)

  238 fearful fearsome, dreadful, terrible

  difference quarrel, contention; cf. 2.1.355.

  incensed incensèd

  241 seizure grasp (i.e. the kings’ handclasp)

  regreet (return of a) salutation (OED n.1, citing this line), salutation of friendship (Riv2). Oxf 1 rightly suggests that the word is a verb parallel to Unyoke and not its substantive object.

  242 Play … loose i.e. trick, cheat; a common expression (Dent, P401, ‘To play fast and (or) loose’), derived from a cheating game known as ‘fast and loose’ in which a coiled belt was placed edgewise upon a table; the victim was asked to thrust a knife through the central fold and bet whether the belt was pinned (fast) or loose. The outcome (always opposite to the victim’s bet) was determined by the trickster. Oxf1 notes the illustration of this belt in Ard1. Cf. LLL 3.1.100, ‘To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose’; AC 4.12.28–9, ‘Like a right gipsy hath at fast and loose / Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.’

  * * *

  242 God?] Theobald; heauen, F

  *jest with God See Dent, J45.1, ‘It is ill jesting with gods’.

  243 unconstant children Philip’s words, including a pun on Constance’s name, suggest the victims, Constance and her child Arthur, as he considers remaining faithful to John.

  251 order mandate, command, injunction; perhaps including the sense of ‘a stated form of divine service’ (OED n. III 17) by which the parties shall be blest

  253 The line is rich in its suggestiveness, serving as an emblem for the whole play. For the collocation of formlessness and disorder, cf. 2H4 4.1.261–2, ‘The time misordered doth, in common sense, / Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form.’

  form used in the general sense of ‘orderly arrangement of parts’ (OED n. 8) but also integrating the sense of ‘a set or fixed order of words’ (OED n. 12) implied by King Philip’s suggestion that Pandulph devise an order (250–1).

  255 champion … Church The kings of France had the official titles ‘Eldest Son of the Church’ and ‘Most Christian King’ (Greenewald, 124). Pandulph asks King Philip to ‘champion’ the cause of the Church in the quarrel between the Church and John.

  257 mother’s both (1) of Holy Mother Church, and (2) of Constance

  revolting rebellious (in revolt)

  258 hold … tongue Dent, S228.1, ‘To take (hold) a serpent by the tongue’; an obviously dangerous action since the serpent’s venom was believed to reside in its teeth. Cf. MA 5.1.90, ‘As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.’

  * * *

  243 ourselves] F2 subst.; onr selues F

  259 cased casèd; with its skin on, i.e. alive. Some editors suggest ‘caged’ (e.g. Riv2); still others are impressed by the often insightful Theobald’s ‘chafed’.

  262 disjoin withdraw. Here Oxf1 provides a SD, ‘He releases John’s hand’. Editors often wait to introduce this SD until 320, ‘England, I will fall from thee’.

  but … faith ‘yet keep my oath’ or ‘but may not break my oath’

  263–9 Pandulph’s analysis of the conflicting oaths problem: Pandulph is exercising his casuistical skills in distinguishing the greater from the lesser claims of obligation. Casuistry is that branch of moral theology concerned with nice, delicate, subtle cases of conscience. Although the reputation of casuistry, particularly as practised by the Jesuits, famously described in Pascal’s Lettres Provinciales (1658), and alluded to by Shakespeare in the Porter’s inebriated disquisition on equivocation in Mac 2.3, is quite negative, strictly speaking, the practice itself, though subject to abuse, has validity. How much validity it has here in Pandulph’s use is the critical question.

  263–5faith … faith … tongue … tongue i.e. your fidelity to John is incompatible with your fidelity to the Church (as the champion (267) of the Church, Philip is sworn to keep and defend the Catholic faith, i.e. the ‘vow / First made to God’, 265–6). You have then created a civil war within yourself by taking an oath against a previous oath; your utterance (tongue) fights against your former utterance.

  265–6 vow … God performed Cf. Deuteronomy, 23.21; 23, ‘When thou shalt vowe a vow vnto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not be slacke to pay it: for the Lord thy God wil surely require it of thee, and so it shulde be sinne vnto thee’; ‘That which is gone out of thy lippes, thou shalt kepe and performe, as thou hast vowed it willingly vnto the Lord thy God: for thou hast spoken it with thy mouth’ (see Noble, 118).

  266 First … 2God with the suggestion: ‘Giue therefore to Cesar, the things which are Cesars, and giue vnto God, those which are Gods’ (Matthew, 22.21).

  268 i.e. since you previously swore to be ‘champion of our Church’, the oath that you made (to John) is contrary to your first oath and therefore you have sworn against yourself.

  268–9 thyself … thyself Compare this repetition, characteristic of early Shakespeare, with that of Richard III as he reflects on the folly of revenging himself on himself: ‘What, myself upon myself? / Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good / That I myself have done unto myself? / O, no. Alas, I rather hate myself, / For hateful deeds committed by myself’ (R3 5.3.186–90).

  * * *

  259 cased] chased Pope; chafed Theobald; caged (Collier)

  269 performed performèd

  270–8 An earlier instance of the issue of commitment to an improper oath appears in 2H6 when Salisbury responds to King Henry’s pointed question, ‘Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath [that is, of allegiance to him]?’, with ‘It is great sin to swear into a sin, / But greater sin to keep a sinful oath’ (2H6 5.1.181–3). Salisbury goes on to anticipate one of the results of stubborn allegiance to a politically involved oath: ‘Who can be bound by any solemn vow / … To reave the orphan of his patrimony, / To wring the widow from her customed right’ (5.1.184, 187–8).

  270–3that … doing it ‘The oath (that which) you have given to commit wrong is not wrong when it is given rightly (truly, i.e. in accordance with the law). The law is most observed (truth is then most done) by not fulfilling this oath, since to fulfil it would be to commit a wrong (where doing tends to ill).’ An intricate rendition of the proverb ‘An unlawful oath is better broken than kept’ (Dent, O7); cf. TGV 2.6.11, ‘Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken’; 3H6 5.1.89–90, ‘Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath / To keep that oath were more impiety’.

  274–6 i.e. the best action to take with mistaken intentions (purposes mistook) is to make another mistake (though only incidentally a mistake and only incidentally dishonest = though indirect, i.e. by breaking his oath to John); yet this somewhat oblique method (indirection) thereby becomes honest (direct, i.e. because it results in the right thing).

  274 purposes mistook Cf. the use of the phrase at Ham 5.2.368–9: ‘And in this upshot purposes mistook / Fallen on th’inventors’ heads.’

  276 indirection Polonius, whose love of word-play and logic-chopping is like that of this Cardinal, follows Pandulph’s expression closely in a context of deceit when he tells Reynaldo of his strategy which will ‘By indirections find directions out’ (Ham 2.1.63).