In the last half of 4.2, Hubert and King John engage in an examination of the King’s conscience. Hubert reports the appearance of five moons and immediately describes the common gossip that connects this portent to the rumoured death of Arthur. In response, John blames Hubert for the death of the young prince. He points out that unlike himself, Hubert had no ‘cause’ to kill Arthur. He then accuses Hubert of an officious alacrity that has mistaken a capricious mood for settled judgement. Hubert responds by presenting the warrant, forcing John to pursue another argument: Hubert’s villainous appearance (also commented on by Pembroke) incited John to contemplate murder, a thought that would not otherwise have entered his mind. He clinches this argument with a conclusion that attempts to unite Hubert’s appearance with his interior turpitude: ‘And thou, to be endeared to a king, / Made it no conscience to destroy a prince’ (228–9). Of course, Hubert’s conscience has, in fact, prevented him from killing Arthur, and John’s desperate evasions serve as self-accusation, an admission of his own bad conscience. John excoriates Hubert and laments the direness of the current crisis – abandoned by his nobles and beset by ‘foreign powers’ – concluding, ‘Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, / This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath, / Hostility and civil tumult reigns / Between my conscience and my cousin’s death’ (245–8). This is a return to and affirmation of Salisbury’s earlier simile, which also figured the King’s body as internally divided between warring factions. Hubert, persuaded by this expression of regret, offers to ‘make a peace between your soul and you’. Hubert promises tranquillity of mind, an end to internal division, and perhaps most importantly an escape from the damnation that John clearly thinks he has earned. The news that Arthur lives provides a reprieve that is eagerly embraced. John pauses only to apologize for having slandered Hubert. No thought is given to his own bad intentions; all attention is on preventing the imminent defection of the peers.

  Of course, the very next scene opens with the accidental death of Arthur as he attempts to escape from captivity, an episode that insists on the force of inexplicable contingency and invites a reconsideration of John’s conscience. Is he guilty of a death that he intended but did not directly procure? The play does not provide a definitive answer. But the news of Arthur’s death, when it finally reaches John, is a sharp blow from which he never recovers. He immediately resigns command of his forces to the Bastard and quickly declines into sickness and death. His is not a good death; he departs in torment both physical and psychic: ‘Within me is a hell, and there the poison / Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize / On unreprievable, condemned blood’ (5.7.46–8). The anguish on display in John’s death scene, which is later developed in the portrayal of Macbeth, makes a mockery of Hubert’s earlier promise of a peaceful soul; conscience now appears only as a strict judge, there at the last to insist that the blood is irredeemable and guilty.

  The play affords a glimpse of an alternative version of conscience in which the faculty instead appears to be a reliable guide to action. This more optimistic version of conscience appears in a different death scene. Melun’s dying confession that the English lords who have joined with the French party are, if victorious, to be put to the sword is provoked, he explains, by his love for Hubert and the fact that his grandfather was an Englishman. That these two affiliations are what awake his ‘conscience’ (5.4.43) is remarkable. Again conscience seems to be contingent; Melun is motivated not by a sudden return to principle, but instead by the remembrance of seemingly accidental relationships of propinquity, in the one case friendship and in the other ancestry. But before dismissing this too quickly as the assertion of a tribal ethic of solidarity opposed to a rational and universal morality, it is worth considering the degree to which propinquity initiates conscience which then concludes that it is imperative to ‘Unthread the rude eye of rebellion’ (5.4.11). Whatever pressure might be put on this process, as a theatrical event it is evidently presented as a deathbed conversion, a return to truth and honesty. Melun’s conscience precipitates the return of the errant nobles beginning the process of repair and reintegration that concludes the play.

  Though conscience works effectively in the case of Melun, political manoeuvre in King John is almost exclusively driven by commodity, and the naked pursuit of self-interest that dominates the action has led many critics to conclude that the play is corrosive of all value systems. In David Womersley’s formulation, the play ‘confronts the question of how one lives in a world without value’.1 ‘The most disturbing of all Shakespeare’s English Histories’, writes Phyllis Rackin, adding that it ‘exposes the inadequacy of all explanatory schemes: law, Realpolitik, providential order, natural-humanistic right’.2 Virginia Mason Vaughan, an astute analyst of King John, declares it ‘Shakespeare’s most postmodern history play’ (Companion, 379). Such assessments are in large part a response to the Machiavellianism on display in the play. When the Bastard proposes that the English and French join forces in order first to lay waste to the insolent city of Angiers before resuming their own battle for supremacy, he concludes on a self-congratulatory note: ‘How like you this wild counsel, mighty states? / Smacks it not something of the policy?’ (2.1.395–6). His unorthodox proposal is more than political manoeuvre: ‘the policy’ carries clear associations with Machiavellianism. Of course, the distance between what scholars of the drama have referred to as the stage Machiavel and the historical Machiavelli is considerable, and ‘the policy’ invoked here is marked by extravagant unorthodoxy; it is counter-intuitive, a ‘wild counsel’ that ignores traditional pieties (such as the prohibition on attacking civilians). The Bastard is irked by the insubordination of the citizens who have refused to submit to their social superiors and hopes to punish this insolence by destroying their city. If there is a political purpose here, it seems to be the assertion of monarchical prerogative over the quasi-independence of a city.

  While the Bastard briefly imagines that he hunts the trail of policy, Pandulph is the play’s true Machiavel. But unlike Richard III, who promises to ‘set the murderous Machiavel to school’ (3H6 3.2.193), Pandulph is not the diabolical and protean figure usually associated with stage Machiavellianism. Avoiding the extremes of caricature, Pandulph instead appears as a savvy political operator who correctly anticipates events and does not hesitate to manipulate and deceive in pursuit of his objectives. After the French are defeated and John has seized Arthur, the Dauphin laments what he considers to be an extraordinary loss, but Pandulph is quick to explain that John’s victory is only apparent. By capturing Arthur, John has created an impossible political situation for himself: unable to rest assured of his position while Arthur and his claim live, John will be compelled to put him to death, an act that will ‘cool the hearts / Of all his people’, who will consequently misinterpret natural occurrences as ‘prodigies’ and ‘tongues of heaven, / Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John’ (3.4.149–50, 157, 158–9). This prognostication, delivered ‘with a prophetic spirit’ (126), proves to be accurate, but Pandulph is no visionary: his ironic use of the language of prophecy is designed to emphasize his clear-eyed approach to an entirely secular, political causality. Pandulph’s approach to prognostication is deliberately contrasted with the inspired prediction made by Peter of Pomfret.

  Pandulph also proves Machiavellian in the conventional and simple sense when he trades his protégé’s ambition for King John’s submission to the Church; however, in this case he has miscalculated, and the Dauphin, incensed at having been used as an ‘instrument’ (5.2.81), refuses to comply with the newly brokered peace. Pandulph tries to recover his old magic by hinting at the hidden depths of his strategy – ‘You look but on the outside of this work’ (109) – but the Dauphin will have none of it. The effect of this minor setback is to suggest that Pandulph is not a superhuman force, an unstoppable demonic dynamo. Nonetheless, with a little help from Melun and the tides at Goodwin Sands that destroy the French reinforcements, Pandulph is able in the end to negotiate a peace between the French and the English.

  LEGITIMACY AND LEGITIMATION

  The treatment of the conflict between principle and opportunity gives rise to an extensive exploration of legitimacy. Shakespeare’s plays, especially the history plays, are clearly fascinated by the problem: what is it that makes political subjects affirm and support a particular regime? While the technical sense of political legitimacy becomes a key concept in sociology, its earliest senses associate it with the condition of being a legitimate child, and in a political world dominated by lineal succession the fully political sense emerges from this familial context. To be the sort of sovereign who commands the full faith and obedience of one’s subjects is to be the legal descendant of the prior ruler. But, of course, history is messy, and the seemingly straightforward notion of lineal succession is often hard to apply. This is especially the case during the period known as the War of the Roses, when the rival Houses of Lancaster and York struggled for pre-eminence, but it continued to be a problem for the Tudor dynasty. Though Henry VII sought to position himself as an inheritor, initially of the Lancastrian line and then (with his marriage to Elizabeth of York) of the Yorkist claim, he clearly owed his position to conquest. The defeat of Richard III at Bosworth was, of course, presented as the defeat of a tyrant by the realm’s legitimate monarch, but it was only the succession of Henry VIII that securely established the Tudor dynasty. Unfortunately, Henry VIII left a troubled legacy. Both Mary and Elizabeth having been declared illegitimate in separate earlier Acts of Parliament, the Third Succession Act (1543) affirmed that Edward would succeed, but in the event that Edward died without issue, the crown would descend first to Mary and then to Elizabeth, an arrangement subsequently confirmed by Henry’s will. The complications following Edward VI’s death, including the abortive attempt to proclaim Lady Jane Grey queen, raised enduring questions about the sovereign’s power to designate a successor. Elizabeth’s own accession was peaceful, but as the sixteenth century drew to a close, the subjects of the unmarried and childless Queen faced an uncertain future. Under these circumstances, the relevance of King John’s example is hard to miss.

  The play’s opening scenes provide a double perspective on the problem of legitimacy. After dealing with the embassy from France, King John’s attention turns to what Essex describes as ‘the strangest controversy’ (1.1.44). The dispute between Philip and Robert Faulconbridge concerns the older brother’s paternity. According to Robert, his father, on the verge of death, repudiated Philip, claiming that he was in truth the son of Richard the Lionheart, and willed his estate to his younger son. While King John, and Eleanor, recognize aspects of Richard in Philip’s appearance and voice, the law insists that a child born in wedlock, as Philip was, is legitimate. John seizes the opportunity to expatiate on this counter-intuitive conclusion using farmyard imagery. However his energy and wit appeal, the King’s utterly orthodox conclusion presents an unsettling prospect in which the technical application of the law appears to create an injustice, driving a wedge between legality and legitimacy. Happily, this disturbing contradiction disappears from view when Philip agrees to forego his claim in favour of a new name, a knighthood and the opportunity to follow Eleanor and King John. By embracing his status as a royal bastard, Faulconbridge is at once elevated and demoted. This opening episode deliberately scrambles the question of legitimacy. And the matter does not get clearer in the scene that follows. The claim promoted by the King of France relies on a straightforward application of the principle of primogeniture: since Richard I died without issue, succession fell to his next eldest brother, Geoffrey, who, though he died before Richard, left a son, Arthur of Brittany. France accuses John of having ‘Cut off the sequence of posterity’, and just as in the preceding scene, family resemblance is adduced as evidence: ‘Look here upon thy brother Geoffrey’s face: / These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his’ (2.1.96, 99–100). Importantly, John does not contest the principle; instead, Eleanor attacks the argument by calling Arthur a bastard. Constance rejects the accusation, insists on her fidelity and maintains that Arthur is ‘Liker in feature to his father Geoffrey / Than thou and John’ (126–7). ‘This is thy eldest son’s son’ is her claim (177). Confronted by this strong reiteration of the principle of primogeniture, Eleanor invokes the testament of Richard I bequeathing the kingdom to his youngest brother, John: ‘I can produce / A will that bars the title of thy son’ (191–2).

  While it is frequently claimed that Shakespeare advertises John’s status as a usurper, there is little to support the assertion. It is true that Eleanor expresses doubt about John’s ‘right’, but this hardly settles the matter. Importantly, John, charged with usurpation by France, demands to know what authority the French monarch has to call him to account. Philip responds with a wonderfully idealistic vision in which God has designated him (and ‘any breast of strong authority’) ‘To look into the blots and stains of right’ (2.1.113–14). King Philip casts himself as a chivalric knight on a divinely sanctioned mission to right the wrongs of the world, but the phrase ‘strong authority’ hints at the problem. What sort of an attribute is authority? Does ‘strong’ imply legitimacy or only power? The qualification of ‘any breast’ reveals that the King of France is not claiming a universal right to correct injustices. The task is delegated to those ‘of strong authority’, but the source of that authority remains obscure. On the one hand, King Philip may be making the familiar argument that those in authority have a special mandate to correct vice even when it occurs outside their regular jurisdiction. On the other hand, he may be suggesting that divine inspiration may move the properly constituted person to fight for justice. This more radical notion resembles Hamlet’s claim to be both heaven’s ‘scourge and minister’ (Ham 3.4.173). Either way, John sees this as a non-answer: ‘Alack, thou dost usurp authority’ (KJ 2.1.118). Philip concedes the point, but in a fine piece of rhetorical judo claims, ‘Excuse it is to beat usurping down.’ The notion that a self-aggrandizing claim to police the world is excused by the fact that it targets ‘usurping’ is paradoxical if not incoherent. It involves an argument about degree (my minor usurpation pales in comparison to the major usurpation that I am correcting) that has already abandoned the argument from principle (no usurpation).

  The question of legitimacy haunts the play from start to finish. But it is not exclusively a question of John’s personal claim. The play engages a much broader set of problems surrounding state power – considerations that condense around the topos of the death in custody. The imprisonment of Arthur, the scene in which he is threatened with gruesome torture and his entirely accidental death raise the dark spectre of secret state violence. Deaths in custody recur throughout the history plays and the historical accounts they draw upon. The dark inversion of the famously public executions that have come, in a broadly Foucauldian analysis, to emblematize the theatrical nature of early modern state power, murdered prisoners were a source of endless fascination. The mysterious death in custody reaches an absolute limit in the figure of the disappeared. The two princes taken into custody by Richard III are the best example. They disappeared into the Tower and were never seen again, creating a historical puzzle that endures to this day. In the case of Edward II, who died at Berkeley Castle in 1327, though a body was produced, the precise cause of death remained a matter of controversy. Though examples from the English chronicles could be multiplied – the deaths of Good Duke Humphrey and Thomas of Woodstock are two famous cases – recent London history had also provided a celebrated instance. Richard Hunne, a Merchant Taylor of London, refused to pay a mortuary fee for the burial of his son in 1511; the initial conflict soon blossomed into a complicated legal wrangle involving suits and counter-suits which eventually led to a charge of heresy that landed Hunne in the Lollard’s Tower of St Paul’s Cathedral, where he was later found hanged in his cell. The clerical authorities claimed that he had committed suicide, but the physical evidence raised significant suspicions about this conclusion, and the coroner’s inquest charged William Horsey, chancellor to the Bishop of London, with his murder. Horsey, however, was spared a trial by the intervention of Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, and the entire episode was transformed by an anonymous pamphlet writer, and later by Foxe, into an emblem of the rapaciousness and lawlessness of the pre-Reformation clergy.

  Hunne’s case, which is still subject to competing explanations, highlights the basic problem presented by the death in custody. Lacking confessions from the murderers themselves, the episode produces a fundamental irresolution in the historical record, a gap that cannot, despite the firm convictions of many, be definitively closed. The death of Prince Arthur is a perfect instance – the sources are able to do little more than speculate, but the play allows the audience alone to know the truth of Arthur’s death. Hubert, of course, knows he is not guilty, and the Bastard seems, finally, to be persuaded by the vehemence of Hubert’s professions of innocence; the Lords, however, remain convinced that he is responsible for Arthur’s death. The episode produces a darkly ironic vision of history marked by contingency and unintended consequences, but it also sounds a sceptical note regarding traditional historiography and its attempt to establish the truth of the past. The reasonable inference made by the Lords is wrong, but the threat of state violence lingers, and his plans for extrajudicial murder undercut John’s attempt to establish the legitimacy of his rule.