SYNOPSIS By J. ELLIS BURDICK ACT I When Richard Coeur-de-Lion died, the crown of England should have come to his son, Prince Arthur, but his brother John usurped it. Philip of France supports the claims of Arthur and threatens to make war on England. In return John plans an invasion of France and appoints a natural son of Richard as one of the generals under the name and title of Sir Richard Plantagenet. ACT II An indecisive battle is fought between the English and French before Angiers in France and afterward a treaty of peace is concluded between the two kings. Blanche, niece to King John, is married to Lewis, Dauphin of France, and for her dowry the English king relinquishes certain English provinces. ACT III John refuses to obey a mandate of the Pope and is excommunicated. The papal legate demands that Philip refuse to abide by the terms of the treaty "on peril of a curse." John and Philip again take up arms and the French are defeated in battle. The prince Arthur is taken prisoner and John gives instructions for his murder. ACT IV Hubert, an English courtier, is commissioned by John to burn out Arthur's eyes; but the boy's entreaties weaken Hubert's resolution and he risks disobeying the king's instructions. The French under the Dauphin invade England. Arthur attempts to escape from his prison by leaping from the castle walls, but he is hurt to the death by the stones on which he falls. His body is found by three nobles who, already discontented with John and believing the prince murdered by his order, desert him and join the Dauphin. ACT V John, thinking to arrest the invasion of the French, yields to the papal demands. But Lewis refuses to turn back, claiming the crown by right of his marriage since Arthur is dead. A strongly contested battle ensues, but the result is indecisive. The English lords who had joined the French return to their allegiance in time to be pardoned by John before his death from a poison given him by a monk. The French willingly conclude a peace with the English and John's son ascends the throne as Henry III. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN ACT FIRST SCENE I King John's Palace. Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury, and others, with Chatillon. K. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France In my behavior to the majesty, The borrowed majesty, of England here. Eli. A strange beginning: 'borrowed majesty!' K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy. Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, 10 Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim Which sways usurpingly these several titles, And put the same into young Arthur's hand, Thy nephew and right royal sovereign. K. John. What follows if we disallow of this? Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly witheld. K. John. Here have we war for war and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: SO answer France. 20 Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The farthest limit of my embassy. K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: 15. "Thy nephew and right royal sovereign"; as Richard I died without lawful issue, the crown in the strict order of succession would have fallen to his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, then in his twelfth year. But the crown was then partly elective, the nation choosing from the members of the royal family the one they thought fittest for the office. Arthur held the duchy of Brittany in right of his father, Geffrey Plantagenet, an elder brother of John. Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, the ancient patrimony of the house of Anjou, were his by hereditary right. As Duke of Brittany Arthur was a vassal of Philip Augustus, King of France; and Constance engaged to Philip that her son should do him homage also for Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poictou, on condition that Philip should support his claim to the English crown. England having declared for John, the play opens with Philip's interference in behalf of Arthur.-H. N. H. 20. According to the Cambridge editors the line must probably be scanned as an Alexandrine, reading the first "controlment" in the time of a trisyllable and the second as a quadrisyllable. This seems very doubtful; the irregularity of the line is not remarkable; there is merely an extra syllable before the pause: Contról ment fór| contrólment || so áns|wer Fránce.-I. G. 26. "The thunder of my cannon"; the Poet here anticipates the use So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon. 30 [Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke. Eli. What now, my son! have I not ever said How that ambitious Constance would not cease Till she had kindled France and all the world, Upon the right and party of her son? This might have been prevented and made whole With very easy arguments of love, Which now the manage of two kingdoms must K. John. Our strong possession and our right for us. of gunpowder by about a hundred years. Thus, again, in Act ii. he speaks of "bullets wrapp'd in fire." A similar anachronism occurs in Macbeth, Act i. sc. 2: "They were as cannons overcharg'd with double cracks." John's reign began in 1199, and cannon are said to have been first used at the battle of Cressy, in 1346. In all these cases Shakespeare simply aimed to speak the language that was most intelligible to his audience, rendering the ancient engines of war by their modern equivalents. Of course he is found fault with by those who in a drama prefer chronological accuracy to dramatic effect.— H. N. H. 28. "sullen presage of your own decay"; there is perhaps an allusion here to the dismal passing-bell, as Steevens suggested; according to Delius, the trumpet of doom is alluded to. There is, however, no difficulty in the thought as it stands, without these references to a secondary idea.-I. G. 34. "Her son"; Elinor's hostility to Constance is thus accounted for by Holinshed: "Surely Queen Elinor, the king's mother, was sore against her nephew Arthur, rather moved thereto by envy conceived against his mother, than upon any just occasion given in the behalf of the child; for that she saw if he were king how his mother Constance would look to bear most rule within the realm of England, till her son should come to lawful age to govern of himself."H. N. H. |