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King John departs farther from the facts of history than any other of Shakespeare's historicai plays. He here follows for the most part not Holinshed, but an old play which appeared in 1591 enWind The Troublesome Raigne of King John of England. He follows it, however, not in the close way in which he had previously worked when writing 2 and3 Hury VI., the main incidents are the Bale, but Shakespeare elevates and almost recreates the characters; for the most eloquent and poetical passages ho original is to be found in the old play. The character of the king grows more arkly treacherous in Shakespeare's, barely a hint of the earlier author suggested the scene, so powerful and so subcle, in which John insinuates to Hubert his murderous desires; the boyish inence of Arthur and the pathos of his life become real and living as they are dealt with by the gination of Shakespeare; Constance is no longer a fierce and ambitious virago, but a passionate, Sosing mother; Faulconbridge is ennobled by a manly tenderness and a purer patriotisin. ShakeSpare depicts, with true English spirit, the faithlessness, the ambition, the political greed, and the Siphistry of the court of Rome; but he wholly omits a ribald scene of the old play, in which the ientiousness of monasteries is exposed to ridicule. As to the date of King John all that can be asted with confidence is that it lies somewhere between the early historics (Henry VI, with Richard If and the group of later histories, the trilogy consisting of 1 and 2 Henry IV. and Henry V. Thus f the historical series it is brought close to Richard II. Neither play contains pro-e, but the treatt of Faulconbridge's part shows more approach to the alliance of a humorous or comic element with history (which becomes complete in Henry 11.) than does anything in the play of Richard II. A Joks and Richard II. have the common characteristic of containing very inferior dramatic work de by side with work of a high and difficult kind. The chief point of difference with respect to Som is that Richard II. contains a much larger proportion of rhymed verse, and on the whole we suail perhaps not err in regarding Richard II, as the earlier of the two.

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in peace:

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:
So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
And sullen presage of your own decay.
An honorable conduct let him have:
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 With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession and our right for us.

Eli. Your strong possession much more than your right,

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Or else it must go wrong with you and me : So much my conscience whispers in your ear, Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

Enter a Sheriff.

Esser. My liege, here is the strangest controversy

Come from the country to be judged by you
That e'er I heard shall I produce the men?
K. John. Let them approach.
Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
This expedition's charge.

Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP his bastard brother.

What men are you?

Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son, 51 As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge, A soldier, by the honor-giving hand Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field. K. John. What art thou ?

Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?

You came not of one mother then, it seems. Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king;

That is well known; and, as I think, one father: 60

But for the certain knowledge of that truth
I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother:
Of that I doubt, as all men's children may
Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost
shame thy mother

And wound her honor with this diffidence. Bust. I, madam ? no, I have no reason for it ;

That is my brother's plea and none of mine:
The which if he can prove, a' pops me out
At least from fair five hundred pound a year:
Heaven guard my mother's honor and my
land!

K. John. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
Bast. I know not why, except to get the
land.

But once he slander'd me with bastardy:
But whether I be as true begot or no,
That still I lay upon my mother's head,
But that I am as well begot, my liege,-
Fair fall the bones that took the pains for
me!-

Compare our faces and be judge yourself.
If old sir Robert did beget us both
And were our father and this site him,
O old sir Robert, father, on my kree

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I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee! K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven

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Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:

Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.

Rob. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy

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To Germany, there with the emperor
To treat of high affairs touching that time.
The advantage of his absence took the king
And in the mean time sojourn'd at my fath-
er's;

Where how he did prevail I shame to speak, But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores

Between my father and my mother lay,
As I have heard my father speak himself,
When this same lusty gentleman was got.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
His lands to me, and took it on his death 110
That this my mother's son was none of his ;
And if he were, he came into the world
Fall fourteen weeks before the course of time.
Then, good my liege, let me have what is
mine,

My father's land, as was my father's will.

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legiti

mate:

Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,

And if she did play false, the fault was hers; Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands

That marry wives. Tell me, how if my broth

er,

120 Who, as you say, took pains to get this son, Had of your father claim'd this son for his ? in sooth, good friend, your father might have kept

This calf bred from his cow from all the world;

In sooth he might; then, if he were my brother's,

My brother might not claim him; nor your father,

Being none of his, refuse him: this concludes; My mother's son did get your father's heir; Your father's heir must have your father's land.

Rob. Shall then my father's will be of no force

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To dispossess that child which is not his? Bast. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,

Than was his will to get me, as I think.

Eli. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge

And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
Lord of thy presence and no land beside ?
Bust. Madam, an if my brother had my
shape,

And I had his, sir Robert's his, like him ;
And if my legs were two such riding-rods, 140
My arm such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so

thin

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose

Lest men should say 'Look, where threefarthings goes

And, to his shape, were heir to all this land, Would I might never stir from off this place, I would give it every foot to have this face; I would not be sir Nob in any case.

Eli. I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,

Bequeath thy land to him and follow me ?
I am a soldier and now bound to France. 150
Bast. Brother, take you my land, I'll take
my chance.

Your face hath got five hundred pound a

year,

Yet sell your face for five pence and 'tis dear. Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

Bast. Our country manners give our betters way.

K. John. What is thy name?

Bast. Philip, my liege, so is my name be

gun;

Philip, good old sir Robert's wife's eldest son. K. John. From henceforth bear his name whose forin thon bear'st: 160 Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great, Arise sir Richard and Plantagenet.

Bast. Brother by the mother's side, give

me your hand :

My father gave me honor, yours gave land. Now blessed be the hour, by night or day, When I was got, sir Robert was away!

Eli. The very spirit of Plantagenet! I am thy grandam, Richard ; call me so. Bast. Madam, by chance but not by truth, what though?

Something about, a little from the right, 170 In at the window, or else o'er the hatch : Who dares not stir by day must walk by night,

And have is have, however men do catch : Near or far off, well won is still well shot, And I am I, howe'er I was begot.

K. John. Go, Faulconbridge: now hast thou thy desire;

A landless knight makes thee a landed squire. Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed

For France, for France, for it is more than need.

Bast. Brother, adieu: good fortune come to thee!

180

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He and his toothpick at my worship's mess, And when my knightly stomach is sufficed, Why then I suck my teeth and catechize My picked man of countries: My dear sir,' Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin, 'I shall beseech you '-that is question now And then comes answer like an Absey book : 'O sir,' says answer, at your best command; At your employment; at your service, sir;' No, sir,' says question, 'I, sweet sir, at yours:"

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And so, ere answer knows what question would,

Saving in dialogue of compliment,
And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the river Po,

200

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Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well

When I was got. I'll send his soul to hell.
Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;
And they shall say, when Richard me be-
got,

If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin :
Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.
[Exeunt

ACT II.

SCENE I. France. Before Angiers.

Enter AUSTRIA and forces, drums, etc. on one side on the other KING PHILIP of FranCE and his power; LEWIS, ARTHUR, CONSTANCE and attendants.

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As seal to this indenture of my love,
That to my home I will no more return,
Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,
Together with that pale, that white-faced
shore,

Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides

And coops from other lands her islanders,
Even till that England, hedged in with the
main,

That water-walled bulwark, still secure
And confident from foreign purposes,
Even till that utmost corner of the west
Saite thee for her king: till then, fair boy,30
Will I not think of home, but follow arms.
Const. 0, take his mother's thanks, a wid-
ow's thanks,

Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength

To make a more requital to your love!

Aust. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords

It such a just and charitable war.

K. Phi. Well then, to work our cannon shall be bent

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To land his legions all as soon as I ;

His marches are expedient to this town, 60
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
With him along is come the mother-queen,
An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;
With them a bastard of the king's deceased;
And all the unsettled humors of the land,
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their

backs,

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To make a hazard of new fortunes here:
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
Did nearer float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath in Christendom.

[Drum beats.

The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand,
To parley or to fight; therefore prepare.
K. Phi. How much unlook'd for is this
expedition!

Aust. By how much unexpected, by so much

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We must awake endeavor for defence;
For courage mounteth with occasion:
Let them be welcome then we are prepared.

Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the
Bastard, Lords, and forces.

K. John. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit

Our just and lineal entrance to our own;
If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to

heaven,

Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven.

K. Phi. Peace be to England, if that war

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From France to England, there to live in peace.
England we love; and for that England's sake
With burden of our armor here we sweat.
This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
But thou from loving England art so far,
That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king.
Cut off the sequence of posterity,
Out-faced infant state and done a rape
Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face;

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