King John, William Shakespeare [small books to read .txt] 📗

King John

By William Shakespeare.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dramatis Personae King John Act I Scene I Act II Scene I Act III Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Act IV Scene I Scene II Scene III Act V Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Scene V Scene VI Scene VII Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Dramatis Personae

King John

Prince Henry, son to the king

Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, nephew to the king

The Earl of Pembroke

The Earl of Essex

The Earl of Salisbury

The Lord Bigot

Hubert de Burgh

Robert Faulconbridge, to Sir Robert Faulconbridge

Philip the Bastard, his half-brother

James Gurney, servant to Lady Faulconbridge

Peter of Pomfret, a prophet

Philip, King of France

Lewis, the Dauphin

Lymoges, Duke of Austria

Cardinal Pandulph, the Pope’s legate

Melun, a French Lord

Chatillon, ambassador from France to King John

Queen Elinor, mother to King John

Constance, mother to Arthur

Blanch Of Spain, niece to King John

Lady Faulconbridge

Lords, citizens of Angiers, sheriff, heralds, officers, soldiers, messengers, and other attendants

Scene: Partly in England, and partly in France.

King John Act I Scene I

King John’s palace.

Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salisbury, and others, with Chatillon. King John Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? Chatillon

Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
In my behaviour to the majesty,
The borrow’d majesty, of England here.

Elinor A strange beginning: “borrow’d majesty!” King John Silence, good mother; hear the embassy. Chatillon

Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey’s son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island and the territories,
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
And put the same into young Arthur’s hand,
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

King John What follows if we disallow of this? Chatillon

The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

King John

Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

Chatillon

Then take my king’s defiance from my mouth,
The farthest limit of my embassy.

King John

Bear mine to him, and so depart 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 honourable conduct let him have:
Pembroke, look to’t. Farewell, Chatillon. Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke.

Elinor

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.

King John Our strong possession and our right for us. Elinor

Your strong possession much more than your right,
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. Essex

My liege, here is the strangest controversy
Come from country to be judged by you
That e’er I heard: shall I produce the men?

King 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? Bastard

Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Cœur-de-lion knighted in the field.

King John What art thou? Robert The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge. King John

Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Bastard

Most certain of one mother, mighty king;
That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
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.

Elinor

Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother
And wound her honour with this diffidence.

Bastard

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 honour and my land!

King John

A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

Bastard

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 son like him,
O old sir Robert, father, on my knee
I give heaven