King JOHN:

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Prince HENRY, his son; afterwards king Henry II). ARTHUR, duke of Bretagne, son of Geffrey, late duke of Bretagne, the elder brother of king John.

WILLIAM MARESHALL, earl of Pembroke.

GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, earl of Essex, chief justiciary of England.

WILLIAM LONGSWORD, earl of Salisbury.

ROBERT BIGOT, earl of Norfolk.

HUBERT DE BURGH, chamberlain to the king.

ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son of Sir Robert Faulconbridge: PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, his half-brother, bastard son to king Richard the first.

JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge.

PETER of Pomfret, a prophet.

PHILIP, king of France.

LEWIS, the dauphin.

Arch-duke of Austria.

Cardinal PANDULPH, the pope's legate.

MELUN, a French lord.

Chatillon, ambassador from France to king John.

ELINOR, the widow of king Henry II. and mother of king John.

CONSTANCE, mother to Arthur.

BLANCH, daughter to Alphonso, king of Castile, and niece to king John.

Lady FAULCONBRIDGE, mother to the bastard, and Robert Faulconbridge.

Lords, Ladies, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE-sometimes in England and sometimes in France,

KING JOHN.

ACT I.

SCENE 1.--Northampton. A Room of State in the Puluce. Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, Pembroke, Essex, SaLISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON,

King John.

Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France,
In my behaviour,' to the majesty,

The borrow'd majesty of England here.

Eli. A strange beginning;-borrow'd 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,

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.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

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

Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The furthest limit of my embassy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace :

[1] The word behaviour seems here to have a signification that I have never found in any other author. The king of France, says the envoy, thus speaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the king of France speaks in the cha racter which I here assume. JOHNSON.

121 Opposition from controller. JOHNSON.

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 CHAT. and PEM.

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 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 the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex
Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
Come from the country to be judg'd by you,

That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men?
K. John. Let them approach.-

Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay

[Exit Sheriff.

Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP, his bastard brother.

This expedition's charge.-What men are you?
Bast. 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 Cour-de-lion knighted in the field.

[3] This simile does not suit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive, and the thunder innocent.

JOHNSON.

The allusion may, notwithstanding, be very proper, so far as Shakespeare had applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning and its preceding and forefelling the thunder. But there is some reason to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elsewhere learn from himself. See King Lear, Act III. sc. ii. Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. sc. v. Julius Cæsar, Act I. sc. iii. and still more decisively in Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. ii. This old superstition is still prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON.