The nineteenth century

[See also

King John: A Burlesque

by Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett (1837), which indirectly provides some fascinating insight into early responses to the play, and my discussion of this work in the

Performance History

.]

10Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, 1815

A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature London, 1815 (Candido, 55).

Topics: Bastard, human nature, realism

In King John the political and warlike events are dressed out with solemn pomp, for the very reason that they possess but little of true grandeur. The falsehood and selfishness of the monarch speak in the style of a manifesto. Conventional dignity is most indispensable where personal dignity is wanting. The bastard Faulconbridge is the witty interpreter of this language: he ridicules the secret springs of politics, without disapproving of them, for he owns that he is endeavouring to make his fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to belong to the deceivers than the deceived, for in his view of the world there is no other choice. His litigation with his brother respecting the succession of his pretended father, by which he effects his acknowledgement at court as natural son of the most chivalrous king of England, Richard Coeur de Lion, forms a very entertaining and original prelude in the play itself. When, amidst so many disguises of real sentiments, and so much insincerity of expression, the poet shows us human nature without a veil, and allows us to take deep views of the inmost recesses of the mind, the impression produced is only the more deep and powerful The short scene in which John urges Hubert to put out of way Arthurt, his young rival for the possession of the throne, is superlatively masterful . . . the last moments of John—an unjust and feeble prince, whom we can neither respect and admire—are yet so portrayed as to extinguish our displeasure with him, and fill us with serious considerations on the arbitrary deeds and the inevitable fate of mortals.

11Drake, Nathan, 1817

Shakespeare and his Times London, 1817 (Candido, 57).

Topics: Constance, character, maternal grief

In the person of Lady Constance, Maternal Grief, the most interesting passion of the play, is developed in all its strength; the picture penetrates to the inmost heart, and seared must those feelings be, which can withstand so powerful an appeal; for all the emotions of the fondest affection, and the wildest despair, all the rapid transitions of anguish, and approximating phrenzy, are wrought up into the scene with a truth of conception which rivals that of nature itself.

The innocent and beauteous Arthur, rendered doubly attractive by the sweetness of his disposition and the severity of his fate, is thus described by his doating mother: -

But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!
Nature and fortune join'd to make thee great;
Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lillies boast,
And with the half-blown rose. [TLN 972-75 ff.]

When he is captured, therefore, and imprisoned by John, and, consequently, sealed for destruction, who but Shakespeare could have done justice to the agonising sorrows of the parent? Her invocation to death, and her address to Pandulph, paint maternal despair with a force which no imagination can augment, and of which the tenderness and pathos have never been exceeded

12Hazlitt, William, 1817

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays London, 1817 (Candido, 59-60)

Topics: history, character, realism

King John is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of and we are not sorry that it is. If we are to indulge our imaginations, we had rather do it upon an imaginary theme; if we are to find subjects for the exercise of our pity and terror, we prefer seeking them in fictitious danger and fictitious distress. It gives a soreness to our feelings of indignation or sympathy, when we know that in tracing the progress of sufferings and crimes, we are treading upon real ground, and recollect that the poet's 'dream' denoted a foregone conclusion — irrevocable ills, not conjured up by fancy, but placed beyond the reach of poetical justice. That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur, the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and play thing of our fancies. 'To consider thus' may be 'to consider too curiously' [Hamlet TLN 3393 ff.]; but still we think that the actual truth of the particular events, in proportion as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure as well as the dignity of tragedy.

13Oxberry, William, 1819

King John. A Historical Play; by William Shakespeare. With Prefatory Remarks. The Only Edition Existing Which is Faithfully Marked with the Stage Business, and Stage Directions, as it is Performed at the Theatres Royal London, 1819 (Candido, 62).

Topics: structure, character

King John, though certainly not the best, is amongst the best, of Shakespeare's Tragic Dramas; there is in it, a great variety of characters and all distinguished with most wonderful precision. The great defect is, that the interest does not sufficiently centre in any one individual of the play, and the death of King John, the ultimate object, is not obviously connected with the minor incidents; yet, even this last censure must be admitted within certain limits, for a connexion does exist between the general events and the catastrophe, though not perhaps very strongly marked; the quarrel with France, respecting Arthur, leads to the invasion of that country, the invasion to a treaty; and from the breaking of this treaty, by the papal ban, arises the violent seizure of the property of the Church, and this again induces the poisoning of the monarch, by a revengeful monk. In all this, there seems to be no want of context; not a link in the chain is broken; the fact seems to be, that the beginning and the end are too remote from each other; there are too many connecting links between the first and the last object, that when we have attained the one, we lose sight of the other.

The character of John, though drawn with great accuracy and vigour is not precisely one of those which affect our sympathy or excite our admiration; vice, when accompanied by any splendid quality, whether it be wit, or mind, or courage, is sure to obtain our reluctant approbation; in the scale of depravity, Richard [III] is infinitely above King John, yet the giant iniquities of the former always delight; while the cold, weak, suspicious John lives without our pleasure and dies without our regret.

14Daniel, George, 1826

King John: A Tragedy in Five Acts London, 1826 (Candido, 70).

Topics: character, Constance, Bastard

There is no character in the writings of Shakespeare that bears stronger evidence of his peculiar manner than the Bastard Faulconbridge. He is a singular compound of heroism, levity, and — if his accommodating himself to the spirit of the times deserve so harsh a term — servility. He is, in truth, a soldier of fortune; acknowledging no law but that of honour, which, in a military sense, has somewhat of an equivocal signification. He compromises his own interest, and his mother's fame, for the proud distinction of being esteemed the base born son of the Lion hearted Richard; and enlists himself under the banners of a tyrannical usurper, for the vaunted display of personal prowess against the injured and unprotected. Yet, with all these blemishes, Shakespeare has painted him in such bewitching colours — he has given him such nobleness of spirit — so much candour and frankness — such exquisite powers of wit and raillery — that his very errors are turned to good account, and, like the irregularities of Falstaff, form the most seductive parts of his character. To reconcile such seeming incongruities, is one of the many triumphs of Shakespeare. He knew that character consists not of one, but of various humours; and to blend them skillfully, without violating nature or probability, was an art that he left for the study and emulation of all future dramatists.

But the great charm of this play, is the Lady Constance: a character conceived with Shakespeare's profoundest art, and finished with his utmost skill. Every feeling of her bosom — every emotion of joy or sorrow — have their origin in maternal tenderness. In that all-powerful passion every thing is centered: her anxious solicitude — her bitter reproaches - her phrenzy — her despair. Can indignation and contempt borrow stronger terms than her reply to Austria: [Quotes TLN 1040-1055: 'O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame / That bloody spoil . . . . '] Where is sorrow depicted with greater pathos, than her distraction for the death of Arthur; and grief unutterable and past consolation, never produced an image more solemn and majestic than the following:

To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings assemble ————————
———————— Here I and sorrow sit
Here is my throne — bid kings come bow to it. [TLN 992-96 ff.]

15Jameson, Anna Brownell, 1832

Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical. With Fifty Vignette Etchings London, 1832 (Candido, 75-81).

Topics: character, Constance, maternal

We have seen that in [Volumnia] the mother of Coriolanus, the principal qualities are exceeding pride, self will, strong maternal affection, great power of imagination, and energy of temper. Precisely the same qualities enter into the mind of Constance of Bretagne: but in her these qualities are so differently modified by circumstances and education, that not even in fancy do we think of instituting a comparison between the gothic grandeur of Constance, and the more severe and classical dignity of the Roman matron.

The scenes and circumstances with which Shakespeare has surrounded Constance are strictly faithful to the old chronicles, and are as vividly as they are accurately represented. On the other hand, the hints on which the character has been constructed are few and vague; but the portrait harmonizes so wonderfully with its historic background, and with all that later researches have discovered relative to the personal adventures of Constance, that I have not the slightest doubt of its individual truth. The result of a life of strange vicissitude; the picture of a tameless will, and high passions, for ever struggling in vain against a superior power: and the real situation of women in those chivalrous times, are placed before us in a few noble scenes.

[On Constance]

The energy of Constance not being based upon strength of character, rises and falls with the tide of passion. Her haughty spirit swells against resistance, and is excited into frenzy by sorrow and disappointment; while neither from her towering pride, nor her strength of intellect, can she borrow patience to submit, or fortitude to endure. It is, therefore, with perfect truth of nature, that Constance is first introduced as pleading for peace. [Quotes TLN 337-42: 'Stay for an answer to your embassy, / Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood . . . .'].

And that the same woman, when all her passions are roused by the sense of injury, should afterwards exclaim,

War, war! No peace! peace is to me a war! [TLN 1039]

That she should be ambitious for her son, proud of his high birth and royal rights, and violent in defending them, is most natural; but I cannot agree with those who think that in the mind of Constance, ambition — that is, the love of dominion for its own sake — is either a strong motive or a strong feeling: it could hardly be so where the natural impulses and the ideal power predominate in so high a degree. The vehemence with which she asserts the just and legal rights of her son is that of a fond mother and a proud spirited woman, stung with the sense of injury, and herself a reigning sovereign, — by birth and right, if not in fact: yet when bereaved of her son, grief not only 'fills the room up of her absent child' [TLN 1478], but seems to absorb every other faculty and feeling — even pride and anger. It is true that she exults over be great, but in her distraction for his loss, she thinks of him only as her 'Pretty Arthur.' [Quotes TLN 1488-90: 'O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! . . . ']

No other feeling can be traced through the whole of her frantic scene: it is grief only, a mother's heart rending, soul-absorbing grief, and nothing else. Not even indignation, or the desire of revenge, interfere with its soleness and intensity. An ambitious woman would hardly have thus addressed the cold, wily Cardinal: [Quotes TLN 1461-74: 'And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say. . . ']

The bewildered pathos and poetry of this address could be natural in no woman, who did not unite, like Constance, the most passionate sensibility with the most vivid imagination.

It is true that Queen Elinor calls her on one occasion, 'ambitious Constance' [TLN 38]; but the epithet is rather the natural expression of Elinor's own fear and hatred than really applicable. Elinor, in whom age had subdued all passions but ambition, dreaded the mother of Arthur as her rival in power, and for that reason only opposed the claims of the son: but I conceive, that in a woman yet in the prime of life, and endued with the peculiar disposition of Constance, the mere love of power would be too much modified by fancy and feeling to be called a passion.

In fact, it is not pride, nor temper, nor ambition, nor even maternal affection, which in Constance gives the prevailing tone to the whole character: it is the predominance of imagination. I do not mean in the conception of the dramatic portrait, but in the temperament of the woman herself. In the poetical, fanciful, excitable cast of her mind, in the excessof the ideal power, tinging all her affections, exalting all her sentiments and thoughts, and animating the expression of both, Constance can only be compared to Juliet.

16Thomas Campbell, 1838

The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare London, 1838 (Candido, 86-87).

Topics: Magna Charta, Constance, Arthur

It is remarkable that the Poet of England, and the most eloquent Poet who ever summed up the virtues of Brutus, should have dramatised the reign of King John without the most distant allusion to the Magna Charta. Was he afraid of offending Elizabeth? I think not; for he brought out Julius Caesar in the reign of King James, whose petty mind was more jealous of popular principles than that of Elizabeth. His main object was probably to recast, with all dispatch, an old piece into a new one for the stage.

. . .

But let us be thankful for our Poet's King John, such as it is. No doubt it sets the seal as to that question about the probability of good historical tragedies proceeding from the pen of the best poets, and the negative seal; for after Constance leaves the stage, Shakespeare's King John is rather the execution of a criminal than an interesting tragedy.

There are scenes and passages, however, in our Poet's King John which may never be forgotten. The pathos of Arthur's conference with Hubert is entirely Shakespeare's, and so is the whole part of Constance, his mother, as well as that most appallingly interesting of dialogues between King John and Hubert, touching the murder of young Arthur. In the old play, Constance has a good deal of the virago in her portraiture; in Shakespeare she is the most interesting character in nature - a doating and bereaved mother. Those who find themselves, as I do, older than they could wish to be, may derive some consolation for their age, in recollecting that they were born early enough to have seen Mrs. Siddons perform the part of Constance.

17Knight, Charles, 1838

The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakespeare London, 1838 (Candido, 105).

Topics: structure, Arthur, Bastard, ambition

The great connecting link that binds together all the series of actions in the King John of Shakespeare, — which refuses to hold any actions, or series of actions, which arise out of other causes, — is the fate of Arthur. From the first to the last scene, the hard struggles, and the cruel end of the young Duke of Brittany, either lead to the action, or form a portion of it, or are the direct causes of an ulterior consequence. We must entreat the indulgence of our readers whilst we endeavour to establish this principle somewhat in detail.

In the whole range of the Shakespearian drama there is no opening scene which more perfectly exhibits the effect which is produced by coming at once, and without the slightest preparation, to the main business of the piece:—'Now say, Chatillion, what would France with us?' [TLN 51, 1.1].

In three more lines the phrase 'borrowed majesty,' at once explains the position of John; and immediately afterwards we come to the formal assertion by France of the 'most lawful claim' of 'Arthur Plantagenet,' —'To this fair island, and the territories; / To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine' [TLN 4, 14, 15 ff.]. As rapid as the lightning of which John speaks is a defiance given and returned. The ambassador is commanded to 'depart in peace;' the king's mother makes an important reference to the 'ambitious;' and John takes up the position for which he struggles to the end, —'Our strong possession, and our right, for us' [TLN 28, 38, 46]. The scene of the Bastard is not an episode entirely cut off from the main action of the piece; his loss of 'lands,' and his 'new made honour' [TLN 197], were necessary to attach him to the cause of John. The Bastard is the one partisan who never deserts him.

The second act brings us into the very heart of the conflict on the claim of Arthur. What a Gothic grandeur runs through the whole of these scenes! We see the men of six centuries ago, as they played the game of their personal ambition — now swearing hollow friendships, now breathing stern denunciations; — now affecting compassion for the weak and suffering, now breaking faith with the orphan and the mother; now 'Gone to be married, gone to swear a peace' [TLN 922], now keeping the feast 'with slaughtered men' [TLN 1235]; — now trembling at, and now braving the denunciations of spiritual power; — and agreeing in nothing, but to bend 'their sharpest deeds of malice' [TLN 694] on unoffending and peaceful citizens, unless the citizens have some 'commodity' to offer which shall draw them 'To a most base and vile concluded peace' [TLN 907]. With what skill has Shakespeare, whilst he thus painted the spirit of the chivalrous times, — lofty in words, but sordid in acts, — given us a running commentary which interprets the whole, in the sarcasms of the Bastard! But amidst all the clatter of conventional dignity which we find in the speeches of John, and Philip, and Lewis, and Austria, the real dignity of strong natural affections rises over the pomp and circumstance of regal ambition, with a force of contrast which is little less than sublime.

18Fletcher, George, 1843

Studies in the Plays of King John, Cymbeline, Macbeth, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet: With Observations on the Criticism and the Acting of those Plays. London, 1843 (Candido, 111-19).

Topics: Arthur, ambition, character, Constance, female characters

Th[e] clearness of Arthur's title cannot be overlooked for a moment, without essentially perverting and weakening the interest which the poet has attached to the position as well as character of the widowed mother, Constance of Bretagne. Nor is it Shakespeare's fault if the reader or spectator fail to be forcibly reminded of this fact, at numerous intervals throughout the play. Among the most remarkable of these instances are the passages to that effect in those ruminating speeches of Faulconbridge (the most intelligent as well as devoted and spirited of John's adherents) which form, as it were, the chorus of the tragedy. Thus, when moralising on the peace patched up between the two kings by the marriage of Blanch to the Dauphin, he speaks of the French monarch as one 'whose armour conscience buckled on, / Whom zeal and charity brought to the field, / As God's own soldier' [TLN 885]; and adds that this 'commodity,' this self interest, against which the speaker is railing, 'Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid, / From a resolv'd and honourable war, / To a most base and vile concluded peace' [TLN 905ff.]. Again, at the close of the fourth act, over the dead body of Arthur, addressing Hubert, he says— [Quotes TLN 2145: 'Go, bear him in thine arms . . . ']. It is in tracing the course of the retribution upon John, political and personal, as a usurper and a murderer, brought upon him by those unscrupulous means which he had taken to prevent it, that the interest of the concluding act resides, and the satisfaction which it affords to the feelings of the auditor.

So far, then, from representing either Arthur or his mother as ambitious, the poet, in legitimate pursuit of his dramatic object, has studiously excluded from view every historical circumstance that could countenance the smallest impression of that nature. He has not only reduced the prince's age to such tender years as would hardly admit of his harbouring a political sentiment; but, in direct opposition to the recorded facts, represents the boy as one of a peculiarly mild and quiet temper, devoid of all princely airs and all appetite for command — simple hearted, meek, and affectionate . . . Is it not plain that this very inoffensiveness is designed by the dramatist to place in the stronger light the clearness of Arthur's title, as the exclusive reason for his uncle's hostility, at the same time that it deepens so wonderfully the pathos of the scene wherein he pleads for the preservation of his eyes? Another element of this pathos is, the exceeding beauty which the poet has ascribed to the princely boy, which is made to affect the hearts of all who approach him, even the rudest of his uncle's creatures, and gives to this only orphan child the crowning endearment to his widowed mother's heart.

That mother herself, it is most important to observe and to bear in mind, whatever she was in history, is not represented by the poet as courting power for its own sake. Had he so represented her, it would have defeated one of those fine contrasts of character in which Shakespeare so much delighted — that between Constance and Elinor, which is perfect in every way. The whole conduct and language of Constance in the piece, shew that her excessive fondness for her son, and that alone, makes her so eagerly desire the restitution of his lawful inheritance. She longs to see this one sole, and beautiful, and gracious object of her maternal idolatry, placed on the pedestal of grandeur which is his birthright, that she may idolize it more fondly still — 'Thou and thine usurp / The domination, royalties and rights / Of this oppressed boy' [TLN 477ff..]. Such is her defiance to Elinor. Still more strikingly unfolded is the entire subordination, in the breast of Constance, of all ambitious view, to the concentrated feelings of the doting mother, in the well known address to Arthur, when her sworn friends have betrayed her: — [Quotes TLN 964: 'If thou, that bidst me be content, wert grim. . . '].

. . .

If we could still doubt the absolute and all absorbing predominance of the maternal affection, it is disclosed to us in all its awful and beautiful depth, in those bursts of sublimest poetry that gush from her heart when informed of Arthur's capture. In all these she never once thinks of him as a prince, who ought to be a king — far less of the station to which she is herself entitled. It is the thought of never more beholding her 'absent child,' her 'pretty Arthur,' her 'fair son,' that is driving her to distraction — [Quotes TLN 1484-88].

We come now to consider the most important point of all that should guide us in judging of the histrionic expression of this character — namely, the indications afforded by the whole tenour of the incident and dialogue, as to the individuality of Constance's person and disposition as a woman — independently even of that maternal relation in which the drama constantly places her before us.

That Constance, in the poet's conception, is of graceful as well as noble person, we are not left to infer merely from the graces of her vigorous mind, nor from the rare loveliness of her child, and her extreme sensibility to it. We hear of her beauty more explicitly from the impression which it makes upon those around her especially from the exclamations of King Philip on beholding her distress for Arthur's loss, the greater part of which we regret to find omitted in the present acting of the play — [Quotes TLN 1420; and 1446-47: where the adjective 'fair' is twice applied to Constance].

But it is the moral and intellectual beauty, the logic and the poetry of the character, that it is most essential to consider. And here we are called upon to dissent materially from the view of this matter which Mrs. Jameson has exhibited at some length. In commencing her essay on this character, she numbers among the qualities which the Lady Constance of Shakespeare has in common with the mother of Coriolanus, 'self will and exceeding pride.' In a following page, she speaks again of 'her haughty spirit' and 'her towering pride.' Again, of 'her proud spirit' and 'her energetic self will;' and her impetuous temper conflicting with her pride.' Once more—'On the whole it may be said, that pride and maternal affection form the basis of the character of Constance;' and 'in all the state of her great grief, a grand impersonation of pride and passion.' But the contrary of all this inherent pride and self will which the critic alleges, appears in the poet's delineation. It is the mild language of gratitude and patience that we first hear from Constance, in the scene where she thanks the French king and the Austrian duke for their espousal of her dear son's cause, but entreats them to wait for John's answer to the French ambassador before they proceed to bloodshed.

. . .

[Responding from Mrs. Siddons on Constance's ambition] The same mistaken impression leads the great performer to speak repeatedly of 'disappointed ambition,'

'baffled ambition,' as among the indignant feelings of Constance at the treachery of her allies. To the same source it must surely be attributed, that this interesting critic tells us at the very outset of her observations — 'My idea of Constance is that of a lofty and proud spirit, associated with the most exquisite feelings of maternal tenderness.'

This mistake, on which we have already had occasion to descant, of regarding her in the grand scene with her treacherous protectors as possessed by a pride inherent and personal, instead of seeing that her sublime scorn and indignation spring exclusively from her deep, keen sense of violated friendship, now added with lightning suddenness to outraged right and feeling and affection, lent, we suspect, a colouring not quite appropriate, a too predominant bitterness and asperity of tone, to Mrs. Siddons's acting of this scene, majestic and wonderful as it must have been. The sarcasms, we fear, were uttered too much in the manner of a woman habitually sarcastic; and she seems to have fallen somewhat into the same error which we have pointed out in Mrs. Jameson's criticism, of confounding with mere frenzy the awful poetry that bursts from the tortured heart of the heroine. 'Goaded and stung,' she says, 'by the treachery of her faithless friends, and almost maddened by the injuries they have heaped upon her, she becomes desperate and ferocious as a hunted tigress in defence of her young, and it seems that existence itself must surely issue forth with the utterance of that frantic and appalling exclamation, "A wicked day, and not a holy day!" [TLN 1008] &c.' Yet Constance might more justly be likened to a hunted hind than a hunted tigress; nor should her exclamations on this occasion, however appalling, be termed frantic. In all this, the poet, ever true to nature, has observed a due gradation. Here, indeed, is grief in its utmost, its proudest intensity; but here is no despair — she is not even on the way to frenzy, as we find her to be in the scene which follows the capture of her son [3.4].

Mr. Campbell, who, in speaking of Mrs. Siddons's performance of this character, professes to have 'almost as many circumstantial recollections of her as there are speeches in the part,' and who saw her enact it when ten years of practice and improvement in it must have brought her performance to its greatest perfection, relates one particular of it which seems to us to exemplify very strikingly the erroneous bias which we have indicated as warping her judgment respecting the essential qualities of the character. 'When,' says her biographer, 'she patted Lewis on the breast with the words, "Thine honour! oh, thine honour!" [TLN 1249] there was a sublimity in the laugh of her sarcasm.' Now, we must affirm, that anything like sarcastic expression of this passage is quite inconsistent with the essential character of Constance, and most inappropriate to the occasion upon which it is delivered. Here we must again insist upon the strict consequentiality and the sterling policy of the heroine's behaviour throughout this agitated scene. Her expressions of indignation and her appeals to heaven, are not only natural in themselves, but the inspiring instinct of maternal solicitude teaches her, that friendless and powerless as she is otherwise left, they are the only instruments, the only weapons, remaining to her. Her one sole chance of redress now lies in the effect which her indignant logic may yet work upon the sensibility to shame and guilt that lingers in the breasts of some at least of her selfish allies, and which, it is barely possible, may move them to recede from their last disgraceful compact. Her invocation, in itself so sublimely fervent and impressive [Quotes TLN 1032: 'Arm, arm, you heavens . . . .'] — takes the awful character of prophecy from the almost immediate appearance of the legate, in whose mission there comes to her aid an accidental indeed, and indifferent, but a most powerful ally. She is now encouraged to strain every nerve of her intellect and her eloquence in enforcing the cardinal's denunciation against her principal oppressor, and his menace to the most potent of her treacherous friends. The dauphin, whose sense of honour, throughout the piece, is represented as more susceptible than his father's, is the first to shew signs of retracting their late political engagements. Upon this relenting emotion she eagerly lays hold; and in opposition to the entreaty of his bride, the Lady Blanch, who kneels to beg that he will not turn his arms against her uncle, makes the fervant religious adjuration—

Oh, upon my knee,
Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
Thou virtuous dauphin, alter not the doom
Forethought by heaven! [TLN 1243-45.]

And to Blanch's last appeal — 'Now shall I see thy love. What motive may / Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?' [TLN 1246-47ff.] — she rejoins by urging triumphantly the noble moral sentiment — 'That which upholdeth him that thee upholds, / His honour: oh, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!' [TLN 1248-49]. And on Philip's consenting to break the treaty, she concludes with the grateful exclamation — 'Oh, fair return of banish'd majesty!' [TLN 1254].

Where, we would ask, is the tone of sarcasm in all this? The slightest touch of it might have defeated the very object, dearest to her on earth, for which she was pleading, by checking and offending those 'compunctious visitings' [Macbeth TLN 396] the first symptoms of which she was alert to observe and to nourish in the breasts of her unfaithful friends. Sarcasm from her lips, at such a moment! No, indeed Constance, and Shakespeare, know too well what they are about.

2. Acting of the Lady Constance, Queen Elinor, the Lady Blanch, and Lady Faulconbridge; by Miss Helen Faucit, Miss Ellis, Miss Fairbrother, and Mrs. Selby. February 18th, 1843 141

[The production alluded to in Fletcher's essay is William Charles Macready's King John at Drury Lane Theatre, performed twenty six times from October 1842 to May 1843.]

... What strikes us first of all in Miss Helen Faucit's personation [of Constance], is, her clear and perfect conception that feeling, not pride, is the mainspring of the character; that the dignity of bearing natural to and inseparable from it, and which the advantage of a tall, graceful figure enables this actress to maintain with little effort, is at the same time an easy, unconscious dignity, quite different from that air of self importance, that acting of majesty, which has been mistakenly ascribed to it by those who have attributed to the heroine an ambitious nature. She makes us feel throughout, not only the depth, the tenderness, and the poetry of the maternal affection, dwelling in a vivid fancy and a glowing heart; but is ever true to that 'constant, loving, noble nature'[Othello TLN 1072], which is not more sensitive to insult from her foes and falsehood from her friends, than it is ever ready to welcome with fresh gratitude and confidence the return of better feelings in any who have injured her.

That intimate association, in short, of gracefulness with force, and of tenderness with dignity, which this lady has so happily displayed in other leading characters of Shakespeare, is her especial qualification for this arduous part — the most arduous, we believe, of all the Shakespearian female characters — for this plain reason, that while it is one of those exhibiting the highest order of powers, the range of emotions included in it is the widest, and the alternations, the fluctuations, between the height of virtuous indignation and contempt, and the softest depth of tenderness, are the most sudden and the most extreme. The principle of contrast, in fact — that great element of the romantic drama, as of all romantic art which Shakespeare delighted to employ, not only in opposing one character to another, but in developing each character individually, is carried to the highest pitch by the trials to which the course of the dramatic incident subjects the sensitive, passionate, and poetic — the noble and vigorous nature of Constance.

Here, again, we turn, for an illustration, to Mrs. Siddons's performance of the part. It seems well established, by the concurring testimony of all who preserve distinct recollections of her acting, that on a general estimate of her tragic powers, it was in gracefully commanding force that she so wonderfully excelled, and in the expression of tenderness that she was often felt to be deficient, — a defect which must have been especially apparent in her personation of those Shakespearian characters wherein exquisite feeling is combined with extraordinary vigour. It has not surprised us, therefore, in conversing with persons on whose judgment and candour we can rely, and who have repeatedly witnessed the great actress's representation of the Lady Constance, to find that in the passages of melting tenderness which abound in the part, a want of adequate expression was very sensibly felt. Majestic and terrible, then, as her performance of the indignant scenes undoubtedly was, yet it must have failed, for want of sufficient contrast, to derive all that startling boldness of relief which the dramatist himself has given to those electric passages.

Labouring, too, under the misconception already pointed out, as to the essential qualities of the character, it would be but natural that, in the scenes where Constance and her son stand alone, deserted and betrayed, amid their treacherous friends and their triumphant enemies, Mrs. Siddons, properly making the impulse of resentful scorn the immediate spring of her vituperation, should have failed to clear its expression wholly from her brow in those passages wherein the action requires her to turn it upon her child. We think it one of the most notable merits in the representation of the part by the lady who now personates it, that so far from letting

19Coleridge, Hartley, 1851

Essays and Marginalia London, 1851 (Candido, 140-41).

Topics: Constance, Eleanor, use of sources

[Act 2, scene 1; referring to the argument between Elinor and Constance]

I should be glad to find that this altercation was transferred from the old 'troublesome reign' [TRKJ] for it is very troublesom to think it Shakespeare. I do not exactly know how great ladies scold, and there are reasons for supposed that Queen Elizabeth herself was not always queenlike in her wrath; but there is so little humour, propriety, or seemliness in the discourse of the two princesses, and Constance is at last so confused and unintelligible, if not corrupt, the whole might well have been spared.

20Guizot, Francois Pierre Guillaume, 1851

Shakespeare and His Times London (Candido, 143).

Topics: Arthur, Constance, maternal love, John, historicism, structure, character

In the rest of the drama, the action itself, and the indication of facts which it was impossible to dissemble, are sufficient to give u a glimpse of character, into the inmost recesses of which the poet did not venture to penetrate and into which could not have penetrated without disgust. But such a personage, and so constrained a manner of description, were not capable of producing a great dramatic effect; and Shakespeare has therefore concentrated the interest of his drama upon the fate of young Arthur, and has devolved upon Faulconbridge that original and brilliant part in which we feels he takes delight, and which he never refuses to introduce into any of his works.

Shakespeare presented the young Duke of Bretagne to us at that age at which it first became necessary to assert his rights after the death of King Richard – that is, at about twelve years old We know that at the period to which Shakespeare's tragedy refers, Arthur was about twenty-five or twenty-six, and that he was already married, and an object of interest from his amiable and brilliant qualities, when he was taken prisoner by his uncle; but the poet felt how much more interesting the exhibition of weakness in conflict with cruelty became when exemplified in a child. And besides, if Arthur had not been a child, it would not have been allowable to put forward his mother in his place; and by suppressing Constance, Shakespeare would, perhaps, have deprived us of the most pathetic picture that he ever drew of maternal love – one of the feelings of which he evinced the profoundest appreciation.

But, at the same time that he rendered the fact more touching, he lessened the horror which it inspires by diminishing the atrocity of the crime. The most generally received opinion is, that Hubert de Bourg, who had promised to put Arthur to death only that he might save him, had, in fact, deceived the cruelty of his uncle by false reports and a pretended burial; but that John, on being informed of the truth, first withdrew Arthur from the Castle of Falaise, in which he was confined under Hubert's guardianship, and transferred him to the Castle of Rouen, whither he proceeded at night, and by water, had his nephew conveyed into his boat, stabbed him with his own hand, tied a stone to the body, and threw him into the river. Such an image would naturally be rejected by a true poet. Independently of the necessity of absolving his principal personage of so odious a crime, Shakespeare perceived how much more dramatic and conformable to the general nature of man, the cowardly remorse of John, when he perceived the danger in which he was plunged by the report of his nephew's death, would be, thank this excess of brutal ferocity; and certainly, the fine scene between John and Hubert, after the withdrawal of the lords [4.2], is amply sufficient to justify his choice.

21Lloyd, William Watkiss, 1856

The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare London (Candido,162).

Topics: Bastard, nationalism

What we call in compliment to ourselves an English spirit, - a spirit of independence, of fair play in hard fighting and of directness in negotiation, hatred of cruelty and meanness, and disgust at the pursuit of secular purposes under a religious pretext, especially in a foreign interest, - this is the spirit that animates the other English barons, but especially the Bastard, expressed casually and intermittently at first, but when the heart and health of John decline together he rises at once in consistency, dignity and force. He gains in elevation and composure, without relaxing one whit in energy; and sparing no exertion to keep the country together and place the quarrel on an open and healthy footing, he entertains the shrewd and only safe conviction that preparation for hard knocks will best support negotiation if unhappily too late to supersede it. He presents a prototype of the loyalty of which our history furnishes so many examples, loyalty to the ideal qualities that would best become the throne . . .

22Bucknill, John Charles, 1859

The Psychology of Shakespeare London (Candido, 168-74)

Topics: Constance, character, psychology, maternal love, ambition

Constance is delineated with Greek simplicity. The grandeur of one great passion is weakened by no subordinate parts of character on which the mind can rest and feel relief. All is simple and clear, like the one thrilling note of a trumpet, rising higher or falling lower, but never altering its tone. The wondrous eloquence in which the passion clothes itself does but display its force. Its unity and direction of purpose remain unchanging and unchangeable. Passion is not seen except when transformed into action. Like a great wind, it would be voiceless except for opposition; it would be viewless except for its effects . . .

This fierce desire of power and place, which is but coldly expressed in the word ambition, is as undeniable in Constance as her mother's love. Had she no child she would be ambitious for herself. Having one, she is more vehemently ambitious for him, and indirectly for herself. The tenderness of love alone would have led her to shun contention and to withdraw her child from danger; as Andromache sought to withhold her husband from the field of honour with unalloyed womanly apprehension. But love influenced by ambition, and ambition stimulated by love, produced that compound passion which incurred all risks, braved all dangers. Combined passions are weak or strong, according to their perfection of union, and singleness of purpose. If concurrent desires are but half of one mind, they pull diverse ways, and give rise to the weakness of inconsistency; but if they are thoroughly of one accord, chemically combined as it were, the product acquires new and irresistible strength. This force of compound emotion is finely developed in Constance, in contrast with the other female characters of the drama. Ambitious without love, she would have possessed the hard vigour of Elinor; loving without ambition, she would have been tenderly devoted like Blanch. Under the lash of the combined passion she is a fury, whom her boundless love and her deep woe barely suffice to redeem from our horror . . .

[Bucknill describes 2.1, the scene in which Constance faces off with Elinor]

Her very tenderness to her child is fierce, like that of some she-beast of prey. Had there been no motive in the mother's heart but that of love, this appeal might well have checked not only with the unbridled use of speech, but the dangerous course of action into which Constance throws herself. But at this period, ambition is stronger than love, and it would be hard to say to what extent ambition for herself was not mixed up with that for her son. The scene affords clear insight into the natural character of Constance, as a proud ambitious woman, of irritable and ungoverned temper . . .

Constance even more than Lear establishes the fact that Shakespeare held the origin and nature of insanity to be emotional.

23Gervinus, Georg Gottfried, 1863

Shakespeare Commentaries London, 1863 (Candido, 192-93).

Topics: character, Arthur, Constance, Richard II

In contrast to the entirely political relation between the usurper and his mother, is the entirely maternal relation of Constance to her son Arthur, on whose side is the legitimate claim. The suspicious Elinor sees in him a bloom which may ripen into mighty fruit; Shakespeare too has given a profound mental capacity to the pure and spotless mind of the tender boy; in that scene with Hubert which affects the soul of the spectator with such agitating emotions of fear and pity, it is not alone his loving nature which disarms cruelty, it is also a persuasive spirit full of wise, even of cunning precaution, which terror at once ripens into a saving power. Yet at the time no pretender would have been less to be feared than he. He would that he were low laid in his grave, when he hears the contention over his right. He would gladly be a shepherd, so that he might be merry, and be free from the unmerited fault of being his father's son and heir. But all the more firmly does his ambitious mother cling to the legitimate claim of the child, who knows of no ambition. She has called France to arms for her fair son, whom she loves with all the intensity of maternal pride; she would be less ambitious for herself and him, if nature had not made him so worthy of command. She herself is yet beautiful as a matron, she pleases herself, it appears, not a little in the beauty of her child, and to argue from the impression, which she makes on the bystanders, her charms must even in her extreme and utterly unfeigned sorrow enhance the spectacle of her grief. Ambition spurred by maternal love, maternal love goaded by ambition and womanly vanity, these form the distinguishing features of this character, features out of which from the adversity of fate, that raging passion is developed, which at last shatters the soul and body of the frail woman. She is a woman, not to say the woman, whose weakness amounts to grandeur, and whose virtues sink into weakness; she is, like John in his masculine sphere, without those mental and moral resources, which could make her moderate in prosperity or calm in adversity. To the daring man, misfortune is the stone against which he stumbles, to the passionate woman, it would have been success. From the transporting violence of her love and of her grief we may conclude, how violent she could have been in hatred and arrogance. Her coarse outbursts against Elinor, her contemptuous and sarcastic outbreaks against the Duke of Austria, when she stands on the doubtful ground between success and misfortune, testify to the sanguine, womanly, even womanish, want of self command, which makes her irritable at fear, and would make her irritable at haughtiness. Her biting speech is even too bitter for her child, and too immoderate for her friends. Shakespeare has depicted in her the female counterpart to Richard II, who imperious in prosperity, was speedily lost in adversity. Powerless to forward their own cause, the one from early self abandonment, the other from the outward grounds of her position and sex, both alike powerless in active defence and revenge, they both sink into the exaggeration of a passion, which rages within the man in smouldering heat, within the woman in a brightly blazing fire, an exaggeration of the mind and the fancy, which manifests itself in the most brilliant outpourings of eloquence and reflection, in the invectives of rage as well as in the outbursts of sorrow. Just as in Richard, there gushes forth in Constance a deeply poetic vein in all her misery, and like him her imagination revels in her grief, which she calls so great, that 'no supporter but the huge firm earth can hold it up' [TLN 994-95]. Like Richard, she delights in picturing to herself dark images of death and its desired horrors, like him she plays with her sorrow in witty words and similes. Like him, her pride and majesty rise with misfortune. On the throne and state of her grief, she feels herself more exalted than her false royal friends; and in the extreme of hopelessness she is seized with the frenzy, which only threatened Richard. As the end, the ruin, the agony of King John has ever been regarded as one of the most satisfactory themes for English actors, such as Garrick, so from Mrs. Cibber to Mrs. Siddons and later, the part of Constance has been esteemed as one of the most acceptable tasks. The change of mood and the oscillations from the highest pitch of excited bitterness to the softest depth of maternal tenderness, offer infinite scope to the artist. In the third act we must compare the Shakespearian play with the similar scenes in the older King John [i.e., The Troublesome Raigne], to estimate thoroughly, what he has here accomplished. How the whole frail, trembling frame of the woman is agitated at the first tidings of her forlorn condition! What variety of feeling is expressed and felt in those twenty lines, in which she enquires anxiously after the truth of that which shocks her to hear! [TLN 922-942]. How her grief as long as she is alone, restrains itself in calmer anguish, in the vestibule of despair! How her sorrow first bursts forth in the presence of others in powerless revenge, rising even to a curse which brings no blessing to herself, and how atoningly behind all this unwomanly rage lies the foil of maternal love! How justly measured throughout is the light and the shade! We should be moved with too violent a pity for this love, leaning as it does on the one dear object, which is snatched away from it, if it did not weaken our interest by its want of moderation; we should turn away from the violence of the woman, if the strength of her maternal affection did not irresistibly enchain us.

These two opponents, unstable and unprincipled as we find them, the one without judgment, dependent on doubtful allies, the other on the wisdom of his relatives, entangle themselves in conformity with this their nature amid the alternations of fortune in a series of unnatural confederacies, where weakness and mistrust in a cause not wholly pure, seek support, and interest strives to counteract interest.

24Simpson, Richard, 1874

"The Politics of Shakespeare's Historical Plays" from The New Shakespeare Society's Transactions London (Candido, 207-209).

Topics: historicism, use of sources, Holinshed, The Troublesome Reign of King John

The clearly expressed design of the old play is to show the precursorship of John to the reforming Messiahship of Henry VIII. John was like David, unworthy to build the temple because his 'hands with murder ware attaint' [1 Chronicles 22.8] But a Solomon should succeed who should put down monks and their cells.

[quotes TRKJ 3037-13].

This leading idea of the old play is utterly excluded from the new, where the points brought out are those connected with the tenure of the crown; whether it is held by hereditary right of the eldest branch, or the eldest male of the family, or by the accident of possession, fortified by the utility of the state; whether it is forfeited by crimes civil and ecclesiastical, whether such forfeiture is to be adjudged and executed by neighbouring sovereigns, or by the State itself, its peers or its people, or by the Pope. For Shakespeare's play is practically a discussion whether John shall remain King. The grounds of the doubt are not, as in the Chronicles, the general villainy of the King, his cruelty, debauchery effeminacy, falsehood, extravagance, exactions, and general insufficiency, but two points which do not seem to have weighed a scruple in the minds of John's barons -- the defect of his title as against the son of his elder brother, and his supposed murder of that son. The historical quarrel against John as a tyrant is changed into a mythical one against him as a usurper, aggravated by his murder of the right heir.

I will select eight points where Shakespeare deserts the Chronicles, without precisely following the old play, which in some particulars he corrects by the Chronicles; showing that his departures from history were retained with full knowledge and intention.

1. In Shakespeare, John is told by his own mother that he must rely on his 'strong possession' [TLN 46] not on his right, and the suggestion of the old play that Arthur, being 'but young and yet unmeet to reign' TRKJ 12.3391, was therefore to be passed over, is thrown out.
2. Elinor tells Constance that she can 'produce a will that bars the title' of Arthur [TLN 494-95].
3. History is altered to heighten and refine the characters of Arthur and Constance.
4. ohn's loss of his French possessions is accentuated by the exaggeration of the dowry given to Blanch.
5. The scenes where John first persuades Hubert to murder Arthur, and then reproaches him for it, are inventions of Shakespeare.
6. The compression of John's four wars into two, though absolutely necessary for dramatic arrangement, is so managed as to have an Elizabethan bearing. Of these two wars the poet makes the first to concern Arthur's title, without any religious or ecclesiastical motive. The second he makes to be in revenge for Arthur's death, with an ecclesiastical motive added in John's excommunication. This is wholly unhistorical. No English lord interfered in behalf of Arthur, whose death raised no commotion in England, and was long passed and forgotten before the controversy with the Pope about Langton began. The confederacy between the barons and Lewis was ten years after Arthur's death, with which it had nothing to do. The Shakespearian representation of the troubles of John is that he had first to defend the legitimacy of his title; then that he had to fight his own barons, who revolted from him because he had murdered the heir they acknowledged, and allied themselves with Lewis the Dauphin, who, now Arthur was dead, could claim, in right of his wife, the Spanish Blanch, the throne which John had forfeited by excommunication. The facts of this excommunication are misrepresented in the play. Really, John's kingdom was first put under interdict; a year afterwards he was excommunicated; but he prevented the document entering the realm, and his theologians maintained that it was void. After four years, Innocent absolved John's vassals from their oath of fealty, and exhorted all Christian knights to assist in dethroning him, and substituting a more worthy successor. John was not proclaimed a heretic, neither was secret assassination of him publicly recommended.
7. Pandulph insinuates to Lewis that it is his interest to abstain from interference till John's murder of his nephew should make interference profitable to himself.
8. Melun's confession of Lewis's intended treachery to the barons is the occasion of their return to allegiance.

25Dowden, Edward, 1875

Shakespeare: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art London, 1875 (Candido, 212).

Topics: John, character, Richard III

In King John the hour of utmost ebb in the national life of England is investigated by the imagination of the poet. The king reigns neither by warrant of a just title, nor, like Bolingbroke, by warrant of the right of the strongest. He knows hat his house is founded upon the sand; he knows that he has no justice of God and no virtue of man on which to rely. Therefore he assumes an air of authority and regal grandeur. But within all is rottenness and shame. Unlike the bold usurper Richard, John endeavours to urn away his eyes from facts of which he is yet aware; he dare not gaze into his own wretched and cowardly soul. [compares Richard's command that the princes be killed with John's hints that Hubert kill Arthur, and John's cowardly regret when he realizes that Arthur's death will negatively impact him.]

. . .

There is little in the play of King John which strengthens or gladdens the heart. In the tug of selfish pride, hither and thither, amid the struggle of kingly greeds, and priestly pride, amid the sales of cities, the loveless marriage of princes, the rumours and confusion of the people, a pathetic beauty illumines the boyish figure of Arthur, so gracious, so passive, untouched by the adult rapacities and crimes of the others [Quotes TLN 465-67: 'Good my mother peace . . .].

The voice of maternal passion, a woman's voice impotent and shrill, among the unheeding male forces, goes up also from the play. There is the pity of stern, armed men for the men for the ruin of a child's life. These, and the boisterous but genuine and hearty patriotism of Faulconbridge, are the only presence of human virtue or beauty which are to be perceived in the degenerate world depicted by Shakespeare.

26Furnivall, Frederick James, 1877

The Leopold Shakespeare London, 1877 (Candido, 223-24).

Topics: John, Richard III, character

But the whole work of Shakespeare is continuous. King John is very closely linkt with Richard III. In both plays we have cruel uncles planning their nephews' murder, because the boys stand between them and the Crown. In both we have distracted mothers overwhlemd with grief. In both we have prophecies of ruin and curses on the murderers, and in both the fulfilment of these. In both we have the kingdom divided against itself, and the horrors of civil war. In both we have the same lesson of the danger of division taught to the discontented English parties of Shakespeare's own day. Richard III. Is an example of the misgovernment of a cruel tyrant; King John of the misgovernment of a selfish coward. But in John we have the mother's pathetic lament for her child far developed above that of Queen Elizabeth's for her murdered innocents, and far more touching than the laments of Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York, while the pathos of the stifled children's death is heightened in that of Arthur. The temptation scene of John and Hubert, repeats that of Richard and Tyrrel. The Bastard's statement of his motives, 'Gain be my lord,' &c [TLN 919], is like that of Richard the Third's about his villainy. (The Bastard's speech on commodity may be compared with Lucrece's reproaches to opportunity.) Besides the boy's pleading for his life, besides his piteous death and the mother's cry for him, which comes home to every parent who has lost a child, we have in the play the spirit of Elizabethan England's defiance to the foreigner and the Pope . . .

So long as John is the impersonator of England, of defiance to the foreigner, and opposition to the Pope, so long is he a hero. But he is bold outside only, only politically; inside, morally, he is a coward, sneak, and skunk. See how his nature comes out in the hints for the murder of Arthur, his turning on Hubert when he thinks the murder will bring evil to himself, and his imploring Faulconbridge to deny it. His death ought, of course, dramatically to have followed some act of his in or opposing the Pope. The author of The Troublesome Raigne, with a true instinct, made a monk murder John out of revenge for his anti-Papal patriotism. But Shakespeare, unfortunately, set this story aside, though there was some warrant for it in Holinshed, and thus left a serious blot on his drama which is impossible to remove. The character which to me stands foremost in John is Constance, with that most touching expression of grief for the son she had lost. Beside her cry, the tender pleading of Arthur for his life is heard, and both are backed by the rough voice of Faulconbridge, who, Englishman-like, depreciates his own motives at first, but is lifted by patriotism into a gallant soldier, while his deep moral nature shows itself in his heartfelt indignation at Arthur's supposed murder. The rhetoric of earlier historical plays is kept up in King John, and also Shakespeare's power of creating situations, which he had possessed from the first . . .

27Snider, Denton Jacques, 1877

System of Shakespeare's Dramas. St. Louis, 1877 (Candido, 225-32).

Topics: nationalism, Bastard, character

There is in [King John] the intense consciousness of English greatness , English freedom, English manhood. The style, though varied, is always an exalted reflection of its thought and feeling; the poetic fervour rises at times to a sort of national ecstasy. Other strong passions of the human soul are portrayed in the play, but they are all subordinated to supreme devotion to country. Such is the atmosphere which we here breathe, and which nerves the spirit with a new inspiration. Indeed, there is a special character introduced as the representative of nationalist – a character which gives tone to the entire drama. It is Faulconbridge, whose story is the golden thread which both illumines and holds together the other parts of the action. Following his career, we are perpetually reminded of the theme which furnishes life and unity to the work.

In reading King John the chief disappointment seems to arise from the fact that nothing is said of the Great Charter

. . .

The drama has two well-marked movements – the one portraying the external struggle of the nation, and the other portraying its internal struggle. Each movement has also two threads – the English and the foreign – and upon these threads the action takes its course. The first movement shows the king in conflict with the two extraneous powers – France and the Church – the political and the religious enemy. Both unite against England – the one supporting the right of Arthur as the legal heir to the throne, the other asserting the claim of Papal domination. King John steps forth as the defender of imperilled nationality; the people support him; he wins a complete victory over his combined enemies. This victory is brought about chiefly by Faulconbridge, the type of the English national hero. Such is the first movement; the nation supports the king against the heir and against the Pope. The second movement now begins; it will show the change of character in the monarch, and the consequent disruption of the country internally. As long as John maintained the honour of England abroad, and took nationality as his guiding principle, he retained the unswerving allegiance of the English people. But he has the misfortune to capture the true heir, and at once he plots the young prince's murder to secure his throne. Thus, by his own act, he makes title of supreme importance; and as he has not the legal title in himself, he logically destroys his own cause. He abandons his national principle for the principle of inheritance, which he had himself previously nullified. His title is now questioned, since it is his own deed which calls attention to its defect. Revolt of the nobles follows; disaffection of the people shows itself in dark forebodings. Then comes foreign invasion added to domestic strife, and, finally, an ignoble submission to the Church – that is, the victory which ended the first movement is completely reversed. John is no longer the true ruler, though he may now be the true heir after the death of Arthur; the nation is assailed from within and from without, and seems on the point of succumbing to the foreign political and to the foreign religious power – to France and to Rome. Nothing now remains to the king – who has sacrificed his most glorious national attribute, namely, the maintenance of the independence of England against all foes, internal and external – but death. Still, the nation cannot perish with him; the national hero, Faulconbridge, again comes to the rescue of the drooping country; the enemy is worsted and retires, the nobles return to loyalty, a new king is crowned, and England is once more free from dissension and war. The very last speech of the play echoes the spirit of the whole; it is the exultant declaration of this same Faulconbridge, the embodiment of English nationality, wherein he utters a parting shout of triumph and defiance: [Quotes TLN 2723-29: "This England never did, etc."].

28Fleay, Frederick G, 1878

'The Life and Death of King John'. By William Shakespeare. Together with the 'Troublesom Raigne of King John' London, 1878 (Candido, 238-39).

Topics: TRKJ, Holinshed, sources

The plot is taken with scarcely any important deviations from the older play [TRKJ]. I also give below the main parts of Holinshed which bear on the events introduced by Shakespeare. I do this chiefly because the incomplete and unsatisfactory way in which it has been done by former editors misleading to the reader. It should be noticed, however, that editors always speak of Shakespeare's having appropriated the plot of the older play as a sort of plagiarism, but they never give any ground for supposing that it is not Shakespeare's own. They admit that Peele, Greene, and Lodge are the most likely claimants to the authorship of the older drama; they put forward their arguments that Shakespeare joined these very men in writing Henry VI, yet they give no shadows of reason for supposing that in this case, to which there is no parallel, Shakespeare took anything but what he had originally given – the platform or plot of the play. Having in view the very different manner in which he treated plays, as to which we know that he had no share whatever in their earlier form . . . I shall, until some reason is advanced to the contrary, hold that in his King John the original plot was laid down for the early play by Shakespeare himself. What he did take from the old John, which was not originally his own, is its version of facts. Shakespeare was no historical investigator. In making his early plot he probably used Holinshed, as he did in his later plays.

29Rose, Edward, 1878

"Shakespeare as an Adapter" from Macmillan's Magazine Cambridge, 1878 (Candido, 242-48).

Topics: TRKJ, structure

If we take for consideration this anonymous play [TRKJ] and compare it with Shakespeare's, we shall find how perfectly he understood his art; and we may learn by his example not only what dramatic material to choose, and how to shape it, but—which is by no means so usual with our poet—what to avoid; for King John, as it now stands, though it is in many ways a model of construction, and contains at least two of his finest characters and some of his noblest poetry, can hardly be called a successful stage play . . .

Lastly—and this is a good deal more important—Shakespeare does not at all explain why the monk poisoned King John. Has not one been rather startled, on seeing the play acted, by its sudden termination? Just when his fortunes are at their most critical point, the hero without rhyme or reason dies: some one comes in casually and says that the king is dying, murdered by an anonymous monk, who is indeed described as a "resolved villain"[TLN 2586]. but who is not shown to have had any motive whatever for his deed. It is as if the Gravedigger should suddenly brain Hamlet with his pickaxe, in the midst of their conversation, and decline to give any reason for his conduct.

30Boas, Frederick S., 1896

Shakespeare and His Predecessors London, 1896 (Candido, 290-92).

Topics: structure, Richard III, Richard II, Constance

... In its main subject [King John]recalls Richard III,while the character of Constance anticipates that of Richard II. It resembles Richard IIIalso in the prominence given to rivalries of women, but the grouping is less studiously monumental, and the curious strophic balance of lamentation has disappeared. The blank verse is still overloaded with rhetoric, which has however lost the peculiar lurid tinge of the earlier play. Rhyme is almost entirely confined to the pithy rejoinders and epigrams of the Bastard, in whose person the element of popular humour enters for the first time an entirely Shakespearian historical play. There is as yet, however, no hint of the use of prose as the fittest vehicle for this humour. Thus the internal evidence stamps King Johnas a link between the earlier and later Histories, and it may be assigned to about the year 1595. . . .

[Boas briefly treats Shakespeare's adaptation of The Troublesome Raigne,then turns to the dramatist's conception of John, which unlike that of Richard III, 'is designed on no similar scale of lonely grandeur in crime' (Boas 239).]

For a time, indeed, John plays the part of a vigorous and able soldier. He crosses to France with a speed that disconcerts his enemies, and the fact that he is followed by a brave 'choice of dauntless spirits' [TLN 366] shows that he can attract supporters to his cause. Shakespeare himself, fully alive to the national dangers involved in the succession of a minor, is inclined to weigh in equal balance the claims of uncle and nephew. If John has an evil angel in his mother, so has Arthur, for the hysterical

. . .

passion of Constance is as dangerous as Elinor's unscrupulous ambition, and her appeal to foreign aid in support of her son's rights estranges from her all national sympathies. . . .

... But the portraiture of John in the earlier scenes of the play, where in spite of duplicity and self seeking he shows a certain soldierly dignity, scarcely prepares us for the revelation of craven cruelty in his dealings with his captive nephew. This partial inconsistency, however, overlooked, John's attitude in his interview with Hubert is portrayed with wonderful subtlety. In a similar situation Richard III had blurted out his purposes to Tyrrel with almost cheery frankness. John stealthily approaches the theme of Arthur's murder by torturous paths, advancing and retreating by turns; he pauses just long enough at his goal to drop monosyllabic hints of 'death' and 'a grave' [TLN 1367-1369], and then, as if terrified at the sound of his own voice, slinks hurriedly away. Thus, when the report of Arthur's death by violence is noised abroad, alienating the nobles and stirring the populace to disaffection; when the conscience stricken king realizes that 'there is no sure foundation set on blood' [TLN 1822], he can turn upon his agent with base reproaches for having translated a momentary hint into a fixed warrant for the fatal deed. The discovery that the child's life has been spared lights tip his terrified soul with a ray of hope, but the disastrous consequences of his purpose are beyond recall....

But it has attracted universal notice that Shakespeare passes very lightly over those misdeeds of the king which have given him so sinister a prominence in history. His extortions from clergy and laity are merely touched upon incidentally, and not the faintest allusion is made to the constitutional struggle which ended in the grant of the Great Charter. Startling as it sounds to modern ears, it is almost certain that Shakespeare had small knowledge of that document, and a very inadequate sense of its importance. A strong monarchical rule was the ideal of the Tudor period, and the power of the Crown was limited not by strictly defined clauses, but by hearty popular sympathies in the sovereign. It was only under the Stuarts, when this communion of feeling between ruler and ruled ceased to exist, that the champions of national liberty were forced to entrench themselves behind their traditional rights, and drag again into prominence the parchment scrolls wherein these were embodied. Thus the significance of John's reign for Shakespeare lay far less in constitutional struggles than in foreign relations, and its supreme event was not the signing of the Charter, but the surrender of the English crown, when the recreant king, eating all his brave words of an earlier date, resigned the symbol of royalty into the hands of Pandulph, to receive it back again as a vassal of the Pope....

[After a short passage of plot summary, Boas turns to the death of John.]

. . . Poisoned by a monk, he dies at Swinstead Abbey, in torturing pain which wrings from him agonized cries unworthy of a soldier and a king. But the scene would make a deeper impression were it in more organic connexion with what has gone before. In the old play, where so much prominence had been given to the attack upon the religious houses, the death of John at the hands of a monk was a dramatically fitting Nemesis. But one of the very few mistakes made by Shakespeare in working up older materials was that he here retained the original version of John's murder, while omitting all that had led up to it.

31Brandes, Georg M. C., 1898

William Shakespeare: A Critical Study New York, 1898 (Candido, 299).

Topics: language, rhetoric

and, among the rest, the first scene of the second act, which seems to dispose of Fleay's conjecture [No. 42 above] that the first two hundred lines of the act were hastily inserted after Shakespeare had lost his son. Nevertheless almost all that is gracious and touching in the figure is due to the great reviser. The old text is at its best in the scene where Arthur meets his death by jumping from the walls of the castle. Shakespeare has here confined himself for the most part to free curtailment; in the old King John,his fatal fall does not prevent Arthur from pouring forth copious lamentations to his absent mother and prayers to 'sweete Iesu' [TRKJ 9.20]. Shakespeare gives him only two lines to speak after his fall.

In this play, as in almost all the works of Shakespeare's younger years, the reader is perpetually amazed to find the finest poetical and rhetorical passages side by side with the most intolerable euphuistic affectations. And we cannot allege the excuse that these are legacies from the older play. On the contrary, there is nothing of the kind to be found in it; they are added by Shakespeare, evidently with the express purpose of displaying delicacy and profundity of thought. In the scenes before the walls of Angiers, he has on the whole kept close to the old drama, and has even followed faithfully the sense of all the more important speeches. For example, it is a citizen on the ramparts, who, in the old play, suggests the marriage between Blanch and the Dauphin; Shakespeare merely re writes his speech, introducing into it these beautiful lines: [Quotes TLN 741-46: 'If lusty love should go in quest of beauty. . . .']. The surprising thing is that the same hand which has just written these verses should forthwith lose itself in a tasteless tangle of affectations like this:

Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
Is the young Dauphin every way complete:
If not complete of, say, he is not she;
And she again wants nothing, to name want,
If want it be not, that she is not he. [TLN 747-51]

and this profound thought is further spun out with a profusion of images. Can we wonder that Voltaire and the French critics of the eighteenth century were offended by a style like this, even to the point of letting it blind them to the wealth of genius elsewhere manifested?

Even the touching scene between Arthur and Hubert is disfigured by false cleverness of this sort. The little boy, kneeling to the man who threatens to sear out his eyes, introduces, in the midst of the most moving appeals, such far fetched and contorted phrases as this:

The iron of itself, though heat red hot,
Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears,
And quench this fiery indignation
Even in the manner of mine innocence;
Nay, after that, consume away in rust,
But for containing fire to harm mine eye. [TLN 1639-43]

And again, when Hubert proposes to reheat the iron:

An if you do, you will but make it blush,
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert. [TLN 1692-93]

The taste of the age must indeed have presses strongly upon Shakespeare's spirit to prevent him from feeling the impossibility of these quibbles upon the lips of a child imploring in deadly fear that his eyes may be spared to him.

32Bowden, Henry Sebastian, 1899

The Religion of Shakespeare London, 1899 (Candido, 302-306).

Topics: Catholicism, historical context, Pandulph

[King John's] bold defiance [against Pandulph] proves mere bombast; he ends by eating his words. He humbles himself to the dust before the Legate, and as a penitent who receives the crown again at his hands, and his kingdom in fief from the Pope. John's anti-Catholic speeches, then, no more prove Shakespeare a Protestant than the fool's saying in his heart "There is no God," makes David a sceptic [Psalms 14:1].

. . .

In [Shakespeare's] hands the play becomes a moral and political essay on the events and questions of his time. The slaying of Arthur is closely parallel to that of Mary, Queen of Scots; John, like Elizabeth, first suggests, then commands the deed, afterwards feigns horror at its accomplishment and repudiates the perpetrators. John disowned Hubert, as Elizabeth did Davison, though in both cases the order for the murder was given under the royal hand and seal . . . Again, Philip's disinclination after the loss of Angiers, to prosecute the war till the prospect of Arthur's death opens his son's claim to the English crown, resembles the delay of Philip II. of Spain to make any serious attack on England till Mary Stuart's death made the Infanta or Duke of Parma possible claimants for the English throne. Lewis' intended slaughter of his allies, the English rebel nobles, finds a parallel in the reported intention of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Commander of the Armada, who declared that, once landed in England, all Catholics and heretics should be one to him, his sword would not discern them! so that he might make way for his master.

. . .

We know that Pandulph is regarded generally as being also a slave to commodity, and of changing sides merely as suited the interests of the Church. No doubt those interests were first with him, but with them were bound up the claims of justice and right and the liberties of the people. He is allied with France to enforce John to submit, but on John's submission he orders, as he was bound, the Dauphin to withdraw his invading force. His mission is completely successful. England is reconciled to the Church, France and England are friends again, the rebel nobles are pardoned, the rightful heir ascends the English throne, and all this is effected by the offices of the Legate and the action of Faulconbridge, the typical Englishman, of whom the poet is so fond.