the crown to John with full right, for in spite of John's past, he became rightful heir at Arthur's death. But even though the Church had befriended John, Providence was not so kindly disposed to that capricious tyrant. Three things tend to indicate that justice is not satisfied even by John's submission to the Church:

1. John is not sincere in his outward submission to the Church. His insincerity is stated by Faulconbridge (V, iii, 174-176) and confirmed by his lack of all religious regard at his death.

2. Faulconbridge despises John for his cowardice to France (V, i, 65-76), and John does not redeem himself in this respect.

3. Faulconbridge is angered at John's pardon of the English lords (V, vi, 33-38). Their grievances against John have never been wiped out, and, consequently, as long as John lives, their loyalty is not too certain.

It is true, the chances of war have turned in England's favor, and the offer of peace is by no means to her dishonor, yet John does not enjoy the triumph. By a peculiar irony he that had robbed the monasteries and abbeys, was brought to an abbey to die.

In John's death justice is finally satisfied, and the hope of a better England rises with the announcement of a new king. Although Faulconbridge once more blows the trumpet of loyalty to England as the curtain falls, it is the Catholic Church that towers above both nations as the just arbiter in the great conflict and as the dispenser of peace.

The triumph of the Church is not stressed in Shakespeare's King John, undoubtedly with very good reason. By not making the Church in a political way ostensibly successful, the actual triumph of the Church is not thrust to the fore and yet through the working of Providence full justice is done. If the triumph of the Church had been emphasized, Shakespeare might have been called to account by the government. Thus, in adhering to history in the portrayal of John, and in using Providence as the guiding force of the play, Shakespeare made doubly certain of governmental as well as popualr approbation.

With Providence playing the leading role in King John, Shakespeare could more readily be fair and even favorable to the Church, which fact has been repeatedly pointed out in this work. This inostensibly favorable attitude towards the Church was not impossible at that time, that is, about 1596,30 for the political situation became more favorable to the Church. It is noteworthy that as soon as the preliminaries to the alliance between England and France were set on foot in the summer of 1595, the persecution of Catholics diminished in England. The alliance was actually concluded in May, 1596 and lasted till May 1598.31 Though persecution did not entirely cease during this time, it provided an appreciable breathing spell for English Catholics. The same period marked the beginning of a growing religious change in the theatre. While some extreme anti-Catholic features still prevailed in the drama during this period and the succeeding period, Catholic doctrine and Catholic ritual were accorded decent and respectful treatment particularly by the younger dramatists. 32

This interpretation of King John, then, is in harmony with the religious situation of these years; it is also in harmony with the new religious attitude towards the Catholic Church in the theatre, and, above all, it is in harmony with those other great Shakespearen dramas which present Catholic scenes and Catholic characters with reverence and respect.

30 Horace H. Furness, Variorum of King John (Philadelphia, 1919) vii.

31 Arnold O. Meyer, England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth (London, 1916) 369-371; 402. In Dec. 1596, Elizabeth presented Henry IV with the Order of the Garter. See Victor von Klarwill, editor, The Fugger News-Letters (London, 1924) 203204.

32 Cornelius Van der Spek, The Dramatic Literature Before 1642.

Church and Churchmen in English (Amsterdam, 1931) 177, 88-90.

CONCLUSION

The extreme diversity of opinion concerning Shakespeare's King John arose in the main, not from any ambiguity in the play itself, but rather from the tendency of critics to project their own sentiments and the conditions of their own time into the lines of Shakespeare. It is interesting to observe that the greatest diversity of opinion among the critics pertain to the incidents that involve the Catholic Church. This fact is readily explained on the basis of the changing attitude towards the Catholic Church in post-Reformation England. The influence of the Protestant Reformation on Elizabethan religious thought was hardly more than superficial. It consisted mainly in a conformity to governmental regulations in external worship. The Protestant attack on Catholicism in Elizabethan England-whether fulminated from the pulpit, the stage or the press-consisted chiefly in slanderous accusations and vehement invective. The Elizabethan revival of English Protestantism was a curious combination of religious fanaticism and patriotism, a combination which was subject to complete extinction with the coming of a new sovereign to the throne. Nevertheless, the Elizabethan religious change, since subsequent rulers cherished it, had tremendous and far reaching significance, but this significance was by no means generally grasped in the 1590's. The religious thought of the day was still essentially and traditionally Catholic.1 Now, Shakespearean criticism has been almost wholly in the hands of non-Catholics; and by the time the great Shakespearean critics arrived on the scene, the tra

Arnold O. Meyer, England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth (London, 1916) 36, 68f. 174f. passim.

ditional Catholic religious thought in England was for all practical purposes dead. It is not that the critics were out of touch with all religious thought, but their religious thought was simply not Catholic. Not only did they fail to grasp the profound meaning of justification, of sin, of the sacraments, of the Mass, of the Church; but they lacked also the historic Catholic appraisal of such things. Consequently, to these critics, excommunication is little more than an official ostracism from some social group. They do not understand why the threat of excommunication should make a monarch draw his sword, or why fidelity to an oath should make armies join in battle. Indeed, they "look but on the outside of this work."

In the century and a half which separates Shakespeare's King John from the critics, England had definitely become a Protestant country, and with the revival of King John in 1737, the interpretation of the play was made according to Protestant standards. Editors and commentators, knowingly or unwittingly, inserted their emendations and made their comments according to their respective standards. The various interpretations thus engendered were more or less in the spirit of Kynge Johan and Troublesome Raigne. This tendency to interpret Shakespeare's King John according to Protestant standards has continued more or less prevalent in the field of Shakespearean criticism. Those who preferred to consider the play principally in the light of the political situation endorsed rather than countered the Protestant interpretation. Those who looked upon the play as a dramatic work of art, simply lessened the tension on the religious issue, but did not correct the prevailing Protestant interpretation.

Moreover, there were other circumstances that tended to decieve unsuspecting critcis. Since the scientific historical method is of comparatively recent development, the errors of certain historians were accepted by many without question, and many of these errors have a definite antiCatholic coloring. With such colored lights focused on Shakespeare's King John, it is not surprising that King John should appear in varying hues rather than in its true natural light. Some critics, for instance, have mistakenly assumed that the Pope usurped the rights of King John by the appointment of Stephen Langton to the archbishopric of Canterbury; others have assumed that the Pope demanded the surrender of the throne when he insisted upon John's submission to his spiritual authority. These false conceptions of the historical facts clearly influence these critics in the interpretation of King John, and, in consequence, their views and opinions had to be discounted accordingly.

In order to interpret King John in the manner and spirit in which it was staged, it was necessary to examine the Catholic attitude as well as the Elizabethan attitude on certain important problems of that day. Thus, it was shown that the Elizabethan concept of supremacy was vastly different from that which prevailed under Henry VIII and Edward VI, and that the Elizabethan idea of control of the Church, as excluding spiritual supremacy, was strongly emphasized by Protestants and Catholics alike. Again, an exposition of the law of excommunication in Shakespeare's day, and an examination of Elizabeth's excommunication revealed that in portraying the excommunication of King John Shakespeare followed the procedure against Elizabeth in every detail. Even the forfeiture of John's life, considered as part of the decree of excommunaiction, was not unfounded historically, for those who advocated the killing of Elizabeth, did so, not on the basis of some loose tyrannicidal principle, but in view of the decree of her excommunication. Finally, an exposition of the Catholic teaching on the doctrine of oaths, particularly from the aspects treated in King John, showed that Shakespeare followed Catholic teaching in Cardinal Pandulph's speech on oaths, and that Elizabethans must have been conversant with this doctrine, since Shakespeare repeatedly uses this doctrine in other