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Blanch, Daughter to Alphonso, King of Castile, and
Niece to King John.

Lady Faulconbridge, Mother to the Bastard and
Robert Faulconbridge.

Citizens of Angiers, Heralds, Executioners, Messengers,
Soldiers, and other Attendants.

The SCENE, sometimes in England, and sometimes in
France.

22. Daughter...and] of Spain, Cam.
[Capell adds: an Officer under

Hubert; a Servant.

26, 27. Citizens...Soldiers] Lords, Ladies, and divers other Attendants.

22

25

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Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Massengers,... Mal. et seq.

28, 29. The...France] Scene dispers'd; in England and France. Cap. Om. Sta.

22. Blanch] Mrs JAMESON (ii, 236): Blanche of Castile was the daughter of Alphonso IX. of Castile and the grand-daughter of Elinor. At the time that she is introduced into the drama she was about fifteen, and her marriage with Louis VIII, then Dauphin, took place in the abrupt manner here represented. It is not often that political marriages have the same happy result. We are told by the historians of that time that from the moment Louis and Blanche met they were inspired by a mutual passion, and that during a union of more than twentysix years they were never known to differ, nor even spent more than a single day asunder. . . . There cannot be a greater contrast than between the acute understanding, the steady temper, and the cool intriguing policy of Blanche, by which she succeeded in disuniting and defeating the powers arrayed against her and her infant son, and the rash confiding temper and susceptible imagination of Constance, which rendered herself and her son easy victims to the fraud or ambition of others. Blanche, during forty years, held in her hands the destinies of the greater part of Europe, and is one of the most celebrated names recorded in history-but in what does she survive to us except in a name? Nor history, nor fame, though 'trumpet-tongued,' could do for her what Shakespeare and poetry have done for Constance. The earthly reign of Blanche is over, her sceptre broken, and her power departed. When will the reign of Constance cease? When will her power depart? Not while this world is a world, and there exist in it human souls to kindle at the touch of genius, and human hearts to throb with human sympathies!

The life and death of King Iohn.

Actus Primus, Scana Prima.

Enter King Iohn, Queene Elinor, Pembroke, Effex, and Salisbury, with the Chattylion of France.

King Iohn.

Ow fay Chatillion, what would France with vs ?
Chat. Thus (after greeting) speakes the King
of France,

2. Actus Primus, Scana Prima] Acr I. SCENE I. Rowe.

The Court of England. Pope,+. King John's Palace. Cam.+. Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. Cap. et cet.

3. Enter...Elinor,] Enter King John, attended; Elinor, the Queen-Mother; Cap. King John discovered upon a throne. Bell, Kemble (subs.)

3, 4. and Salisbury] Salisbury, and Others. Cap. Mal. et seq.

4. with the Chattylion of France] Ff. with Chattilion. Rowe. with Chatil

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ion. Pope, Theob. Han. Warb. King takes his State; Enter Chatillion, usher'd. Cap. with Chatillion. Var. '73, Ktly. with Chatillon. Johns. et cet.

6. Now say] Ff. Now say, Rowe,+, Knt, Fleay. Now, say, Cap. et cet.

Chatillion] F., Cap. Var. '73, Ktly. Chattylion F,F.. Chattilion Rowe. Chatilion Pope, Theob. Han. Warb. Chatillon Johns. et cet.

7. Thus (after greeting)] Thus, after greeting, Rowe et seq.

France,] France. Ff. France Rowe, Cam.+.

1. The life ... King Iohn] THEOBALD: Though this play have the title of The Life and Death of King John, yet the action begins at the thirty-fourth year of his life, and takes in only some transactions of his reign to the time of his demise, being an interval of about seventeen years.-MALONE: It takes in the whole of his reign, which lasted only seventeen years: his accession was in 1199, and his death in 1216.-POPE: The Troublesome Reign of King John was written in two parts, by W. Shakespeare and W. Rowley, and printed 1611. But the present play is entirely different, and infinitely superior to it. [Strict chronological sequence would demand this note by Pope precede that of Theobald. Pope's assertion was, however, the occasion of some discussion dealing with the authorship of the older play, rather than with the question of the exact title of Shakespeare's; this must, therefore, be an excuse, if one be needful, for this reversal.-ED.JOHNSON: The edition of 1611 has no mention of Rowley, nor in the account of Rowley's works is any mention made of his conjunction with Shakespeare in any play. King John was reprinted, in two parts, in 1622. The first edition that I have found of this play, in its present form, is that of 1623, in folio. The edition of 1591

[1. The life ... King Iohn]

I have not seen. [Johnson's note is decidedly ambiguous, owing to his confusion of two plays. The King John which he speaks of as printed in two parts in 1622 is The Troublesome Raigne, to which Pope refers; by the words 'this play, in its present form,' Johnson means Shakespeare's King John; and finally 'the edition of 1591' refers again to the first edition of The Troublesome Raigne.-FARMER remarks that Johnson is mistaken in saying that there is no mention of any collaboration between Shakespeare and Rowley, as The Birth of Merlin entered at the Stationers in 1653 is ascribed to them jointly. 'I cannot,' adds Farmer, 'believe Shakespeare had anything to do with it'-(with which opinion the present Ed. is quite in accord). Farmer thus continues: 'Mr Capell is equally mistaken when he says (Preface, p. 15) that Rowley is called his partner in the title-page of The Merry Devil of Edmonton. There must have been some tradition, however erroneous, upon which Mr Pope's account was founded. I make no doubt that Rowley wrote the first King John; and when Shakespeare's play was called for, and could not be procured from the players, a piratical bookseller reprinted the old one, with W. Sh. in the title page.'-On the point of authorship thus raised by Farmer, COLLIER (Ed. i, Introd., p. 4) remarks: "There is, however, reason to believe that Rowley was not an author at so early a date: his first extant printed work was a play, in writing which he aided John Day and George Wilkins, called The Travels of Three English Brothers, 1607. In 1591 he must have been very young; but we are not therefore to conclude decisively that his name is not, at any period, and in any way, to be connected with a drama on the incidents of the reign of King John; for the tradition of Pope's time may have been founded upon the fact that, at some later date, he was instrumental in a revival of the old King John.'-STEEVENS regarded Shakespeare as the author of the older play and included both parts of The Troublesome Raigne of John among the twenty plays which he published from the early quartos in 1766; subsequently he acknowledged that a more careful perusal disposed him 'to recede from that opinion.'-MALONE, without giving any reasons, is of the opinion that either Greene or Peele was the author of the older play. (See Appendix: Troublesome Raigne, for further discussions as to authorship.)-It may have been an oral tradition to which Farmer leniently refers in order to excuse Pope's inaccurate statement concerning the joint authorship of The Troublesome Raigne. We have but few means of tracing the bibliographical knowledge in regard to dramatic compositions in Pope's day, the basis for such is mainly furnished by the lists of plays issued by publishers from time to time. Those of Rogers & Ley, 1656; Archer, 1656; and Kirkman, 1661 and 1671, are now accessible and made easy for reference, thanks to the painstaking efforts of W. W. Greg in the Appendix II. of his List of Masques and Pageants prepared for the Bibliographical Society, 1902. John, King of England, both parts, appears in the list of Rogers and Ley, 1656; John, King of England, both parts, Will. Shakespeare, in that of Archer, 1656; Will. Shakespear. John K. of England, 1st part. Will. Shakespear. John K. of England, 2nd part, are entered in Kirkman's lists of 1661 and 1671. These are entries which refer to the older play alone, and there is no mention of Rowley as part author. Langbaine's Some Account of the English Dramatic Poets, 1691, is the earliest Dictionary of Authors and works, but neither under the names of W. Rowley nor Shakespeare does Langbaine include The Troublesome Raigne as their joint work. It is, I think, reasonable to suppose that Pope simply con

[1. The life ... King Iohn]

fused The Birth of Merlin with The Troublesome Raigne. In this connection MALONE somewhat sharply remarks that 'Mr Pope is very inaccurate in matters of this kind,' but—to err is human, to forgive divine, and it is Pope himself who supplies this soft answer to turn aside our wrath.-ED.]

1. King Iohn] MABIE (p. 184): King John... marks the transition from the chronicle play to the true drama; in which incidents and characters are selected for their dramatic significance, a dramatic motive introduced, dramatic movement traced, and a climax reached. The older playwrights, dealing with the events of a whole reign, would have given the play an epical or narrative quality; Shakespeare selected, compressed, foreshortened, and grouped events and figures in such a way as to secure connected action, the development of character, and a final catastrophe which is impressive if not intrinsically dramatic. He instinctively omitted certain coarse scenes which were in the older play; he brought into clear light and consistency certain characters which were roughly sketched in the earlier work; in the scene between Hubert and Arthur he struck a new note of tenderness and pathos; while in giving marked prominence to the humour of Faulconbridge he opened the way for that blending of comedy with tragedy and history which is one of the marks not only of his maturity but of his greatness. The play has no hero, and is not free from the faults of the long line of dramas to which it belongs, but Shakespeare's creative energy is distinctly at work in it.

2. Actus Primus] FRENCH (p. 3): The action of this is mainly confined to the relationship between the usurping uncle and his hapless nephew. The first scene opens with a demand from the King of France that John should yield up his crown in favour of young Arthur. This scene, in which John is seated in his palace, surrounded by the chief nobles of his court, must have taken place in 1199, soon after his coronation, Ascension Day, May 27. The Fourth Act closes with the death of the Young Prince, but even in the Fifth Act his right is made use of by the Dauphin as a pretext for invading England. [French is possibly right in placing the time of this opening scene shortly after John's accession; such would undoubtedly be the fitting point for France's protest. At the same time it is well to remember that dates counted for little either with the earlier dramatist or Shakespeare; both of them refer to but two of John's coronations, whereas, actually John was crowned four times. See IV, ii, 3, and notes thereon.-ED.]-CALVERT (p. 124): In the first thirty lines of the opening scene are epitomized the drift and substance of the whole play.... How natural this is, and easy, how unavoidable! Each speech seems to carry the very words the speaker ought to utter; each speaker says just what he should say, neither more nor less.

3. Enter King Iohn, etc.] CAMBRIDGE Edd. (Note II.): We have not followed Capell and the more recent editors in attempting to define the precise locality at which each scene took place, where none is mentioned in the body of the play or in the stage directions of the Folio. (See Text. Notes.) Nothing is gained by an attempt to harmonize the plot with historical facts gathered from Holinshed and elsewhere, when it is plain that Shakespeare was either ignorant of them or indifferent to minute accuracy. For example, the second scene of Act IV. is supposed to occur at the same place as the first scene of that Act, or, at all events, in the immediate neighborhood, and in England. But Holinshed distinctly states that Arthur was imprisoned first at Falaise and then at Rouen (pp. 554, 555, ed. 1577). -ORDISH (Sh's London, p. 27): The opening scene in King John is laid in 'King

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In my behaviour to the Maiefty,

8. Maiefty,] Majesty Han. majesty— Words.

8. behauiour] Ff, Rowe, Pope, Cam. +. behaviour, Theob. et cet. John's Palace.' This has been supposed by some editors to mean the King's palace at Northampton. Without being in the least disputatious, it is allowable to refer the reader to the text. A Sheriff enters and tells the King there is the strangest controversy 'come from the country' to be judged by him. The disputants are Philip Faulconbridge and his brother; and presently Philip says to Queen Elinor, 'Our country manners give our betters way.' These are indications that the two youths had come up to London from Northamptonshire to lay their case before the King. In Shakespeare's time there was a tradition, mentioned by Stow, that a certain house, called Stone House, in Lombard Street, was formerly King John's House [Survay, ed. 1618, p. 375], and it is at least probable that the London playgoer would interpret the legend, 'King John's Palace,' as referring to this house. In this case, the Sheriff who came in to make the announcement to the King would be understood as being a sheriff of the city. [While I fully agree with Ordish that this scene is evidently laid in London, yet I think it hardly just to characterize as supposition the reason which led the earlier editors to place this at Northampton. As will be seen from the Text. Notes Capell was first so to designate it, and though he gives no ground for this specific locality, it may be inferred that his reason for so doing was based on a passage in the corresponding scene in The Troublesome Raigne, wherein occur these words spoken by Salisbury, 'Please it your Majestie, heere is the Shrive of Northamptonshire, with certaine persons that of late committed a riot.' Perhaps in those days the Sheriff accompanied those who wished to lay a case before the King; if so that would account for his presence in London; but at all events Capell had internal evidence from the earlier work to corroborate his choice of locality. (See note on 1. 50, below).—ED.]

4, 6. Chattylion ... Chatillion] WALKER (Vers., 184), followed by R. G. WHITE, calls attention to the metrical requirement of pronouncing this name, as also Rousillon in All's Well, as a trisyllable with the accent on the second syllable. —Dawson (New Sh. Soc. Trans., 1887-1892, p. 137) adds to the numerous examples of such pronunciation in the present play one from Henry V: 'Iaques of Chatilion Admirall of France.'-IV, viii, 95.

4. Chattylion of France] FRENCH (p. 18): As King Philip would, without doubt, send a person of exalted rank upon so important an embassy as that which opens this play, it may be inferred that this individual is Hugh de Chatillon, who is named, with his brother Guy, Count de St. Pol, among the Grand Peers of France, who were assembled in a Parliament at Paris in 1223. In the treaty between King Richard and Philip Augustus, dated July 23, 1194, the concluding article sets forth, -'Now Gervais de Chatillon, as representative of the King of France, has sworn to observe all the articles above recited, and maintain the truce.' He, therefore, might be the person sent as ambassador to England five years after the above date. The family has played an important part in history.-IVOR JOHN: The Folios read 'with the Chattylion of France.' Perhaps 'Lord' had dropped out before 'Chattylion,' or perhaps 'Chattylion' was taken to mean 'Chatelain' or some similar title. [Stow (Survay, ed. 1618, p. 107) gives as the titles belonging to Robert Fitzwater, those of 'Chastilian and Banner-bearer of London,' which he held by right of his ownership of Castle Baynard in the city.—ED.]

8. In my behauiour] JOHNSON: The word 'behaviour' seems here to have a

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