The Troublesome Reign of King John

The Troublesome Reign of King John

Scene 1
Enter King John, Queen Eleanor his mother, William Marshal Earl of Pembroke, the earls of Essex and of Salisbury.

Queen Eleanor
 * Barons of England, and my noble lords:
 * Though God and fortune have bereft from us
 * Victorious Richard, scourge of infidels,
 * And clad this land in stole of dismal hue,
 * Yet give me leave to joy, and joy you all,
 * That from this womb hath sprung a second hope,
 * A king that may in rule and virtue both
 * Succeed his brother in his empery.

King John
 * My gracious mother queen, and barons all:
 * Though far unworthy of so high a place,
 * As is the throne of mighty England’s king,
 * Yet John your lord, contented uncontent,
 * Will (as he may) sustain the heavy yoke
 * Of pressing cares that hang upon a crown.
 * My Lord of Pembroke, and Lord Salisbury,
 * Admit the Lord Chatillon to our presence,
 * That we may know what Philip king of France
 * (By his ambassadors) requires of us.

Queen Eleanor
 * Dare lay my hand that Eleanor can guess
 * Whereto this weighty embassade doth tend:
 * If of my nephew, Arthur, and his claim,
 * Then say my son I have not missed my aim.

Enter Chatillon and the two earls[, Pembroke and Salisbury].

King John
 * My lord Chatillon, welcome into England!
 * How fares our brother Philip king of France?

Chatillon
 * His Highness at my coming was in health,
 * And willed me to salute your majesty,
 * And say the message he hath given in charge.

King John
 * And spare not, man, we are prepared to hear.

Chatillon
 * Philip, by grace of God most Christian king of France, having
 * taken into his guardain and protection Arthur, duke of Brittany,
 * son and heir to Jeffrey thine elder brother, requireth in the
 * behalf of the said Arthur, the kingdom of England, with the
 * lordship of Ireland, Poitiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine; and I
 * attend thine answer.

King John
 * A small request—belike he makes account
 * That England, Ireland, Poitiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
 * Are nothing for a king to give at once!
 * I wonder what he means to leave for me.
 * Tell Philip, he may keep his lords at home
 * With greater honor than to send them thus
 * On embassades that not concern himself,
 * Or if they did, would yield but small return.

Chatillon
 * Is this thine answer?

King John
 * It is, and too good an answer for so proud a message.

Chatillon
 * Then, King of England, in my master’s name,
 * And in Prince Arthur Duke of Brittany’s name,
 * I do defy thee as an enemy,
 * And wish thee to prepare for bloody wars.

Queen Eleanor
 * My lord—that stands upon defiance thus—
 * Commend me to my nephew; tell the boy,
 * that I, Queen Eleanor, his grandmother,
 * Upon my blessing charge him leave his arms,
 * Whereto his headstrong mother pricks him so.
 * Her pride we know, and know her for a dame
 * That will not stick to bring him to his end,
 * So she may bring herself to rule a realm.
 * Next wish him to forsake the king of France,
 * And come to me and to his uncle here,
 * And he shall want for nothing at our hands.

Chatillon
 * This shall I do, and thus I take my leave.

King John
 * Pembroke, convey him safely to the sea,
 * But not in haste; for as we are advised,
 * We mean to be in France as soon as he,
 * To fortify such towns as we possess
 * In Anjou, Touraine, and in Normandy.

Enter the Shrieve, and whispers the Earl of Salisbury in the ear.

Salisbury
 * Please it your Majesty, here is the shrieve of Northamptonshire,
 * with certain persons that of late committed a riot, and have
 * appealed to your Majesty beseeching your Highness for special
 * cause to hear them.

King John
 * Will them come near, and while we hear the cause,
 * Go, Salisbury, and make provision;
 * We mean with speed to pass the sea to France.
 * Say shrieve, what are these men? what have they done?
 * or whereto tends the course of this appeal?

Shrieve
 * Please it your Majesty, these two brethren unnaturally falling
 * at odds about their father’s living have broken your highness’
 * peace, in seeking to right their own wrongs without cause of
 * law, or order of justice, and unlawfully assembled themselves
 * in mutinous manner, having committed a riot, appealing from
 * trial in their country to your highness: and here I, Thomas
 * Nidigate, shrieve of Northamptonshire, do deliver them over
 * to their trial.

King John
 * My Lord of Essex, will the offenders to stand forth, and tell
 * the cause of their quarrel.

Essex
 * Gentlemen, it is the king’s pleasure that you discover your
 * griefs, and doubt not but you shall have justice.

Philip
 * Please it your majesty, the wrong is mine; yet will I abide
 * all wrongs, before I once open my mouth to unrip the shameful
 * slander of my parents, the dishonor of myself, and the wicked
 * dealing of my brother in this princely assembly.

Robert
 * Then by my prince his leave shall Robert speak,
 * And tell your majesty what right I have
 * To offer wrong, as he accounteth wrong.
 * My father—not unknown unto your grace—
 * Received his spurs of knighthood in the field
 * At kingly Richard’s hands in Palestine,
 * Whenas the walls of Acon gave him way:
 * His name, Sir Robert Falconbridge of Mountberry.
 * What by succession from his ancestors,
 * And warlike service under England’s arms,
 * His living did amount to at his death
 * Two thousand marks revenue every year;
 * And this, my lord, I challenge for my right,
 * As lawful heir to Robert Falconbridge.

Philip
 * If first-born son be heir indubitate
 * By certain right of England’s ancient law,
 * How should myself make any other doubt,
 * But I am heir to Robert Falconbridge?

King John
 * Fond youth, to trouble these our princely ears
 * Or make a question in so plain a case:
 * Speak, is this man thine elder brother born?

Robert
 * Please it your grace with patience for to hear;
 * I not deny but he mine elder is,
 * Mine elder brother too; yet in such sort,
 * As he can make no title to the land.

King John
 * A doubtful tale as ever I did hear,
 * Thy brother and thine elder, and no heir.
 * Explain this dark enigma.

Robert
 * I grant, my lord, he is my mother’s son,
 * Base born, and base begot, no Falconbridge.
 * Indeed the world reputes him lawful heir;
 * My father in his life did count him so;
 * And here my mother stands to prove him so.
 * But I, my lord, can prove, and do aver
 * Both to my mother’s shame and his reproach,
 * He is no heir, nor yet legitimate.
 * Then, gracious lord, let Falconbridge enjoy
 * The living that belongs to Falconbridge,
 * And let not him possess another’s right.

King John
 * Prove this, the land is thine by England’s law.

Queen Eleanor
 * Ungracious youth, to rip thy mother’s shame,
 * The womb from whence thou didst thy being take.
 * All honest ears abhor thy wickedness,
 * But gold I see doth beat down nature’s law.

Mother
 * My gracious lord, and you, thrice reverend dame,
 * That see the tears distilling from mine eyes,
 * And scalding sighs blown from a rented heart,
 * For honor and regard of womanhood,
 * Let me entreat to be commanded hence.
 * Let not these ears receive the hissing sound
 * Of such a viper, who with poisoned words
 * Doth macerate the bowels of my soul.

King John
 * Lady, stand up, be patient for awhile;
 * And fellow, say, whose bastard is thy brother?

Philip
 * Not for myself, nor for my mother now,
 * But for the honor of so brave a man,
 * Whom he accuseth with adultery,
 * Here I beseech your grace upon my knees,
 * To count him mad, and so dismiss us hence.

Robert
 * Nor mad, nor mazed, but well advised, I
 * Charge thee before this royal presence here
 * To be a bastard to King Richard’s self,
 * Son to your grace, and brother to your Majesty.
 * Thus bluntly, and—

Queen Eleanor
 * Young man, thou need’st not be ashamed of thy kin,
 * Nor of thy sire. But forward with thy proof.

Robert
 * The proof so plain, the argument so strong,
 * As that your Highness and these noble lords,
 * And all—save those that have no eyes to see—
 * Shall swear him to be bastard to the king.
 * First when my father was ambassador
 * In Germany unto the emperor,
 * The king lay often at my father’s house.
 * And all the realm suspected what befell:
 * And at my father’s back return again
 * My mother was delivered as ‘tis said,
 * Six weeks before the account my father made.
 * But more than this: look but on Philip’s face,
 * His features, actions, and his lineaments,
 * And all this princely presence shall confess
 * He is no other but King Richard’s son.
 * Then, gracious lord, rest he King Richard’s son,
 * And let me rest safe in my father’s right,
 * That am his rightful son and only heir.

King John
 * Is this thy proof, and all thou hast to say?

Robert
 * I have no more, nor need I greater proof.

King John
 * First, where thou said’st in absence of thy sire
 * My brother often lodged in his house,
 * And what of that? base groom to slander him,
 * That honored his ambassador so much,
 * In absence of the man to cheer the wife?
 * This will not hold, proceed unto the next.

Queen Eleanor
 * Thou say’st she termed six weeks before her time.
 * Why, good Sir Squire, are you so cunning grown
 * To make account of women’s reckonings?
 * Spit in your hand and to your other proofs:
 * Many mischances hap in such affairs
 * To make a woman come before her time.

King John
 * And where thou say’st he looketh like the king
 * In action, feature and proportion,
 * Therein I hold with thee, for in my life
 * I never saw so lively counterfeit
 * Of Richard Coeur-de-lion, as in him.

Robert
 * Then, good my lord, be you indifferent judge,
 * And let me have my living and my right.

Queen Eleanor
 * Nay, hear you sir, you run away too fast.
 * Know you not, omne simile non est idem?
 * Or have read in—hark, ye good sir,
 * ‘Twas thus I warrant, and no otherwise,
 * She lay with Sir Robert your father, and thought upon King
 * Richard, my son, and so your brother was formed in this fashion.

Robert
 * Madam, you wrong me thus to jest it out,
 * I crave my right! King John, as thou art king,
 * So be thou just, and let me have my right.

King John
 * Why, foolish boy, thy proofs are frivolous,
 * Nor canst thou challenge anything thereby.
 * But thou shalt see how I will help thy claim.
 * This is my doom, and this my doom shall stand
 * Irrevocable, as I am King of England.
 * For thou know’st not, we’ll ask of them that know;
 * His mother and himself shall end this strife,
 * And as they say, so shall thy living pass.

Robert
 * My lord, herein I challenge you of wrong,
 * To give away my right, and put the doom
 * Unto themselves. Can there be likelihood
 * That she will loose?
 * Or he will give the living from himself?
 * It may not be, my lord. Why should it be?

King John
 * Lords, keep him back, and let him hear the doom.
 * Essex, first ask the mother thrice who was his sire.

Essex
 * Lady Margaret, widow of Falconbridge,
 * Who was father to thy son Philip?

Mother
 * Please it your majesty, Sir Robert Falconbridge.

Robert
 * This is right, ask my fellow there if I be a thief.

King John
 * Ask Philip whose son he is.

Essex
 * Philip, who was thy father?

Philip
 * Mas, my lord, and that’s a question. And you had not taken some
 * pains with her before, I should have desired you to ask my mother.

John
 * Say who was thy father.

Philip
 * Faith, my lord, to answer you sure he is my father that was
 * nearest my mother when I was gotten, and him I think to be Sir
 * Robert Falconbridge.

John
 * Essex, for fashion’s sake demand again,
 * And so an end to this contention.

Robert
 * Was ever man thus wronged as Robert is?

Essex
 * Philip, speak, I say, who was thy father?

King John
 * Young man, how now—what, art thou in a trance?

Queen Eleanor
 * Philip awake! The man is in a dream.

Philip
 * Philippus atavis aedite regibus.
 * What say’st thou, Philip? Sprung of ancient kings?
 * Quo me rapit tempestas?
 * What wind of honor blows this fury forth?
 * Or whence proceed these fumes of majesty?
 * Methinks I hear a hollow echo sound,
 * That Philip is the son unto a king:
 * The whistling leaves upon the trembling trees,
 * Whistle in consort, I am Richard’s son.
 * The bubbling murmur of the water’s fall
 * Records Philippus Regius filius.
 * Birds in their flight make music with their wings,
 * Filling the air with glory of my birth!
 * Birds, bubbles, leaves, and mountain’s echo, all
 * Ring in mine ears that I am Richard’s son.
 * Fond man, ah, whither art thou carried?
 * How are thy thoughts ywrapt in honor’s heaven,
 * Forgetful what thou art, and whence thou cam’st?
 * Thy father's land cannot maintain these thoughts,
 * These thoughts are far unfitting Falconbridge,
 * And well they may, for why this mounting mind
 * Doth soar too high to stoop to Falconbridge.
 * Why, how now? Knowest thou where thou art?
 * And knowest thou who expects thine answer here?
 * Wilt thou upon a frantic madding vein
 * Go lose thy land, and say thyself base borne?
 * No, keep thy land, though Richard were thy sire,
 * Whate’er thou think’st, say thou art Falconbridge.

John
 * Speak man, be sudden, who thy father was.

Philip
 * Please it your Majesty, Sir Robert—
 * Philip, that Falconbridge cleaves to thy jaws;
 * It will not out, I cannot for my life
 * Say I am son unto a Falconbridge.
 * Let land and living go, ‘tis honor’s fire
 * That makes me swear King Richard was my sire.
 * Base to a king adds title of more state
 * Than knights begotten, though legitimate.
 * Please it your grace, I am King Richard’s son.

Robert
 * Robert, revive thy heart, let sorrow die,
 * His falt’ring tongue not suffers him to lie.

Mother
 * What head-strong fury doth enchant my son?

Philip
 * Philip cannot repent, for he hath done.

John
 * Then Philip, blame not me; thyself hast lost
 * By willfulness, thy living and thy land.
 * Robert, thou art the heir of Falconbridge;
 * God give thee joy, greater than thy desert.

Queen Eleanor
 * Why how now, Philip—give away thy own?

Philip
 * Madam, I am bold to make myself your nephew,
 * The poorest kinsman that your Highness hath,
 * And with this proverb ‘gin the world anew—
 * Help hands, I have no lands, honor is my desire,
 * Let Philip live to show himself worthy so great a sire.

Queen Eleanor
 * Philip, I think thou knew’st thy grandam’s mind;
 * But cheer thee boy, I will not see thee want
 * As long as Eleanor hath foot of land;
 * Henceforth thou shalt be taken for my son,
 * And wait on me and on thine uncle here,
 * Who shall give honor to thy noble mind.

John
 * Philip, kneel down, that thou may’st throughly know
 * How much thy resolution pleaseth us;
 * Rise up, Sir Richard Plantagenet, King Richard’s son.

Philip
 * Grant heavens that Philip once may show himself
 * Worthy the honor of Plantagenet,
 * Or basest glory of a bastard’s name.

John
 * Now, gentlemen, we will away to France,
 * To check the pride of Arthur and his mates.
 * Essex, thou shalt be ruler of my realm,
 * And toward the main charges of my wars,
 * I’ll seize the lazy abbey lubbers’ lands
 * Into my hands to pay my men of war.
 * The Pope and popelings shall not grease themselves
 * With gold and groats that are the soldiers’ due.
 * Thus forward lords, let our command be done,
 * And march we forward mightily to France.

Exeunt.

Manet Philip and his Mother.

Philip
 * Madam, I beseech you deign me so much leisure as the hearing
 * of a matter that I long to impart to you.

Mother
 * What’s the matter, Philip? I think your suit in secret, tends
 * to some money matter, which you suppose burns in the bottom of
 * my chest.

Philip
 * No madam, it is no such suit as to beg or borrow,
 * But such a suit, as might some other grant,
 * I would not now have troubled you withal.

Mother
 * A God’s name let us hear it.

Philip
 * Then madam thus, your ladyship sees well,
 * How that my scandal grows by means of you,
 * In that report hath rumored up and down
 * I am a bastard, and no Falconbridge.
 * This gross attaint so tilteth in my thoughts,
 * Maintaining combat to abridge my ease,
 * That field and town, and company alone,
 * Whatso I do, or wheresoe’er I am,
 * I cannot chase the slander from thy thoughts.
 * If it be true, resolve me of my sire,
 * For pardon, madam, if I think amiss.
 * Be Philip Philip and no Falconbridge,
 * His father doubtless was as brave a man.
 * To you on knees as sometime Phaeton,
 * Mistrusting silly Merop for his sire,
 * Straining a little bashful modesty,
 * I beg some instance whence I am extracted.

Mother
 * Yet more ado to haste me to my grave,
 * And wilt thou too become a mother’s cross?
 * Must I accuse myself to close with you?
 * Slander myself to quiet your affects?
 * Thou mov’st me Philip, with this idle talk,
 * Which I remit, in hope this mood will die.

Philip
 * Nay lady mother, hear me further yet,
 * For strong conceit drives duty hence awhile.
 * Your husband Falconbridge was father to that son,
 * That carries marks of nature like the sire,
 * The son that blotteth you with wedlock’s breach,
 * And holds my right, as lineal in descent
 * From him whose form was figured in his face.
 * Can nature so dissemble in her frame,
 * To make the one so like as like may be,
 * And in the other print no character
 * To challenge any mark of true descent?
 * My brother’s mind is base, and too too dull,
 * To mount where Philip lodgeth his affects,
 * And his external graces that you view,
 * Though I report it, counterpoise not mine.
 * His constitution plain debility
 * Requires the chair, and mine the seat of steel.
 * Nay, what is he, or what am I to him?
 * When any one that knoweth how to carp
 * Will scarcely judge us both one country born.
 * This, madam, this hath drove me from myself,
 * And here by heaven’s eternal lamps I swear,
 * As cursed Nero with his mother did,
 * So I with you, if you resolve me not.

Mother
 * Let mother’s tears quench out thy anger’s fire,
 * And urge no further what thou dost require.

Philip
 * Let son’s entreaty sway the mother now,
 * Or else she dies; I’ll not infringe my vow.

Mother
 * Unhappy talk—must I recount my shame,
 * Blab my misdeeds, or by concealing die?
 * Some power strike me speechless for a time,
 * Or take from him awhile his hearing’s use!
 * Why wish I so, unhappy as I am?
 * The fault is mine, and he the faulty fruit;
 * I blush, I faint, oh would I might be mute!

Philip
 * Mother, be brief: I long to know my name.

Mother
 * And longing die to shroud thy mother’s shame.

Philip
 * Come madam, come, you need not be so loath;
 * The shame is shared equal twixt us both.
 * Is’t not a slackness in me worthy blame,
 * To be so old and cannot write my name?
 * Good mother, resolve me.

Mother
 * Then, Philip, hear thy fortune and my grief,
 * My honor’s loss by purchase of thyself,
 * My shame, thy name, and husband’s secret wrong,
 * All maimed and stained by youth’s unruly sway.
 * And when thou knowest from whence thou art extraught,
 * Or if thou knew’st what suits, what threats, what fears,
 * To move by love, or massacre by death,
 * To yield with love, or end by love’s contempt,
 * The mightiness of him that courted me,
 * Who tempered terror with his wanton talk,
 * That something may extenuate the guilt.
 * But let it not advantage me so much;
 * Upbraid me rather with the Roman Dame
 * That shed her blood to wash away her shame.
 * Why stand I to expostulate the crime
 * With pro et contra, now the deed is done,
 * When to conclude two words may tell the tale,
 * That Philip’s father was a prince’s son,
 * Rich England’s rule, world’s only terror he,
 * For honor’s loss left me with child of thee—
 * Whose son thou art, then pardon me the rather,
 * For fair King Richard was thy noble father.

Philip
 * Then, Robin Falconbridge, I wish thee joy,
 * My sire a king, and I a landless boy.
 * God’s lady, mother, the world is in my debt;
 * There’s something owing to Plantagenet.
 * Aye, marry, sir, let me alone for game,
 * I’ll act some wonders now I know my name.
 * By blessed Mary I’ll not sell that pride
 * For England’s wealth, and all the world beside.
 * Sit fast the proudest of my father’s foes,
 * Away good mother, there the comfort goes.

Exeunt.

Scene 2
Enter Philip the French King and Lewis, Limoges, Constance, and her son Arthur.

King Philip
 * Now gin we broach the title of thy claim,
 * Young Arthur, in the Albion territories,
 * Scaring proud Angiers with a puissant siege;
 * Brave Austria, cause of Couer-de-lion’s death,
 * Is also come to aid thee in thy wars;
 * And all our forces join for Arthur’s right.
 * And, but for causes of great consequence,
 * Pleading delay till news from England come,
 * Twice should not Titan hide him in the west,
 * To cool the fetlocks of his weary team,
 * Till I had with an unresisted shock
 * Controlled the manage of proud Angiers’ walls,
 * Or made a forfeit of my fame to chance.

Constance
 * Maybe that John in conscience or in fear
 * To offer wrong where you impugn the ill,
 * Will send such calm conditions back to France,
 * As shall rebate the edge of fearful wars.
 * If so, forbearance is a deed well done.

Arthur
 * Ah, mother, possession of a crown is much,
 * And John as I have heard reported of,
 * For present vantage would adventure far.
 * The world can witness in his brother’s time,
 * He took upon him rule and almost reign;
 * Then must it follow as a doubtful point,
 * That he’ll resign the rule unto his nephew.
 * I rather think the menace of the world
 * Sounds in his ears as threats of no esteem,
 * And sooner would he scorn Europae’s power,
 * Than lose the smallest title he enjoys—
 * For questionless he is an Englishman.

Lewis
 * Why are the English peerless in compare?
 * Brave cavaliers as ere that island bred,
 * Have lived and died, and dared and done enough,
 * Yet never graced their country for the cause:
 * England is England, yielding good and bad,
 * And John of England is as other Johns.
 * Trust me, young Arthur, if thou like my reed,
 * Praise thou the French that help thee in this need.

Limoges
 * The Englishman hath little cause, I trow,
 * To spend good speeches on so proud a foe.
 * Why Arthur, here’s his spoil that now is gone,
 * Who when he lived outrode his brother john;
 * But hasty curs that lie so long to catch
 * Come halting home, and meet their overmatch.
 * But news comes now—here’s the ambassador.

Enter Chatillon.

King Philip
 * And in good time! Welcome, my lord Chatillon!
 * What news? Will John accord to our command?

Chatillon
 * Be I not brief to tell your Highness all,
 * He will approach to interrupt my tale,
 * For one self bottom brought us both to France.
 * He on his part will try the chance of war,
 * And if his words infer assured truth,
 * Will lose himself and all his followers,
 * Ere yield unto the least of your demands.
 * The mother queen she taketh on amain
 * Gainst Lady Constance, counting her the cause
 * That doth effect this claim to Albion,
 * Conjuring Arthur with a grandam’s care,
 * To leave his mother; willing him submit
 * His state to John and her protection,
 * Who—as she saith—are studious for his good.
 * More circumstance the season intercepts:
 * This is the sum, which briefly I have shown.

King Philip
 * This bitter wind must nip somebody’s spring,
 * Sudden and brief; why so—’tis harvest weather.
 * But say, Chatillon, what persons of account are with him?

Chatillon
 * Of England, Earl pembroke and Salisbury,
 * The only noted men of any name.
 * Next them a bastard of the king’s deceased,
 * A hardy wild head, tough and venturous,
 * With many other men of high resolve.
 * Then is there with them Eleanor, mother queen,
 * And Blanche her niece, daughter to the king of Spain:
 * These are the prime birds of this hot adventure.

Enter John and his followers, Queen, Bastard, earls, etc.

King Philip
 * Me seemeth John an over-daring spirit
 * Effects some frenzy in thy rash approach,
 * Treading my confines with thy armed troops.
 * I rather looked for some submiss reply
 * Touching the claim thy nephew Arthur makes
 * To that which thou unjustly dost usurp.

King John
 * For that Chatillon can discharge you all;
 * I list not plead my title with my tongue.
 * Nor came I hither with intent of wrong
 * To France or thee, or any right of thine;
 * But in defense and purchase of my right,
 * The town of Angiers—which thou dost begirt
 * In the behalf of Lady Constance’ son,
 * Whereto nor he nor she can lay just claim.

Constance
 * Yes, false intruder, if that just be just,
 * And headstrong usurpation put apart,
 * Arthur my son, heir to thy elder brother,
 * Without ambiguous shadow of descent,
 * Is sovereign to the substance thou withhold’st.

Queen Eleanor
 * Misgoverned gossip, stain to this resort,
 * Occasion of these undecided jars,
 * I say (that know) to check thy vain suppose,
 * Thy son hath naught to do with that he claims.
 * For proof whereof, I can infer a will,
 * That bars the way he urgeth by descent.

Constance
 * A will indeed, a crabbed woman’s will,
 * Wherein the devil is an overseer,
 * And proud dame Eleanor sole executress!
 * More wills than so, on peril of my soul,
 * Were never made to hinder Arthur’s right.

Arthur
 * But say there was, as sure there can be none,
 * The law intends such testaments as void,
 * Where right descent can no way be impeached.

Queen Eleanor
 * Peace Arthur, peace, thy mother makes thee wings
 * To soar with peril after Icarus,
 * And trust me youngling, for the father’s sake,
 * I pity much the hazard of thy youth.

Constance
 * Beshrew you else, how pitiful you are,
 * Ready to weep to hear him ask his own;
 * Sorrow betide such grandams and such grief,
 * That minister a poison for pure love.
 * But who so blind, as cannot see this beam,
 * That you forsooth would keep your cousin down,
 * For fear his mother should be used too well?
 * Aye, there’s the grief, confusion catch the brain,
 * That hammers shifts to stop a prince’s reign.

Queen Eleanor
 * Impatient, frantic, common slanderer,
 * Immodest dame, unnurtured quarreler,
 * I tell thee I, not envy to thy son
 * But justice makes me speak as I have done.

King Philip
 * But here’s no proof that shows your son a king.

King John
 * What wants, my sword shall more at large set down.

Lewis
 * But that may break before the truth be known.

Bastard
 * Then this may hold till all his right be shown.

Lymoges
 * Good words, Sir Sauce, your betters are in place.

Bastard
 * Not you, Sir Doughty, with your lion’s case.

Blanche
 * Ah joy betide his soul, to whom that spoil belonged;
 * Ah Richard, how thy glory here is wronged.

Lymoges
 * Methinks that Richard’s pride, and Richard’s fall
 * Should be a precedent t’affright you all.

Bastard
 * What words are these? How do my sinews shake?
 * My father’s foe clad in my father’s spoil,
 * A thousand furies kindle with revenge,
 * Searing my inwards with a brand of hate.
 * How doth Alecto whisper in mine ears?
 * Delay not Philip; kill the villain straight;
 * Disrobe him of the matchless muniment
 * Thy father’s triumph o’er the savages.
 * Base herdgroom, coward, peasant, worse than a threshing slave,
 * What mak’st thou with the trophy of a king?
 * Sham’st thou not coistrel, loathsome dunghill swad,
 * To grace thy carcass with an ornament
 * Too precious for a monarch’s coverture?
 * Scarce can I temper due obedience
 * Unto the presence of my sovereign,
 * From acting outrage on this trunk of hate!
 * But arm thee traitor, wronger of renown,
 * For by his soul I swear, my father’s soul,
 * Twice will I not review the morning’s rise,
 * Till I have torn that trophy from thy back,
 * And split thy heart, for wearing it so long.
 * Philip hath sworn, and if it be not done,
 * Let not the world repute me Richard’s son.

Lymoges
 * Nay soft, Sir Bastard, hearts are not split so soon;
 * Let them rejoice that at the end do win,
 * And take this lesson at thy foeman’s hand:
 * Pawn not thy life to get thy father’s skin.

Blanche
 * Well may the world speak of his knightly valor,
 * That wins this hide to wear a lady’s favor.

Bastard
 * Ill may I thrive, and nothing brook with me,
 * If shortly I present it not to thee.

King Philip
 * Lordings, forbear, for time is coming fast,
 * That deeds may try what words cannot determine,
 * And to the purpose for the cause you come.
 * Meseems you set right in chance of war,
 * Yielding no other reasons for your claim,
 * But so and so, because it shall be so.
 * So wrong shall be suborned by trust of strength;
 * A tyrant’s practice to invest himself,
 * Where weak resistance giveth wrong the way,
 * To check the which, in holy lawful arms,
 * I in the right of Arthur Geoffrey’s son,
 * Am come before this city of Angiers,
 * To bar all other false supposed claim,
 * From whence or howsoe’er the error springs.
 * And in his quarrel on my princely word,
 * I’ll fight it out unto the latest man.

John
 * Know, king of France, I will not be commanded
 * By any power or prince in Christendom,
 * To yield an instance how I hold mine own,
 * More than to answer, that mine own is mine.
 * But wilt thou see me parley with the town,
 * And hear them offer me allegiance,
 * Fealty and homage, as true liegemen ought.

King Philip
 * Summon them—I will not believe it till I see it,
 * and when I see it I’ll soon change it.
 * They summon the town, the citizens appear upon the walls.

King John
 * You men of Angiers, and as I take it my loyal subjects: I have
 * summoned you to the walls to dispute on my right, were to think
 * you doubtful therein, which I am persuaded you are not. In few
 * words, our brother’s son, backed with the king of France, have
 * beleaguered your town upon a false pretended title to the same;
 * in defense whereof I your liege lord have brought our power to
 * fence you from the usurper, to free your intended servitude, and
 * utterly to supplant the foemen, to my right and your rest. Say
 * then, who keep you the town for?

Citizen
 * For our lawful king.

John
 * I was no less persuaded; then in God’s name open your gates, and
 * let me enter.

Citizen
 * And it please your Highness, we control not your title, neither
 * will we rashly admit your entrance. If you be lawful king, with
 * all obedience we keep it to your use; if not king, our rashness
 * to be impeached for yielding, without more considerate trial, we
 * answer not as men lawless, but to the behoof of him that proves
 * lawful.

John
 * I shall not come in then?

Citizen
 * No, my lord, till we know more.

King Philip
 * Then hear me speak in the behalf of Arthur, son of Geoffrey, elder
 * brother to John, his title manifest without contradiction to the
 * crown and kingdom of England, with Angiers and divers towns on this
 * side of the sea: will you acknowledge him your liege lord, who speaketh
 * in my word to entertain you with all favors as beseemeth a king to his
 * subjects, or a friend to his well-wishers: or stand to the peril of
 * your contempt, when his title is proved by the sword?

Citizen
 * We answer as before: till you have proved one right, we acknowledge
 * none right; he that tries himself our sovereign, to him will we
 * remain firm subjects, and for him, and in his right we hold our town
 * as desirous to know the truth as loath to subscribe before we know.
 * More than this we cannot say, and more than this we dare not do.

King Philip
 * Then john, I defy thee in the name and behalf of Arthur Plantagenet
 * thy king and cousin, whose right and patrimony thou detainest, as I
 * doubt not ere the day end in a set battle make thee confess; whereunto
 * with a zeal to right I challenge thee.

King John
 * I accept the challenge, and turn the defiance to thy throat.

Scene 3
Excursions. The Bastard chaseth Lymoges the Austrich duke, and maketh him leave the lion’s skin.

Bastard
 * And art thou gone?—misfortune haunt thy steps,
 * And chill cold fear assail thy times of rest.
 * Morpheus, leave here thy silent ebon cave,
 * Besiege his thoughts with dismal fantasies,
 * And ghastly objects of pale threat’ning Mors.
 * Affright him every minute with stern looks,
 * Let shadow temper terror in his thoughts,
 * And let the terror make the coward mad,
 * And in his madness let him fear pursuit,
 * And so in frenzy let the peasant die.
 * Here is the ransom that allays his rage,
 * The first freehold that Richard left his son,
 * With which I shall surprise his living foes,
 * As Hector’s statue did the fainting Greeks.

Exit.

Scene 4
Enter the kings’ Heralds with trumpets to the walls of Angiers: they summon the town.

English Herald
 * John by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Anjou,
 * Touraine, etc, demandeth once again of you his subjects of Angiers,
 * if you will quietly surrender up the town into his hands.

French Herald
 * Philip by the grace of God King of France, demandeth in the behalf
 * of Arthur, duke of Brittany, if you will surrender up the town into
 * his hands, to the use of the said Arthur.

Citizens
 * Heralds, go tell the two victorious princes that we, the poor inhabitants
 * of Angiers, require a parley of their Majesties.

Heralds
 * We go.

Enter the Kings, Queen Eleanor, Blanche, Bastard, Lymoges, Lewis, Castilian, Pembroke, Salisbury, Constance, and Arthur, duke of Brittany.

John
 * Herald, what answer do the townsmen send?

Philip
 * Will Angiers yield to Philip king of France?

English Herald
 * The townsmen on the walls accept your grace.

French Herald
 * And crave a parley of your Majesty.

John
 * You citizens of Angiers, have your eyes
 * Beheld the slaughter that our English bows
 * Have made upon the coward fraudful French?
 * And have you wisely pondered therewithal
 * Your gain in yielding to the English king?

Philip
 * Their loss in yielding to the English king.
 * But John, they saw from out their highest towers
 * The chevaliers of France and crossbow shot
 * Make lanes of slaughtered bodies through thine host,
 * And are resolved to yield to Arthur’s right.

John
 * Why Philip, though thou bravest it fore the walls,
 * Thy conscience knows that John hath won the field.

Philip
 * What e’er my conscience knows, thy army feels
 * That Philip had the better of the day.

Bastard
 * Philip indeed hath got the lion’s case,
 * Which here he holds to Lymoge’s disgrace.
 * Base duke to fly and leave such spoils behind;
 * But this thou knew’st of force to make me stay.
 * It fared with thee as with the mariner,
 * Spying the hugie whale, whose monstrous bulk
 * Doth bear the waves like mountains ‘fore the wind,
 * That throws out empty vessels, so to stay
 * His fury, while the ship doth sail away.
 * Philip, ‘tis thine; and for this princely presence,
 * Madam, I humbly lay it at your feet,
 * Being the first adventure I achieved,
 * And first exploit your grace did enjoin:
 * Yet many more I long to be enjoined.

Blanche
 * Philip, I take it, and I thee command
 * To wear the same as erst thy father did;
 * Therewith receive this favor at my hands,
 * T’encourage thee to follow Richard’s fame.

Arthur
 * Ye citizens of Angiers, are ye mute?
 * Arthur or John, say which shall be your king!

Citizen
 * We care not which, if once we knew the right,
 * But till we know we will not yield our right.

Bastard
 * Might Philip counsel two so mighty kings,
 * As are the kings of England and of France,
 * He would advise your graces to unite
 * And knit your forces ‘gainst these citizens,
 * Pulling their battered walls about their ears.
 * The town once won, then strive about the claim,
 * For they are minded to delude you both.

Citizen
 * Kings, princes, lords and knights assembled here,
 * The citizens of Angiers all by me
 * Entreat your Majesty to hear them speak;
 * And as you like the motion they shall make,
 * So to account and follow their advice.

John & Philip
 * Speak on; we give thee leave.

Citizen
 * Then thus: whereas that young and lusty knight
 * Incites you on to knit your kingly strengths,
 * The motion cannot choose but please the good,
 * And such as love the quiet of the state.
 * But how, my lords, how should your strengths be knit?
 * Not to oppress your subjects and your friends,
 * And fill the world with brawls and mutinies,
 * But unto peace your forces should be knit
 * To live in princely league and amity.
 * Do this, the gates of Angiers shall give way
 * And stand wide open to your hearts’ content.
 * To make this peace a lasting bond of love,
 * Remains one only honorable means,
 * Which by your pardon I shall here display.
 * Lewis, the Dolphin and the heir of France,
 * A man of noted valor through the world,
 * Is yet unmarried: let him take to wife
 * The beauteous daughter of the King of Spain,
 * Niece to King John, the lovely lady Blanche,
 * Begotten on his sister Eleanor.
 * With her in marriage will her uncle give
 * Castles and towers as fitteth such a match.
 * The kings thus joined in league of perfect love,
 * They may so deal with Arthur, duke of Brittany,
 * Who is but young, and yet unmeet to reign,
 * As he shall stand contented every way.
 * Thus have I boldly—for the common good—
 * Delivered what the city gave in charge.
 * And as upon conditions you agree,
 * So shall we stand content to yield the town.

Arthur
 * A proper peace, if such a motion hold;
 * These kings bear arms for me, and for my right,
 * And they shall share my lands to make them friends.

Queen Eleanor
 * Son John, follow this motion, as thou lovest thy mother;
 * Make league with Philip, yield to anything.
 * Lewis shall have my niece, and then be sure
 * Arthur shall have small succor out of France.

John
 * Brother of France, you hear the citizens:
 * Then tell me, how you mean to deal herein.

Constance
 * Why John, what canst thou give unto thy niece,
 * That hast no foot of land, but Arthur’s right?

Lewis
 * By’r Lady, citizens, I like your choice—
 * A lovely damsel is the Lady Blanche,
 * Worthy the heir of Europe for her pheere.

Constance
 * What kings, why stand you gazing in a trance?
 * Why how now lords? Accursed citizens
 * To fill and tickle their ambitious ears
 * With hope of gain that springs from Arthur’s loss.
 * Some dismal planet at thy birthday reigned,
 * For now I see the fall of all thy hopes.

King Philip
 * Lady, and duke of Brittany, know you both,
 * The king of France respects his honor more
 * Than to betray his friends and favorers.
 * Princess of Spain, could you affect my son,
 * If we upon conditions could agree?

Bastard
 * Swounds madam, take an English gentleman!
 * Slave as I was, I thought to have moved the match.
 * Grandam, you made me half a promise once
 * That Lady Blanche should bring me wealth enough,
 * And make me heir of store of English land.

Queen Eleanor
 * Peace Philip, I will look thee out a wife;
 * We must with policy compound this strife.

Bastard
 * If Lewis get her, well, I say no more;
 * But let the frolic Frenchman take no scorn,
 * If Philip front him with a English horn.

John
 * Lady, what answer make you to the king of France?
 * Can you affect the Dolphin for your lord?

Blanche
 * I thank the king that likes of me so well,
 * To make me bride unto so great a prince;
 * But give me leave, my lord, to pause on this,
 * Lest being too too forward in the cause,
 * It may be blemish to my modesty.

Queen Eleanor
 * Son John, and worthy Philip King of France,
 * Do you confer a while about the dower,
 * And I will school my modest niece so well,
 * That she shall yield as soon as you have done.

Constance
 * Aye, there’s the wretch that broacheth all this ill,
 * Why fly I not upon the beldame’s face,
 * And with my nails pull forth her hateful eyes.

Arthur
 * Sweet mother, cease these hasty madding fits;
 * For my sake, let my grandam have her will.
 * O, would she with her hands pull forth my heart,
 * I could afford it to appease these broils.
 * But, mother, let us wisely wink at all:
 * Lest farther harms ensue our hasty speech.

Philip
 * Brother of England, what dowry wilt thou give
 * Unto my son in marriage with thy niece?

John
 * First, Philip knows her dowry out of Spain
 * To be so great as may content a king;
 * But more to mend and amplify the same,
 * I give in money thirty thousand marks.
 * For land, I leave it to thine own demand.

Philip
 * Then I demand Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,
 * Poictiers and Anjou, these five provinces,
 * Which thou as king of England hold’st in France;
 * Then shall our peace be soon concluded on.

Bastard
 * No less than five such provinces at once?

John
 * Mother, what shall I do? My brother got these lands
 * With much effusion of our English blood,
 * And shall I give it all away at once?

Queen Eleanor
 * John, give it him; so shalt thou live in peace,
 * And keep the residue sans jeopardy.

John
 * Philip, bring forth thy son; here is my niece,
 * And here in marriage I do give with her
 * From me and my successors English kings,
 * Volquessen, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
 * And thirty thousand marks of stipend coin.
 * Now, citizens, how like you of this match?

Citizen
 * We joy to see so sweet a peace begun.

Lewis
 * Lewis with Blanche shall ever live content.
 * But now, King John, what say you to the duke?
 * Father, speak as you may in his behalf.

Philip
 * King John, be good unto thy nephew here,
 * And give him somewhat that shall please thee best.

John
 * Arthur, although thou troublest England’s peace,
 * Yet here I give thee Brittany for thine own,
 * Together with the earldom of Richmond,
 * And this rich city of Angiers withal.

Queen Eleanor
 * And if thou seek to please thine uncle John,
 * Shalt see, my son, how I will make of thee.

John
 * Now everything is sorted to this end,
 * Let’s in and there prepare the marriage rites,
 * Which in Saint Mary’s chapel presently
 * Shall be performed ere this presence part.

Exeunt. Manent Constance and Arthur.

Arthur
 * Madam, good cheer, these drooping languishments
 * Add us redress to salve our awkward haps.
 * If heavens have concluded these events,
 * To small avail is bitter pensiveness.
 * Seasons will change, and so our present grief
 * May change with them, and all to our relief.

Constance
 * Ah boy, thy years I see are far to green
 * To look into the bottom of these cares.
 * But I, who see the poise that weigheth down
 * Thy weal, my wish, and all the willing means
 * Wherewith thy fortune and thy fame should mount,
 * What joy, what ease, what rest can lodge in me,
 * With whom all hope and hap doth disagree?

Arthur
 * Yet lady’s tears, and cares, and solemn shows,
 * Rather than helps, heap up more work for woes.

Constance
 * If any power will hear a widow’s plaint,
 * That from a wounded soul implores revenge,
 * Send fell contagion to infect this clime,
 * This cursed country, where the traitor’s breath
 * Whose perjury as proud Briareus,
 * Beleaguers all the sky with misbelief.
 * He promised Arthur, and he sware it too,
 * To fence thy right, and check thy foeman’s pride:
 * But now black-spotted perjure as he is,
 * He takes a truce with Eleanor’s damned brat,
 * And marries Lewis to her lovely niece,
 * Sharing thy fortune, and thy birthday’s gift
 * Between these lovers—ill betide the match.
 * And as they shoulder thee from out thy own,
 * And triumph in a widow’s tearful cares,
 * So heavens cross them with a thriftless course.
 * Is all the blood yspilt on either part,
 * Closing the cranies of the thirsty earth,
 * Grown to a lovegame and a bridal feast?
 * And must thy birthright bid the wedding bans?
 * Poor helpless boy, hopeless and helpless too,
 * To whom misfortune seems no yoke at all.
 * Thy stay, thy state, thy imminent mishaps
 * Woundeth thy mother’s thoughts with feeling care,
 * Why look’st thou pale? The color flies thy face.
 * I trouble now the fountain of thy youth,
 * And make it moody with my dole’s discourse.
 * Go in with me, reply not, lovely boy;
 * We must obscure this moan with melody,
 * Lest worser wrack ensue our malcontent.

Exeunt.

Scene 5
Enter the King of England, the King of France, Arthur, Bastard, Lewis, Lymoges, Constance, Blanche, Chatillon, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Eleanor.

John
 * This is the day, the long desired day,
 * Wherein the realms of England and of France
 * Stand highly blessed in a lasting peace.
 * Thrice happy is the bridegroom and the bride,
 * From whose sweet bridal such a concord springs,
 * To make of mortal foes immortal friends.

Constance
 * Ungodly peace made by another’s war.

Philip [=Bastard]
 * Unhappy peace, that ties thee from revenge.
 * Rouse thee, Plantagenet; live not to see
 * The butcher of the great Plantagenet.
 * Kings, princes, and ye peers of either realms,
 * Pardon my rashness, and forgive the zeal
 * That carries me in fury to a deed
 * Of high desert, of honor, and of arms.
 * A boon, O kings, a boon doth Philip beg
 * Prostrate upon his knee, which knee shall cleave
 * Unto the superficies of the earth,
 * Till France and England grant this glorious boon.

John
 * Speak, Philip; England grants thee thy request.

[King] Philip
 * And France confirms what e’er is in his power.

Bastard
 * Then, duke, sit fast; I level at thy head,
 * Too base a ransom for my father’s life.
 * Princes, I crave the combat with the duke
 * That braves it in dishonor of my sire.
 * Your words are past, nor can you now reverse
 * The princely promise that revives my soul,
 * Whereat methinks I see his sinews shake.
 * This is the boon, dread lords, which granted once
 * Or life or death are pleasant to my soul,
 * Since I shall live and die in Richard’s right.

Lymoges
 * Base bastard, misbegotten of a king,
 * To interrupt these holy nuptial rites
 * With brawls and tumults to a duke’s disgrace—
 * Let it suffice, I scorn to join in fight,
 * With one so far unequal to myself.

Bastard
 * A fine excuse, kings if you will be kings,
 * Then keep your words, and let us combat it.

John
 * Philip, we cannot force the duke to fight,
 * Being a subject unto neither realm:
 * But tell me, Austria, if an English duke
 * Should dare thee thus, wouldst thou accept the challenge?

Lymoges
 * Else let the world account the Austrich duke
 * The greatest coward living on the earth.

John
 * Then cheer thee, Philip, John will keep his word.
 * Kneel down; in sight of Philip king of France
 * And all these princely lords assembled here,
 * I gird thee with the sword of Normandy,
 * And of that land I do invest thee duke;
 * So shalt thou be in living and in land
 * Nothing inferior unto Austria.

Lymoges
 * King John, I tell thee flatly to thy face
 * Thou wrongst mine honor; and that thou may’st see
 * How much I scorn thy new-made duke and thee,
 * I flatly say I will not be compelled!
 * And so farewell Sir Duke of low degree,
 * I’ll find a time to match you for this gear.

Exit.

John
 * Stay, Philip, let him go, the honor’s thine.

Bastard
 * I cannot live unless his life be mine.

Queen Eleanor
 * Thy forwardness this day hath joyed my soul,
 * And made me think my Richard lives in thee.

King Philip
 * Lordings let’s in, and spend the wedding day
 * In masques and triumphs, letting quarrels cease.

Enter a Cardinal from Rome.

Cardinal
 * Stay, king of France, I charge thee join not hands
 * With him that stands accursed of god and men.
 * Know, John, that I, Pandulph, cardinal of Milan, and legate from
 * the see of Rome, demand of thee in the name of our holy father the
 * Pope Innocent, why thou dost, contrary to the laws of our holy mother
 * the church, and our holy father the pope, disturb the quiet of the
 * church, and disanull the election of Stephen Langton, whom his holiness
 * hath elected archbishop of Canterbury: this in his holiness’ name I
 * demand of thee.

John
 * And what hast thou or the Pope thy master to do to demand of me, how I
 * employ mine own? Know Sir Priest, as I honor the church and holy
 * churchmen, so I scorn to be subject to the greatest prelate in the world.
 * Tell thy master so from me, and say, John of England said it, that never
 * an Italian priest of them all, shall either have tithe, toll, or poling
 * penny out of England, but as I am king, so will I reign next under God,
 * supreme head both over spiritual and temporal: and he that contradicts
 * me in this, I’ll make him hop headless.

King Philip
 * What King John, know you what you say, thus to blaspheme against our
 * holy father the Pope?

John
 * Philip, though thou and all the princes of Christendom suffer themselves
 * to be abused by a prelate’s slavery, my mind is not of such base temper.
 * If the pope will be king in England, let him win it with the sword; I
 * know no other title he can allege to mine inheritance.

Cardinal
 * John, this is thine answer?

John
 * What then?

Cardinal
 * Then I Pandulph of Padua, legate from the apostolic see, do in the name of
 * Saint Peter and his successor our holy father Pope Innocent, pronounce thee
 * accursed, discharging every of thy subjects of all duty and fealty that they
 * do owe to thee, and pardon and forgiveness of sin to those of them whatsoever,
 * which shall carry arms against thee, or murder thee: this I pronounce, and
 * charge all good men to abhor thee as an excommunicate person.

John
 * So sir, the more the fox is cursed the better a fares; if God bless me and my
 * land, let the pope and his shavelings curse and spare not.

Cardinal
 * Furthermore, I charge thee, Philip king of France, and all the kings and
 * princes of Christendom, to make war upon this miscreant: and whereas thou hast
 * made a league with him, and confirmed it by oath, I do in the name of our
 * foresaid father the pope, acquit thee of that oath as unlawful, being made
 * with an heretic—how say’st thou, Philip, dost thou obey?

John
 * Brother of France, what say you to the cardinal?

Philip
 * I say, I am sorry for your Majesty, requesting you to submit yourself to the
 * church of Rome.

John
 * And what say you to our league, if I do not submit?

Philip
 * What should I say? I must obey the pope.

John
 * Obey the pope, and break your oath to God?

Philip
 * The legate hath absolved me of mine oath;
 * Then yield to Rome, or I defy thee here.

John
 * Why, Philip, I defy the pope and thee,
 * False as thou art, and perjured king of France,
 * Unworthy man to be accompted king.
 * Giv’st thou thy sword into a prelate’s hands?
 * Pandulph, where I of abbots, monks and friars
 * Have taken somewhat to maintain my wars,
 * Now will I take no more but all they have.
 * I’ll rouse the lazy lubbers from their cells,
 * And in despite I’ll send them to the pope.
 * Mother, come you with me, and for the rest
 * That will not follow John in this attempt,
 * Confusion light upon their damned souls.
 * Come lords, fight for your king that fighteth for your good.

Philip
 * And are they gone? Pandulph, thyself shalt see
 * How France will fight for Rome and romish rites.
 * Nobles, to arms, let him not pass the seas.
 * Let’s take him captive, and in triumph lead
 * The king of England to the gates of Rome.
 * Arthur, bestir thee man, and thou shalt see
 * What Philip king of France will do for thee.

Blanche
 * And will your grace upon your wedding day
 * Forsake your bride and follow dreadful drums?
 * Nay, good my lord, stay you at home with me.

Lewis
 * Sweetheart, content thee, and we shall agree.

Philip
 * Follow me lords, Lord Cardinal lead the way,
 * Drums shall be music to this wedding day.

Exeunt.

Scene 6
Excursions: the Bastard pursues Austria, and kills him.

Bastard
 * Thus hath King Richard’s son performed his vows,
 * And offered Austria’s blood for sacrifice
 * Unto his father’s everlasting soul.
 * Brave Coeur de Lion, now my heart doth say
 * I have deserved—though not to be thy heir
 * Yet as I am, thy base-begotten son—
 * A name as pleasing to thy Philip’s heart
 * As to be called the Duke of Normandy.
 * Lie there, a prey to every ravening fowl,
 * And as my father triumphed in thy spoils,
 * And trod thine ensigns underneath his feet,
 * So do I tread upon thy cursed self,
 * And leave thy body to the fowls for food.

Exit.

Scene 7
Excursions: Arthur, Constance, Lewis, having taken Queen Eleanor prisoner.

Constance
 * Thus hath the God of kings with conquering arm
 * Dispersed the foes to true succession.
 * Proud, and disturber of thy country’s peace,
 * Constance doth live to tame thine insolence,
 * And on thy head will now avenged be
 * For all the mischiefs hatched in thy brain.

Queen Eleanor
 * Contemptuous dame, unreverent duchess thou,
 * To brave so great a queen as Eleanor.
 * Base scold, hast thou forgot that I was wife,
 * And mother to three mighty English kings?
 * I charge thee then, and you forsooth, sir boy,
 * To set your grandmother at liberty.
 * And yield to John your uncle and your king.

Constance
 * ‘Tis not thy words, proud queen, shall carry it.

Eleanor
 * Nor yet thy threats, proud dame, shall daunt my mind.

Arthur
 * Sweet grandam, and good mother, leave these brawls.

Eleanor
 * I’ll find a time to triumph in thy fall.

Constance
 * My time is now to triumph in thy fall,
 * And thou shalt know that Constance will triumph.

Arthur
 * Good mother, weigh it is Queen Eleanor;
 * Though she be captive, use her like herself.
 * Sweet grandam, bear with what my mother says,
 * Your Highness shall be used honorably.

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger
 * Lewis my lord, Duke Arthur, and the rest,
 * To arms in haste, King John rallies &lt;Q relyes&gt; his men,
 * And ‘gins the fight afresh; and swears withal
 * To lose his life, or set his mother free.

Lewis
 * Arthur away, ‘tis time to look about.

Eleanor
 * Why how now dame? What, is your courage cooled?

Constance
 * No Eleanor, my courage gathers strength,
 * And hopes to lead both John and thee as slaves—
 * And in that hope, I hale thee to the field.

Exeunt.

Scene 8
Excursions. Eleanor is rescued by John, and Arthur is taken prisoner. Exeunt. Sound victory.

Scene 9
Enter John, Eleanor, and Arthur prisoner, Bastard, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Hubert de burgh.

John
 * Thus right triumphs, and John triumphs in right.
 * Arthur, thou seest, France cannot bolster thee;
 * Thy mother’s pride hath brought thee to this fall.
 * But if at last, nephew, thou yield thyself
 * Into the guardance of thine uncle John,
 * Thou shalt be used as becomes a prince.

Arthur
 * Uncle, my grandam taught her nephew this,
 * To bear captivity with patience.
 * Might hath prevailed, not right, for I am king
 * Of England, though thou wear the diadem.

Queen Eleanor
 * Son John, soon shall we teach him to forget
 * These proud presumptions, and to know himself.

John
 * Mother, he never will forget his claim;
 * I would he lived not to remember it.
 * But leaving this, we will to England now,
 * And take some order with our popelings there,
 * That swell with pride, and fat of laymen’s lands.
 * Philip, I make thee chief in this affair;
 * Ransack the abbeys, cloisters, priories,
 * Convert their coin unto my soldiers’ use;
 * And whatsoe’er he be within my land,
 * That goes to Rome for justice and for law,
 * While he may have his right within the realm,
 * Let him be judged a traitor to the state,
 * And suffer as an enemy to England.
 * Mother, we leave you here beyond the seas
 * As regent of our provinces in France,
 * While we to England take a speedy course,
 * And thank our God that gave us victory.
 * Hubert de Burgh, take Arthur here to thee;
 * Be he thy prisoner. Hubert, keep him safe,
 * For on his life doth hang thy sovereign’s crown,
 * But in his death consists thy sovereign’s bliss.
 * Then Hubert, as thou shortly hear’st from me,
 * So use the prisoner I have given in charge.

Hubert
 * Frolic, young prince, though I your keeper be,
 * Yet shall your keeper live at your command.

Arthur
 * As please my god, so shall become of me.

Queen Eleanor
 * My son to England, I will see thee shipped,
 * And pray to God to send thee safe ashore.

Bastard
 * Now wars are done I long to be at home
 * To dive into the monks’ and abbots’ bags,
 * To make some sport among the smooth-skin nuns,
 * And keep some revel with the Fanzen Friars.

John
 * To England, lords; each look unto your charge
 * And arm yourselves against the Roman pride.

Exeunt.

Scene 10
Enter the King [Philip] of France, Lewis his son, Cardinal Pandulph Legate, and Constance.

[King] Philip
 * What, every man attached with this mishap?
 * Why frown you so; why droop ye lords of France?
 * Methinks it differs from a warlike mind
 * To lower it for a check or two of chance.
 * Had Lymoges escaped the bastard’s spite
 * A little sorrow might have served our loss.
 * Brave Austria, heaven joys to have thee there.

Cardinal
 * His soul is safe and free from purgatory;
 * Our holy father hath dispensed his sins,
 * The blessed saints have heard our orisons,
 * And all are mediators for his soul,
 * And in the right of these most holy wars,
 * His Holiness free pardon doth pronounce
 * To all that follow you gainst English heretics,
 * Who stand accursed in our mother church.

Enter Constance alone.

[King] Philip
 * To aggravate the measure of our grief,
 * All malcontent comes Constance for her son.
 * Be brief, good madam, for your face imports
 * A tragic tale behind that’s yet untold.
 * Her passions stop the organ of her voice,
 * Deep sorrow throbbeth misbefallen events.
 * Out with it lady, that our act may end
 * A full catastrophe of sad laments.

Constance
 * My tongue is tuned to story forth mishap;
 * When did I breath to tell a pleasing tale?
 * Must Constance speak? let tears prevent her talk.
 * Must I discourse? let Dido sigh and say
 * She weeps again to hear the wrack of Troy.
 * Two words will serve, and then my tale is done:
 * Eleanor’s proud brat hath robbed me of my son.

Lewis
 * Have patience, madam, this is chance of war;
 * He may be ransomed, we revenge his wrong.

Constance
 * Be it ne’er so soon, I shall not live so long.

[King] Philip
 * Despair not yet, come Constance, go with me,
 * These clouds will fleet, the day will clear again.

Exeunt.

Cardinal
 * Now Lewis, thy fortune buds with happy spring;
 * Our Holy Father’s prayers effecteth this.
 * Arthur is safe, let John alone with him,
 * Thy title next is fair’st to England’s crown.
 * Now stir thy father to begin with John;
 * The pope says aye, and so is Albion thine.

Lewis
 * Thanks, my lord legate, for your good conceit,
 * ‘Tis best we follow now the game is fair;
 * My father wants to work him your good words.

Cardinal
 * A few will serve to forward him in this,
 * Those shall not want: but let’s about it then.

Exeunt.

Scene 11
Enter Philip leading a Friar, charging him to show where the Abbot’s gold lay.

Philip
 * Come on, you fat Franciscans, dally no longer, but show me where
 * the Abbot’s treasure lies, or die.

Friar
 * Benedicamus Domini, was ever such an injury.
 * Sweet Saint Withold of thy lenity, defend us from extremity,
 * And hear us for Saint Charity, oppressed with austerity.
 * In nomini Domini, make I my homily,
 * Gentle gentility, grieve not the clergy.

Philip
 * Gray gowned good face, conjure ye, ne’er trust me for a groat,
 * If this waist girdle hang thee not that girdeth in thy coat.
 * Now, bald and barefoot bungie birds, when up the gallows climbing,
 * Say Philip he had words enough to put you down with rhyming.

Friar
 * A pardon, O parce, Saint Francis for mercy
 * Shall shield thee from nightspells and dreaming of devils;
 * If thou wilt forgive me, and never more grieve me
 * With fasting and praying, and Hail Mary saying.
 * From black purgatory a penance right sorry,
 * Friar Thomas will warm you, it shall never harm you.

Philip
 * Come, leave off your rabble—sirs, hang up this lozel.

2 Friar
 * For charity I beg his life, Saint Francis’ chiefest friar,
 * The best in all our convent, sir, to keep a winter’s fire.
 * O strangle not the good old man, my hostess’ oldest guest,
 * And I will bring you, by and by, unto the prior’s chest.

Philip
 * Aye, say’st thou so, and if thou wilt the friar is at liberty;
 * If not, as I am honest man, I’ll hang you both for company.

Friar
 * Come hither; this is the chest, though simple to behold,
 * That wanteth not a thousand pound in silver and in gold.
 * Myself will warrant full so much—I know the abbot’s store—
 * I’ll pawn my life there is no less to have whate’er is more.

Philip
 * I take thy word, the overplus unto thy share shall come,
 * But if there want of full so much, thy neck shall pay the sum.
 * Break up the coffer, friar.

Friar
 * Oh I am undone; fair Alice the nun
 * Hath took up her rest in the abbot’s chest.
 * Sancte benedicite, pardon my simplicity.
 * Fie, Alice, confession will not salve this transgression.

Philip
 * What have we here—a holy nun? So keep me God in health,
 * A smooth-faced nun—for aught I know—is all the abbot’s wealth.
 * Is this the nunnery’s chastity? Beshrew me but I think
 * They go as oft to venery as niggards to their drink.
 * Why paltry friar and pandar too, ye shameless shaven crown,
 * Is this the chest that held a hoard, at least a thousand pound?
 * And is the hoard a holy whore? Well be the hangman nimble,
 * He’ll take the pain to pay you home, and teach you to dissemble.

Nun
 * O spare the friar Anthony; a better never was
 * To sing a dirge solemnly, or read a morning mass.
 * If money be the means of this, I know an ancient nun,
 * That hath a hoard this seven years, did never see the sun;
 * And that is yours, and what is ours, so favor now be shown,
 * You shall command as commonly, as if it were your own.

Friar
 * Your honor excepted.

Nun
 * Aye, Thomas, I mean so.

Philip
 * From all save from friars.

Nun
 * Good sir, do not think so.

Philip
 * I think and see so: why how cam’st thou here?

Friar
 * To hide her from laymen.

Nun
 * ‘Tis true, sir, for fear.

Philip
 * For fear of the laity—a pitiful dread
 * When a nun flies for succor to a fat friar’s bed.
 * But now for your ransom, my cloister-bred coney,
 * To the chest that you speak of where lies so much money.

Nun
 * Fair sir, within this press, of plate and money is
 * The value of a thousand marks, and other things by gis.
 * Let us alone, and take it all, ‘tis yours, sir, now you know it.

Philip
 * Come on, sir friar, pick the lock, this gear doth cotton handsome,
 * That covetousness so cunningly must pay the lecher’s ransom.
 * What is in the hoard?

Friar
 * Friar Lawrence, my lord, now holy water help us,
 * Some witch, or some devil is sent to delude us.
 * Haud credo laurentius, that thou shouldst be penned thus
 * In the press of a nun we are all undone,
 * And brought to discredence if thou be Friar Lawrence.

Friar
 * Amor vincit omnia, so Cato affirmeth,
 * And therefore a friar whose fancy soon burneth,
 * Because he is mortal and made of mold,
 * He omits what he ought and doth more than he should.

Philip
 * How goes this gear? the friar’s chest filled with a fausen nun,
 * The nun again locks friar up, to keep him from the sun.
 * Belike the press is purgatory, or penance passing grievous:
 * The friars’ chest a hell for nuns. How do these dolts deceive us?
 * Is this the labor of their lives to feed and live at ease,
 * To revel so lasciviously as often as they please?
 * I’ll mend the fault or fault my aim, if I do miss amending.
 * ‘Tis better burn the cloisters down than leave them for offending.
 * But holy you, to you I speak, to you religious devil,
 * Is this the press that holds the sum to quite you for your evil?

Nun
 * I cry peccavi, parce me; good sir, I was beguiled.

Friar
 * Absolve, sir, for charity she would be reconciled.

Philip
 * And so I shall—sirs, bind them fast, this is their absolution.
 * Go hang them up for hurting them, haste them to execution.

Friar Lawrence
 * O tempus edax rerum,
 * Give children books, they tear them.
 * O vanitas vanitatis, in this waning aetatis,
 * At threescore well near to go to this gear,
 * To my conscience a clog to die like a dog.
 * Exaudi me Domine, si vis me parce
 * Dabo pecuniam, si habeo veniam.
 * To go and fetch it, I will dispatch it,
 * A hundred pound sterling for my lives’ sparing.

Enter Peter a prophet, with people.

Peter
 * Ho, who is here? Saint Francis be your speed,
 * Come in, my flock, and follow me, your fortunes I will read.
 * Come hither boy, go get thee home, and climb not overhigh:
 * For from aloft thy fortunes stand in hazard; thou shalt die.

Boy
 * God be with you, Peter, I pray you come to our house a Sunday.

Peter
 * My boy, show me thy hand; bless thee my boy,
 * For in thy palm I see a many troubles are ybent to dwell,
 * But thou shalt scape them all and do full well.

Boy
 * I thank you Peter—there’s a cheese for your labor. My sister
 * prays ye to come home, and tell her how many husbands she shall
 * have, and she’ll give you a rib of bacon.

Peter
 * My masters, stay at the town’s end for me; I’ll come to you all
 * anon. I must dispatch some business with a friar, and then I’ll
 * read your fortunes.

Philip
 * How now, a prophet? Sir prophet whence are ye?

Peter
 * I am of the world and in the world, but live not as others by the
 * world. What I am I know, and what thou wilt be I know.  If thou
 * knowest me now be answered; if not, enquire no more what I am.

Philip
 * Sir, I know you will be a dissembling knave, that deludes the
 * people with blind prophecies. You are him I look for; you shall
 * away with me; bring away all the rabble, and you Friar Lawrence,
 * remember your ransom, a hundred pound, and a pardon for yourself,
 * and the rest come on. Sir prophet, you shall with me, to receive
 * a prophet’s reward.

Scene 12
Enter Hubert de Burgh with three men.

Hubert
 * My masters, I have showed you what warrant I have for this attempt;
 * I perceive by your heavy countenances, you had rather be otherwise
 * employed, and for my own part, I would the king had made choice of
 * some other executioner. Only this is my comfort, that a king commands,
 * whose precepts neglected or omitted, threat’neth torture for the default.
 * Therefore in brief, leave me, and be ready to attend the adventure; stay
 * within that entry, and when you hear me cry, “God save the king,” issue
 * suddenly forth, lay hands on Arthur, set him in this chair, wherein—once
 * fast bound—leave him with me to finish the rest.

Attendants
 * We go, though loath.

Exeunt.

Hubert
 * My lord, will it please your honor to take the benefit of the fair evening?

Enter Arthur to Hubert de Burgh.

Arthur
 * Gramercie, Hubert, for thy care of me.
 * In or to whom restraint is newly known
 * The joy of walking is small benefit,
 * Yet will I take thy offer with small thanks.
 * I would not lose the pleasure of the eye.
 * But tell me courteous keeper, if you can,
 * How long the king will have me tarry here.

Hubert
 * I know not, prince, but as I guess, not long.
 * God send you freedom, and God save the king.

They issue forth.

Arthur
 * Why how now, sirs; what may this outrage mean?
 * O help me, Hubert, gentle keeper, help!
 * God send this sudden mutinous approach
 * Tend not to reave a wretched guiltless life.

Hubert
 * So, sirs, depart, and leave the rest for me.

Arthur
 * Then Arthur, yield; death frowneth in thy face—
 * What meaneth this? Good Hubert, plead the case.

Hubert
 * Patience, young lord, and listen words of woe,
 * Harmful and harsh, hell’s horror to be heard—
 * A dismal tale fit for a fury’s tongue—
 * I faint to tell, deep sorrow is the sound.

Arthur
 * What, must I die?

Hubert
 * No news of death, but tidings of more hate,
 * A wrathful doom, and most unlucky fate;
 * Death’s dish were dainty at so fell a feast,
 * Be deaf, hear not, it’s hell to tell the rest.

Arthur
 * Alas, thou wrong’st my youth with words of fear—
 * ‘Tis hell, ‘tis horror, not for one to hear—
 * What is it, man? If it must needs be done,
 * Act it and end it, that the pain were gone.

Hubert
 * I will not chant such dolor with my tongue,
 * Yet must I act the outrage with my hand.
 * My heart, my head, and all my powers beside,
 * Peruse this letter, lines of treble woe,
 * Read o’er my charge, and pardon when you know.
 * Hubert, these are to command thee, as thou tend’rest our quiet in
 * mind and the estate of our person, that presently upon the receipt
 * of our command, thou put out the eyes of Arthur Plantagenet.

Arthur
 * Ah monstrous damned man, his very breath infects the elements,
 * Contagious venom dwelleth in his heart,
 * Effecting means to poison all the world.
 * Unreverent may I be to blame the heavens
 * Of great injustice, that the miscreant
 * Lives to oppress the innocents with wrong.
 * Ah, Hubert, makes he thee his instrument
 * To sound the tromp that causeth hell triumph?
 * Heaven weeps, the saints do shed celestial tears,
 * They fear thy fall, and cite thee with remorse,
 * They knock thy conscience, moving pity there,
 * Willing to fence thee from the rage of hell—
 * Hell, Hubert, trust me, all the plagues of hell
 * Hangs on performance of this damned deed.
 * This seal, the warrant of the body’s bliss,
 * Ensureth Satan chieftain of thy soul;
 * Subscribe not, Hubert, give not God’s part away.
 * I speak not only for eyes’ privilege,
 * The chief exterior that I would enjoy;
 * But for thy peril, far beyond my pain,
 * Thy sweet soul’s loss, more than my eyes’ vain lack;
 * A cause internal, and eternal too.
 * Advise thee Hubert, for the case is hard,
 * To lose salvation for a king’s reward.

Hubert
 * My lord, a subject dwelling in the land
 * Is tied to execute the king’s command.

Arthur
 * Yet God commands, whose power reacheth further,
 * That no command should stand in force to murther.

Hubert
 * But this same essence hath ordained a law,
 * A death for guilt, to keep the world in awe.

Arthur
 * I plead not guilty, treasonless and free.

Hubert
 * But that appeal, my lord, concerns not me.

Arthur
 * Why, thou art he that may’st omit the peril.

Hubert
 * Aye, if my sovereign would remit his quarrel.

Arthur
 * His quarrel is unhallowed false and wrong.

Hubert
 * Then be the blame to whom it doth belong.

Arthur
 * Why that’s to thee if thou as they proceed,
 * Conclude their judgement with so vile a deed.

Hubert
 * Why then no execution can be lawful,
 * If judge’s dooms must be reputed doubtful.

Arthur
 * Yes where in form of law in place and time,
 * The offender is convicted of the crime.

Hubert
 * My lord, my lord, this long expostulation
 * Heaps up more grief than promise of redress.
 * For this I know, and so resolved I end,
 * That subjects’ lives on kings’ commands depend.
 * I must not reason why he is your foe,
 * But do his charge since he commands it so.

Arthur
 * Then do thy charge, and charged be thy soul
 * With wrongful persecution done this day.
 * You rowling eyes, whose superficies yet
 * I do behold with eyes that nature lent,
 * Send forth the terror of your mover’s frown,
 * To wreak my wrong upon the murderers
 * That rob me of your fair reflecting view:
 * Let hell to them—as earth thy wish to me—
 * Be dark and direfull guerdon for their guilt,
 * And let the black tormenters of deep Tartary
 * Upbraid them with this damned enterprise,
 * Inflicting change of tortures on their souls.
 * Delay not Hubert, my orisons are ended,
 * Begin I pray thee, reave me of my sight;
 * But to perform a tragedy indeed,
 * Conclude the period with a mortal stab.
 * Constance farewell, tormentor come away,
 * Make my dispatch the tyrant’s feasting day.

Hubert
 * I faint, I fear, my conscience bids desist!
 * Faint, did I say? Fear was it that I named?
 * My king commands, that warrant sets me free:
 * But God forbids, and he commandedeth kings.
 * That great commander counterchecks my charge,
 * He stays my hand, he maketh soft my heart.
 * Go cursed tools, your office is exempt,
 * Cheer thee young lord, thou shalt not lose an eye,
 * Though I shold purchase it with loss of life.
 * I’ll to the king, and say his will is done,
 * And of the langor tell him thou art dead.
 * Go in with me, for Hubert was not born
 * To blind those lamps that nature polished so.

Arthur
 * Hubert, if ever Arthur be in state,
 * Look for amends of this received gift;
 * I took my eyesight by thy courtesy,
 * Thou lent’st them me, I will not be ingrate.
 * But now procrastination may offend
 * Depart we Hubert to prevent the worst.

Exeunt.

Scene 13
Enter King John, Essex, Salisbury, Pembroke.

John
 * Now warlike followers resteth aught undone
 * That may impeach us of fond oversight?
 * The French have felt the temper of our swords,
 * Cold terror keeps possession in their souls,
 * Checking their overdaring arrogance
 * For buckling with so great an overmatch.
 * The arch proud titled priest of Italy,
 * That calls himself grand vicar under God
 * Is busied now with trental obsequies,
 * Mass and months mind, dirge and I know not what
 * To ease their souls in painful purgatory,
 * That have miscarried in these bloody wars.
 * Heard you not, lords, when first his Holiness
 * Had tidings of our small account of him,
 * How with a taunt vaunting upon his toes
 * He urged a reason why the English ass
 * Disdained the blessed ordinance of Rome?
 * The title—reverently might I infer—
 * Became the kings that erst have borne the load,
 * The slavish weight of that controlling priest,
 * Who at his pleasure tempered them like wax
 * To carry arms on danger of his curse,
 * Banding their souls with warrants of his hand.
 * I grieve to think how kings in ages past,
 * Simply devoted to the see of Rome,
 * Have run into a thousand acts of shame.
 * But now for confirmation of our state,
 * Sith we have proyned the more than needful branch
 * That did oppress the true well-growing stock,
 * It resteth we throughout our territories
 * Be reproclaimed and invested king.

Pembroke
 * My liege, that were to busy men with doubts.
 * Once were you crowned, proclaimed, and with applause
 * Your city streets have echoed to the ear,
 * “God save the king, God save our sovereign John!”
 * Pardon my fear; my censure doth infer
 * Your Highness not deposed from regal state,
 * Would breed a mutiny in people’s minds,
 * What it should mean to have you crowned again.

John
 * Pembroke, perform what I have bid thee do,
 * Thou know’st not what induceth me to this.
 * Essex, go in, and lordings all be gone
 * About this task; I will be crowned anon.

Enter the Bastard.


 * Philip, what news, how do the abbots’ chests?
 * Are friars fatter than the nuns are fair?
 * What cheer with churchmen—had they gold or no?
 * Tell me how hath thy office tooke effect?

Philip
 * My lord, I have performed your Highness’ charge:
 * The ease-bred abbots and the barefoot friars,
 * The monks, the priors and holy cloistered nuns
 * Are all in health, and were, my lord, in wealth,
 * Till I had tithed and told their holy hoards.
 * I doubt not when your Highness sees thy prize,
 * You may proportion all their former pride.

John
 * Why so, now sorts it, Philip, as it should:
 * This small intrusion into abbey trunks
 * Will make the popelings excommunicate,
 * Curse, ban, and breathe out damned orisons,
 * As thick as hailstones ‘fore the spring’s approach;
 * But yet as harmless and without effect,
 * As is the echo of a cannon’s crack
 * Discharged against the battlements of heaven.
 * But what news else befell there, Philip?

Bastard
 * Strange news, my lord: within your territories,
 * Near Pomfret is a prophet new sprung up,
 * Whose divination volleys wonders forth;
 * To him the commons throng with country gifts.
 * He sets a date unto the beldame’s death,
 * Prescribes how long the virgin’s state shall last,
 * Distinguisheth the moving of the heavens,
 * Gives limits unto holy nuptial rites,
 * Foretelleth famine, aboundeth plenty forth,
 * Of fate, of fortune, life and death he chats,
 * With such assurance, scruples put apart,
 * As if he knew the certain dooms of heaven,
 * Or kept a register of all the destinies.

John
 * Thou tell’st me marvels, would thou hadst brought the man;
 * We might have questioned him of things to come.

Bastard
 * My lord, I took a care of “had I wist,”
 * And brought the prophet with me to the court.
 * He stays, my lord, but at the presence door;
 * Pleaseth your Highness, I will call him in.

John
 * Nay, stay awhile; we’ll have him here anon.
 * A thing of weight is first to be performed.

Enter the nobles and crown King John, and then cry “God save the king”.

John
 * Lordings and friends, supporters of our state,
 * Admire not at this unaccustomed course,
 * Nor in your thoughts blame not this deed of yours.
 * Once ere this time was I invested king,
 * Your fealty sworn as liegemen to our state;
 * Once since that time ambitious weeds have sprung
 * To stain the beauty of our garden plot;
 * But heavens in our conduct rooting thence
 * The false intruders, breakers of world’s peace,
 * Have to our joy, made sunshine chase the storm.
 * After the which, to try your constancy
 * That now I see is worthy of your names,
 * We craved once more your helps for to invest us
 * Into the right that envy sought to wrack.
 * Once was I not deposed, your former choice,
 * Now twice been crowned and applauded king;
 * Your cheered action to install me so,
 * Infers assured witness of your loves,
 * And binds me over in a kingly care
 * To render love with love, rewards of worth
 * To balance down requital to the full.
 * But thanks the while, thanks, lordings, to you all;
 * Ask me and use me, try me and find me yours.

Essex
 * A boon, my lord, at vantage of your words
 * We ask to guerdon all our loyalties.

Pembroke
 * We take the time your Highness bids us ask:
 * Please it you grant, you make your promise good,
 * With lesser loss than one superfluous hair
 * That not remembered falleth from your head.

John
 * My word is past; receive your boon, my lords.
 * What may it be? Ask it, and it is yours.

Essex
 * We crave, my lord, to please the commons with
 * The liberty of Lady Constance’ son:
 * Whose durance darkeneth your Highness’ right,
 * As if you kept him prisoner, to the end
 * Yourself were doubtful of the thing you have.
 * Dismiss him thence; your Highness needs not fear,
 * Twice by consent you are proclaimed our king.

Pembroke
 * This, if you grant, were all unto your good;
 * For simple people muse you keep him close.

John
 * Your words have searched the center of my thoughts
 * Confirming warrant of your loyalties,
 * Dismiss your counsel, sway my state,
 * Let John do nothing but by your consents.
 * Why how now, Philip—what ecstasy is this?
 * Why casts thou up thy eyes to heaven so?
 * There the five moons appear.

Bastard
 * See, see my lord, strange apparitions.
 * Glancing mine eye to see the diadem
 * Placed by the bishops on your Highness’ head,
 * From forth a gloomy cloud, which curtain-like
 * Displayed itself, I suddenly espied
 * Five moons reflecting, as you see them now.
 * Even in the moment that the crown was placed
 * Gan they appear, holding the course you see.

John
 * What might portend these apparitions,
 * Unusual signs, forerunners of event,
 * Presagers of strange terror to the world?
 * Believe me, lords, the object fears me much.
 * Philip, thou told’st me of me of [sic] wizard late.
 * Fetch in the man to descant of this show.

Pembroke
 * The heavens frown upon the sinful earth,
 * When with prodigious unaccustomed signs
 * They spot their superficies with such wonder.

Essex
 * Before the ruins of Jerusalem,
 * Such meteors were the ensigns of his wrath
 * That hast’ned to destroy the faultful town.

Enter the Bastard with the Prophet.

John
 * Is this the man?

Bastard
 * It is, my lord.

John
 * Prophet of Pomfret, for so I hear thou art,
 * That calculat’st of many things to come:
 * Who by a power replete with heavenly gift
 * Can’st blab the counsel of thy maker’s will.
 * If fame be true, or truth be wronged by thee,
 * Decide in ciphering what these five moons
 * Portend this clime, if they presage at all.
 * Breathe out thy gift, and if I live to see
 * Thy divination take a true effect,
 * I’ll honor thee above all earthly men.

Peter
 * The sky wherein these moons have residence
 * Presenteth Rome, the great metropolis
 * Where sits the Pope in all his holy pomp.
 * Four of the moons present four provinces,
 * To wit, Spain, Denmark, Germany, and France,
 * That bear the yoke of proud commanding Rome,
 * And stand in fear to tempt the prelate’s curse.
 * The smallest moon that whirls about the rest,
 * Impatient of the place he holds with them,
 * Doth figure forth this island Albion,
 * Who ‘gins to scorn the see and state of Rome,
 * And seeks to shun the edicts of the Pope.
 * This shows the heaven, and this I do aver
 * Is figured in these apparitions.

John
 * Why then it seems the heavens smile on us,
 * Giving applause for leaving of the Pope.
 * But for they chance in our meridian,
 * Do they effect no private growing ill
 * To be inflicted on us in this clime?

Peter
 * The moons effect no more than what I said;
 * But on some other knowledge that I have
 * By my prescience, ere Ascension day
 * Have brought the sun unto his usual height,
 * Of crown, estate, and royal dignity,
 * Thou shalt be clean despoiled and dispossessed.

John
 * False dreamer, perish with thy witched news,
 * Villain, thou wound’st me with thy fallacies;
 * If it be true, die for thy tidings’ price;
 * If false, for fearing me with vain suppose.
 * Hence with the witch, hell’s damned secretary.
 * Lock him up sure: for by my faith I swear,
 * True or not true, the wizard shall not live.
 * Before Ascension day—who should be cause hereof?
 * Cut off the cause and then the effect will die.
 * Tut, tut, my mercy serves to maim myself,
 * The root doth live, from whence these thorns spring up,
 * Aye, and my promise past for his deliv’ry?
 * Frown friends, fail faith, the devil go withal,
 * The brat shall die that terrifies me thus.
 * Pembroke and Essex, I recall my grant;
 * I will not buy your favors with my fear.
 * Nay, murmur not, my will is law enough;
 * I love you well, but if I loved you better,
 * I would not buy it with my discontent.

Enter Hubert.
 * How now, what news with thee?

Hubert
 * According to your Highness’ strict command
 * Young Arthur’s eyes are blinded and extinct.

John
 * Why so, then he may feel the crown, but never see it.

Hubert
 * Nor see nor feel, for of the extreme pain,
 * Within one hour gave he up the ghost.

John
 * What, is he dead?

Hubert
 * He is, my lord.

John
 * Then with him die my cares.

Essex
 * Now joy betide thy soul.

Pembroke
 * And heavens revenge thy death.

Essex
 * What have you done, my lord? Was ever heard
 * A deed of more inhumane consequence?
 * Your foes will curse, your friends will cry revenge.
 * Unkindly rage more rough than northern wind,
 * To chip the beauty of so sweet a flower.
 * What hope in us for mercy on a fault,
 * When kinsman dies without impeach of cause,
 * As you have done, so come to cheer you with,
 * The guilt shall never be cast me in my teeth.

Exeunt.

John
 * And are you gone? The devil be your guide:
 * Proud rebels as you are to brave me so:
 * Saucy, uncivil, checkers of my will.
 * Your tongues give edge unto the fatal knife:
 * That shall have passage through your trait’rous throats.
 * But hush’t, breathe not bug’s words too soon abroad,
 * Lest time prevent the issue of thy reach.
 * Arthur is dead, aye, there the corzie grows,
 * But while he lived, the danger was the more;
 * His death hath freed me from a thousand fears,
 * But it hath purchased me ten times ten thousand foes.
 * Why all is one; such luck shall haunt his game,
 * To whom the devil owes an open shame.
 * His life a foe that leveled at my crown,
 * His death a frame to pull my building down.
 * My thoughts harped still on quiet by his end,
 * Who living aimed shrewdly at my room:
 * But to prevent that plea twice was I crowned,
 * Twice did my subjects swear me fealty,
 * And in my conscience loved me as their liege,
 * In whose defense they would have pawned their lives.
 * But now they shun me as a serpent’s sting,
 * A tragic tyrant stern and pitiless,
 * And not a title follows after John,
 * But butcher, bloodsucker and murderer.
 * What planet governed my nativity,
 * To bode me sovereign types of high estate,
 * So interlaced with hellish discontent,
 * Wherein fell fury hath no interest?
 * Cursed be the crown, chief author of my care—
 * Nay, cursed my will that made the crown my care:
 * Cursed be my birthday, cursed ten times the womb
 * That yielded me alive into the world.
 * Art thou there, villain? Furies haunt thee still,
 * For killing him whom all the world laments.

Hubert
 * Why here’s my lord your Highness’ hand and seal,
 * Charging on live’s regard to do the deed.

John
 * Ah dull conceited peasant, know’st thou not
 * It was a damned execrable deed.
 * Show’st me a seal? Oh villain, both our souls
 * Have sold their freedom to the thrall of hell,
 * Under the warrant of that cursed seal.
 * Hence villain, hang thyself, and say in hell
 * That I am coming for a kingdom there.

Hubert
 * My lord, attend the happy tale I tell,
 * For heaven’s health send Satan packing hence
 * That instigates your Highness to despair.
 * If Arthur’s death be dismal to be heard,
 * Bandy the news for rumors of untruth:
 * He lives, my lord, the sweetest youth alive,
 * In health, with eyesight, not a hair amiss.
 * This heart took vigor from this forward hand,
 * Making it weak to execute your charge.

John
 * What, lives he? Then sweet hope come home again.
 * Chase hence despair, the purveyor for hell.
 * Hie Hubert, tell these tidings to my lords
 * That throb in passions for young Arthur’s death;
 * Hence Hubert, stay not till thou hast revealed
 * The wished news of Arthur’s happy health.
 * I go myself, the joyfull’st man alive
 * To story out this new supposed crime.

Exeunt.

Scene 14
Enter young Arthur on the walls.
 * Now help good hap to further mine intent,
 * Cross not my youth with any more extremes;
 * I venture life to gain my liberty,
 * And if I die, world’s troubles have an end.
 * Fear ‘gins dissuade the strength of my resolve—
 * My hold will fail, and then alas I fall,
 * And if I fall, no question death is next.
 * Better desist, and live in prison still.
 * Prison said I? Nay, rather death than so;
 * Comfort and courage come again to me.
 * I’ll venture sure—‘tis but a leap for life.

He leaps, and bruising his bones, after he was from his trance, speaks thus:
 * Ho, who is nigh? Somebody take me up.
 * Where is my mother? Let me speak with her.
 * Who hurts me thus? Speak ho—where are you gone?
 * Aye me, poor Arthur; I am here alone.
 * Why called I mother? How did I forget?
 * My fall, my fall, hath killed my mother’s son.
 * How will she weep at tidings of my death?
 * My death indeed; O God my bones are burst.
 * Sweet Jesu save my soul, forgive my rash attempt.
 * Comfort my mother, shield her from despair,
 * When she shall hear my tragic overthrow.
 * My heart controls the office of my tongue,
 * My vital powers forsake my bruised trunk,
 * I die, I die, heaven take my fleeting soul,
 * And lady mother all good hap to thee.

He dies.

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, Essex.

Essex
 * My lords of Pembroke and of Salisbury,
 * We must be careful in our policy
 * To undermine the keepers of this place,
 * Else shall we never find the prince’s grave.

Pembroke
 * My lord of Essex, take no care for that,
 * I warrant you it was not closely done.
 * But who is this? Lo, lords, the withered flower
 * Who in his life shined like the morning’s blush,
 * Cast out a door, denied his burial right,
 * A prey for birds and beasts to gorge upon.

Salisbury
 * O ruthful spectacle! O damned deed!
 * My sinews shake; my very heart doth bleed.

Essex
 * Leave childish tears, brave lords of England,
 * If water-floods could fetch his life again,
 * My eyes should conduit forth a sea of tears;
 * If sobs would help, or sorrows serve the turn,
 * My heart should volley out deep-piercing plaints.
 * But bootless wer’t to breathe as many sighs
 * As might eclipse the brightest summer’s sun;
 * Here rests the help, a service to his ghost.
 * Let not the tyrant, causer of this dole,
 * Live to triumph in ruthful massacres.
 * Give hand and heart, and Englishmen to arms,
 * ‘Tis God’s decree to wreak us of these harms.

Pembroke
 * The best advice—but who comes posting here?

Enter Hubert.

Hubert
 * Right noble lords, I speak unto you all:
 * The king entreats your soonest speed
 * To visit him, who on your present want
 * Did band and curse his birth, himself, and me,
 * For executing of his strict command.
 * I saw his passion, and at fittest time
 * Assured him of his cousin’s being safe,
 * Whom pity would not let me do to death.
 * He craves your company my lords in haste,
 * To whom I will conduct young Arthur straight,
 * Who is in health under my custody.

Essex
 * In health, base villain? Wer’t not I leave thy crime
 * To God’s revenge, to whom revenge belongs,
 * Here shouldst thou perish on my rapier’s point.
 * Call’st thou this health? Such health betide thy friends,
 * And all that are of thy condition.

Hubert
 * My lords, but hear me speak, and kill me then,
 * If here I left not this young prince alive,
 * Maugre the hasty edict of the king,
 * Who gave me charge to put out both his eyes,
 * That God that gave me living to this hour,
 * Thunder revenge upon me in this place:
 * And as I tendered him with earnest love,
 * So God love me, and then I shall be well.

Salisbury
 * Hence traitor, hence; thy counsel is herein.

Exit Hubert.
 * Some in this place appointed by the king
 * Have thrown him from this lodging here above,
 * And sure the murder hath been newly done,
 * For yet the body is not fully cold.

Essex
 * How say you lords, shall we with speed dispatch
 * Under our hands a packet into France
 * To bid the dolphin enter with his force
 * To claim the kingdom for his proper right?
 * His title maketh lawful strength thereto.
 * Besides, the pope, on peril of his curse,
 * Hath barred us of obedience unto John.
 * This hateful murder, Lewis his true descent,
 * The holy charge that we received from Rome,
 * Are weighty reasons if you like my rede,
 * To make us all persevere in this deed.

Pembroke
 * My lord of Essex, well have you advised,
 * I will accord to further you in this.

Salisbury
 * And Salisbury will not gainsay the same,
 * But aid that course set forth as he can.

Essex
 * Then each of us send straight to his allies,
 * To win them to this famous enterprise,
 * And let us all yclad in palmer’s weed,
 * The tenth of April at Saint Edmondsbury
 * Meet to confer, and on the altar there
 * Swear secrecy and aid to this advice.
 * Meanwhile let us convey this body hence,
 * And give him burial as befits his state,
 * Keeping his month’s mind and his obsequies
 * With solemn intercession for his soul.
 * How say you lordings; are you all agreed?

Pembroke
 * The tenth of April at Saint Edmondsbury,
 * God letting not, I will not fail the time.

Essex
 * Then let us convey the body hence.

Exeunt.

Scene 15
Enter King John with two or three and the Prophet.

John
 * Disturbed thoughts, foredoomers of mine ill,
 * Distracted passions, signs of growing harms,
 * Strange prophecies of imminent mishaps,
 * Confound my wits, and dull my senses so,
 * That every object these mine eyes behold
 * Seem instruments to bring me to my end.
 * Ascension day is come, John fear not then
 * The prodigies this prattling prophet threats.
 * ‘Tis come, indeed; ah were it fully past,
 * Then were I careless of a thousand fears.
 * The dial tells me, it is twelve at noon.
 * Were twelve at midnight past, then might I vaunt
 * False seer’s prophecies of no import.
 * Could I as well wish this right hand of mine
 * Remove the sun from our meridian,
 * Unto the moonsted circle of th’ antipodes,
 * As turn this steel from twelve to twelve again.
 * Then John the date of fatal prophecies
 * Should with the prophet’s life together end.
 * But multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra.
 * Peter, unsay thy foolish doting dream,
 * And by the crown of England here, I swear,
 * To make thee great, and greatest of thy kin.

Peter
 * King John, although the time I have prescribed
 * Be but twelve hours remaining yet behind,
 * Yet do I know by inspiration,
 * Ere that fixed time be fully come about,
 * King John shall not be king as heretofore.

John
 * Vain buzzard, what mischance can chance so soon
 * To set a king beside his regal seat?
 * My heart is good, my body passing strong,
 * My land in peace, my enemies subdued;
 * Only my enemies storm at Arthur’s death—
 * But Arthur lives. Aye, there the challenge grows.
 * Were he dispatched unto his longest home,
 * Then were the king secure of thousand foes.
 * Hubert, what news with thee; where are my lords?

Hubert
 * Hard news, my lord: Arthur the lovely prince
 * Seeking to escape over the castle walls,
 * Fell headlong down, and in the cursed fall
 * He brake his bones, and there before the gate
 * Your barons found him dead, and breathless quite.

John
 * Is Arthur dead?
 * Then Hubert without more words hang the prophet.
 * Away with peter, villain out of my sight,
 * I am deaf, begone, let him not speak a word.
 * Now John, thy fears are vanished into smoke;
 * Arthur is dead, thou guiltless of his death.
 * Sweet youth, but that I strived for a crown,
 * I could have well afforded to thine age
 * Long life, and happiness to thy content.

Enter the Bastard.

John
 * Philip, what news with thee?

Bastard
 * The news I heard was Peter’s prayers,
 * Who wished like fortune to befall us all:
 * And with that word, the rope his latest friend,
 * Kept him from falling headlong to the ground.

John
 * There let him hang, and be the ravens’ food,
 * While John triumphs in spite of prophecies.
 * But what’s the tidings from the popelings now?
 * What say the monks and priests to our proceedings?
 * Or where’s the barons that so suddenly
 * Did leave the king upon a false surmise?

Bastard
 * The prelates storm and thirst for sharp revenge,
 * But please your Majesty, were that the worst,
 * It little skilled: a greater danger grows,
 * Which must be weeded out by careful speed,
 * Or all is lost, for all is leveled at.

John
 * More frights and fears, whate’er thy tidings be,
 * I am prepared: then Philip, quickly say,
 * Mean they to murder, or imprison me,
 * To give my crown away to Rome or France?
 * Or will they each of them become a king?
 * Worse than I think it is, it cannot be.

Bastard
 * Not worse my lord, but every whit as bad.
 * The nobles have elected Lewis king,
 * In right of Lady Blanche your niece, his wife.
 * His landing is expected every hour.
 * The nobles, commons, clergy, all estates,
 * Incited chiefly by the cardinal,
 * Pandulph that lies here legate for the pope,
 * Thinks long to see their new-elected king.
 * And for undoubted proof, see here my liege
 * Letters to me from your nobility,
 * To be a party in this action;
 * Who under show of feigned holiness,
 * Appoint their meeting at Saint Edmondsbury,
 * There to consult, conspire, and conclude
 * The overthrow and downfall of your state.

John
 * Why so it must be: one hour of content
 * Matched with a month of passionate effects.
 * Why shines the sun to favor this consort?
 * Why do the winds not break their brazen gates,
 * And scatter all these perjured complices,
 * With all their counsels and their damned drifts?
 * But see the welkin rolleth gently on,
 * There’s not a low’ring cloud to frown on them;
 * The heaven, the earth, the sun, the moon and all
 * Conspire with those confederates my decay.
 * Then hell for me if any power be there,
 * Forsake that place, and guide me step by step
 * To poison, strangle, murder in their steps
 * These traitors—oh, that name is too good for them,
 * And death is easy! Is there nothing worse
 * To wreak me on this proud peace-breaking crew?
 * What say’st thou, Philip? Why assists thou not?

Bastard
 * These curses, good my lord, fit not the season:
 * Help must descend from heaven against this treason.

John
 * Nay, thou wilt prove a traitor with the rest,
 * Go get thee to them, shame come to you all.

Bastard
 * I would be loath to leave your Highness thus,
 * Yet you command, and I though grieved will go.

John
 * Ah Philip, whither goest thou? Come again.

Bastard
 * My lord, these motions are as passions of a madman.

John
 * A madman, Philip; I am mad indeed—
 * My heart is mazed, my senses all foredone.
 * And John of England now is quite undone.
 * Was ever king as I oppressed with cares?
 * Dame Eleanor, my noble mother queen,
 * My only hope and comfort in distress,
 * Is dead, and England excommunicate,
 * And I am interdicted by the pope,
 * All churches cursed, their doors are sealed up,
 * And for the pleasure of the Romish priest,
 * The service of the Highest is neglected;
 * The multitude—a beast of many heads—
 * Do wish confusion to their sovereign;
 * The nobles, blinded with ambition’s fumes,
 * Assemble powers to beat mine empire down,
 * And more than this, elect a foreign king.
 * O England, wert thou ever miserable;
 * King John of England sees thee miserable,
 * John, ‘tis thy sins that makes it miserable,
 * Quicquid delirunt reges, plectuntur achivi.
 * Philip, as thou hast ever loved thy king,
 * So show it now; post to Saint Edmondsbury,
 * Dissemble with the nobles, know their drifts,
 * Confound their devilish plots, and damned devices.
 * Though John be faulty, yet let subjects bear,
 * He will amend and right the people’s wrongs.
 * A mother though she were unnatural,
 * Is better than the kindest stepdame is:
 * Let never Englishman trust foreign rule.
 * Then, Philip, show thy fealty to thy king,
 * And ‘mongst the nobles plead thou for the king.

Bastard
 * I go my lord. See how he is distraught,
 * This is the cursed priest of Italy
 * Hath heaped these mischiefs on this hapless land.
 * Now Philip, hadst thou Tully’s eloquence,
 * Then might’st thou hope to plead with good success.

Exit.

John
 * And art thou gone? Success may follow thee;
 * Thus hast thou showed thy kindness to thy king.
 * Sirrah, in haste go greet the cardinal,
 * Pandulph I mean, the legate from the pope.
 * Say that the king desires to speak with him.
 * Now John, bethink thee how thou may’st resolve,
 * And if thou wilt continue England’s king,
 * Then cast about to keep thy diadem,
 * For life and land, and all is leveled at.
 * The pope of Rome, ‘tis he that is the cause,
 * He curseth thee, he sets thy subjects free
 * From due obedience to their sovereign;
 * He animates the nobles in their wars,
 * He gives away the crown to Philip’s son,
 * And pardons all that seek to murder thee—
 * And thus blind zeal is still predominant.
 * Then John, there is no way to keep thy crown,
 * But finely to dissemble with the pope;
 * That hand that gave the wound must give the salve
 * To cure the hurt, else quite incurable.
 * Thy sins are far too great to be the man
 * T’ abolish pope, and popery from thy realm,
 * But in thy seat, if I may guess at all,
 * A king shall reign that shall suppress them all.
 * Peace John, here comes the legate of the pope;
 * Dissemble thou, and whatsoe’er thou say’st,
 * Yet with thy heart wish their confusion.

Enter [Cardinal] Pandulph.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Now John, unworthy man to breathe on earth,
 * That dost oppugn against thy mother church,
 * Why am I sent for to thy cursed self?

John
 * Thou man of God, vicegerent for the pope,
 * The holy vicar of Saint Peter’s church,
 * Upon my knees, I pardon crave of thee,
 * And do submit me to the see of Rome,
 * And vow for penance of my high offence,
 * To take on me the holy cross of Christ,
 * And carry arms in holy Christian wars.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * No John, thy crouching and dissembling thus
 * Cannot deceive the legate of the pope.
 * Say what thou wilt, I will not credit thee:
 * Thy crown and kingdom both are ta’en away,
 * And thou art cursed without redemption.

John
 * Accursed indeed to kneel to such a drudge,
 * And get no help with thy submission.
 * Unsheath thy sword, and stay the misproud priest
 * That thus triumphs o’er thee, a mighty king.
 * No John, submit again, dissemble yet,
 * For priests and women must be flattered.
 * Yet holy father, thou thyself dost know
 * No time too late for sinners to repent,
 * Absolve me then, and John doth swear to do
 * The uttermost whatever thou demand’st.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * John, now I see thy hearty penitence,
 * I rue and pity thy distressed estate,
 * One way is left to reconcile thyself,
 * And only one which I shall show to thee.
 * Thou must surrender to the see of Rome
 * Thy crown and diadem, then shall the pope
 * Defend thee from th’ invasion of thy foes.
 * And where his Holiness hath kindled France,
 * And set thy subjects hearts at war with thee,
 * Then shall he curse thy foes, and beat them down,
 * That seek the discontentment of the king.

King John
 * From bad to worse! Or I must lose my realm,
 * Or give my crown for penance unto Rome!
 * A misery more piercing than the darts
 * That break from burning exhalation’s power.
 * What? Shall I give my crown with this right hand?
 * No! With this hand defend thy crown and thee.

Enter Messenger.
 * What news with thee?

[Messenger]
 * Please it your Majesty, there is descried on the coast of Kent an
 * hundred sail of ships, which of all men is thought to be the French
 * fleet, under the conduct of the dolphin, so that it puts the country
 * in a mutiny, so they send to your grace for succor.

King John
 * How now Lord Cardinal, what’s your best advice?
 * These mutinies must be allayed in time
 * By policy or headstrong rage at least.
 * O John, these troubles tire thy wearied soul,
 * And like to Luna in a sad eclipse,
 * So are thy thoughts and passions for this news.
 * Well may it be when kings are grieved so,
 * The vulgar sort work princes overthrow.

Cardinal
 * King John, for not effecting of thy plighted vow,
 * This strange annoyance happens to thy land;
 * But yet be reconciled unto the church,
 * And nothing shall be grievous to thy state.

John
 * O Pandulph, be it as thou hast decreed,
 * John will not spurn against thy sound advice.
 * Come let’s away, and with thy help I trow
 * My realm shall flourish and my crown in peace.

Scene 16
Enter the nobles, Pembroke, Essex, Chester, Beauchamp, Clare, with others.

Pembroke
 * Now sweet Saint Edmond, holy saint in heaven,
 * Whose shrine is sacred, high esteemed on earth,
 * Infuse a constant zeal in all our hearts
 * To prosecute this act of mickel weight,
 * Lord Beauchamp say, what friends have you procured.

Beauchamp
 * The Lord Fitzwater, Lord Percy and Lord Ross,
 * Vowed meeting here this day the ‘leventh hour.

Essex
 * Under the cloak of holy pilgrimage,
 * By that same hour on warrant of their faith,
 * Philip Plantagent, a bird of swiftest wing,
 * Lord Eustace, Vesey, Lord Cressy, and Lord Mowbray,
 * Appointed meeting at Saint Edmond’s shrine.

Pembroke
 * Until their presence I’ll conceal my tale,
 * Sweet complices in holy Christian acts,
 * That venture for the purchase of renown,
 * Thrice welcome to the league of high resolve,
 * That pawn their bodies for their souls’ regard.

Essex
 * Now wanteth but the rest to end this work,
 * In pilgrim’s habit comes our holy troop
 * A furlong hence with swift unwonted pace,
 * Maybe they are the persons you expect.

Pembroke
 * With swift unwonted gait, see what a thing is zeal,
 * That spurs them on with fervence to this shrine,
 * Now joy come to them for their true intent
 * And in good time here come the war-men all
 * That sweat in body by the mind’s disease
 * Hap and heart’s-ease brave lordings be your lot.

Enter the Bastard Philip, etc.

[Bastard]
 * Amen my lords, the like betide your luck,
 * And all that travel in a Christian cause.

Essex
 * Cheerly replied, brave branch of kingly stock,
 * A right Plantagenet should reason so.
 * But silence lords, attend our coming’s cause;
 * The servile yoke that pained us with toil,
 * On strong instinct hath framed this conventicle
 * To ease our necks of servitude’s contempt.
 * Should I not name the foeman of our rest,
 * Which of you all so barren in conceit,
 * As cannot level at the man I mean?
 * But lest enigmas shadow shining truth
 * Plainly to paint as truth requires no art.
 * Th’ effect of this resort importeth this,
 * To root and clean extirpate tyrant John,
 * Tyrant I say, appealing to the man,
 * If any here that loves him, and I ask
 * What kindship, lenity, or Christian reign
 * Rules in the man, to bar this foul impeach?
 * First I infer the Chesters’ banishment,
 * For reprehending him in most unchristian crimes,
 * Was special notice of a tyrant’s will.
 * But were this all, the devil should be saved,
 * But this the least of many thousand faults,
 * That circumstance with leisure might display.
 * Our private wrongs, no parcel of my tale
 * Which now in presence, but for some great cause
 * Might wish to him as to a mortal foe.
 * But shall I close the period with an act
 * Abhorring in the ears of Christian men,
 * His cousin’s death, that sweet unguilty child,
 * Untimely butchered by the tyrant’s means.
 * Here is my proofs, as clear as gravel brook,
 * And on the same I further must infer,
 * That who upholds a tyrant in is course,
 * Is culpable of all his damned guilt.
 * To show the which, is yet to be described.
 * My lord of Pembroke, show what is behind,
 * Only I say, that were there nothing else
 * To move us but the pope’s most dreadful curse,
 * Whereof we are assured if we fail,
 * It were enough to instigate us all
 * With earnestness of spirit to seek a mean
 * To dispossess John of his regiment.

Pembroke
 * Well hath my lord of Essex told his tale,
 * Which I aver for most substantial truth,
 * And more to make the matter to our mind,
 * I say that Lewis in challenge of his wife,
 * Hath title of an uncontrolled plea
 * To all that ‘longeth to an English crown.
 * Short tale to make, the see apostolic
 * Hath offered dispensation for the fault.
 * If any be, as trust me none I know
 * By planting Lewis in the usurper’s room:
 * This is the cause of all our presence here,
 * That on the holy altar we protest
 * To aid the right of Lewis with goods and life,
 * Who on our knowledge is in arms for England.
 * What say you, lords?

Salisbury
 * As Pembroke say’th, affirmeth Salisbury:
 * Fair Lewis of France that ‘spoused Lady Blanche,
 * Hath title of an uncontrolled strength
 * To England, and what ‘longeth to the crown:
 * In right whereof, as we are true informed,
 * The prince is marching hitherward in arms.
 * Our purpose, to conclude that with a word,
 * Is to invest him as we may devise
 * King of our country in the tyrant’s stead;
 * And so the warrant on the altar sworn,
 * And so the intent for which we hither came.

Bastard
 * My lord of Salisbury, I cannot couch
 * My speeches with the needful words of art,
 * As doth beseem in such a weighty work,
 * But what my conscience and my duty will
 * I purpose to impart.
 * For Chester’s exile, blame his busy wit,
 * That meddled where his duty quite forbade;
 * For any private causes that you have,
 * Methinks they should not mount to such a height,
 * As to depose a king in their revenge.
 * For Arthur’s death King John was innocent,
 * He, desperate, was the deathsman to himself,
 * Which you to make a color to your crime
 * Injustly do impute to his default,
 * But where fell traitorism hath residence,
 * There want no words to set despite on work.
 * I say ‘tis shame, and worthy all reproof,
 * To wrest such petty wrongs in terms of right,
 * Against a king anointed by the Lord.
 * Why Salisbury, admit the wrongs are true,
 * Yet subjects may not take in hand revenge,
 * And rob the heavens of their proper power,
 * Where sitteth he to whom revenge belongs.
 * And doth a pope, a priest, a man of pride
 * Give charters for the lives of lawful kings?
 * What can he bless, or who regards his curse,
 * But such as give to man, and takes from God?
 * I speak it in the sight of God above,
 * There’s not a man that dies in your belief,
 * But sells his soul perpetually to pain.
 * Aid Lewis, leave God, kill John, please hell,
 * Make havoc of the welfare of your souls,
 * For here I leave you in the sight of heaven,
 * A troop of traitors, food for hellish fiends.
 * If you desist, then follow me as friends,
 * If not, then do your worst as hateful traitors.
 * For Lewis his right, alas, ‘tis too too lame,
 * A senseless claim, if truth be title’s friend.
 * In brief, if this be cause of our resort,
 * Our pilgrimage is to the devil’s shrine.
 * I came not lords to troop as traitors do,
 * Nor will I counsel in so bad a cause.
 * Please you return, we go again as friends,
 * If not, I to my king, and you where traitors please.

Exit.

Percy
 * A hot young man, and so, my lords, proceed,
 * Aye let him go, and better lost than found.

Pembroke
 * What say you lords, will all the rest proceed,
 * Will you all with me swear upon the altar
 * That you will to the death be aid to Lewis and enemy to John?
 * Every man lay his hand by mine, in witness of his heart’s accord.
 * Well then, every man to arms to meet the king
 * Who is already before London.

Messenger enter.

Pembroke
 * What news, herald?

[Messenger]
 * The right Christian prince my master, Lewis of France, is at hand,
 * coming to visit your honors, directed hither by the right honorable
 * Richard Earl of Bigot, to confer with your honors.

Lewis
 * Fair lords of England, Lewis salutes you all
 * As friends and firm wellwishers of his weal,
 * At whose request from plenty flowing France
 * Crossing the ocean with a southern gale,
 * He is in person come at your commands
 * To undertake and gratify withal
 * The fullness of your favors proffered him.
 * But world’s brave men, omitting promises,
 * Till time be minister of more amends,
 * I must acquaint you with our fortune’s course.
 * The heavens dewing favors on my head,
 * Have in their conduct safe with victory,
 * Brought me along your well manured bounds,
 * With small repulse, and little cross of chance.
 * Your city Rochester with great applause
 * By some divine instinct laid arms aside;
 * And from the hollow holes of Thamesis
 * Echo apace replied, Vive le roi.
 * From thence, along the wanton rowling glade
 * To Troynovant, your fair metropolis,
 * With luck came Lewis to show his troops of France,
 * Waving our ensigns with the dallying winds,
 * The fearful object of fell frowning war;
 * Where after some assault, and small defence,
 * Heavens, may I say, and not my warlike troop,
 * Tempered their hearts to take a friendly foe
 * Within the compass of their high built walls,
 * Giving me title as it seemed they wish.
 * Thus fortune, lords, acts to your forwardness
 * Means of content in lieu of former grief;
 * And may I live but to requite you all,
 * World’s wish were mine in dying noted yours.

Salisbury
 * Welcome the balm that closeth up our wounds,
 * The sovereign med’cine for our quick recure,
 * The anchor of our hope, the only prop,
 * Whereon depends our lives, our lands, our weal,
 * Without the which, as sheep without their herd,
 * (Except a shepherd winking at the wolf)
 * We stray, we pine, we run to thousand harms.
 * No marvel then, though with unwonted joy,
 * We welcome him that beateth woes away.

Lewis
 * Thanks to you all of this religious league,
 * A holy knot of catholic consent.
 * I cannot name you, lordings, man by man,
 * But like a stranger unacquainted yet,
 * In general I promise faithful love.
 * Lord Bigot brought me to Saint Edmond’s shrine,
 * Giving me warrant of a Christian oath,
 * That this assembly came devoted here,
 * To swear according as your packets showed,
 * Homage and loyal service to ourself.
 * I need not doubt the surety of your wills;
 * Since well I know for many of your sakes
 * The towns have yielded on their own accords;
 * Yet for a fashion, not for misbelief,
 * My eyes must witness, and these ears must hear
 * Your oath upon the holy altar sworn,
 * And after march to end our coming’s cause.

Salisbury
 * That we intend no other than good truth,
 * All that are present of this holy league,
 * For confirmation of our better trust,
 * In presence of his Highness swear with me,
 * The sequel that myself shall utter here.
 * I Thomas Plantagenet, earl of Salisbury, swear upon the altar, and
 * by the holy army of saints, homage and allegiance to the right
 * Christian prince, Lewis of France, as true and rightful king to
 * England, Cornwall and Wales, and to their territories, in the
 * defense whereof I upon the holy altar swear all forwardness.

All the English lords swear.

[Lords]
 * As the noble earl hath sworn, so swear we all.

Lewis
 * I rest assured on your holy oath,
 * And on this altar in like sort I swear
 * Love to you all, and princely recompense
 * To guerdon your good wills unto the full.
 * And since I am at this religious shrine,
 * My good wellwishers, give us leave awhile
 * To use some orisons ourselves apart
 * To all the holy company of heaven,
 * That they will smile upon our purposes,
 * And bring them to a fortunate event.

Salisbury
 * We leave your Highness to your good intent.

Exeunt Lords of England.

Lewis
 * Now Viscount Meloun, what remains behind?
 * Trust me these traitors to their sovereign state
 * Are not to be believed in any sort.

Meloun
 * Indeed my lord, they that infringe their oaths,
 * And play the rebels ‘gainst their native king,
 * Will for as little cause revolt from you,
 * If ever opportunity incite them so;
 * For once forsworn, and never after sound,
 * There’s no affiance after perjury.

Lewis
 * Well Meloun well, let’s smooth with them awhile,
 * Until we have as much as they can do;
 * And when their virtue is exhaled dry,
 * I’ll hang them for the guerdon of their help.
 * Meanwhile we’ll use them as a precious poison
 * To undertake the issue of our hope.

French Lord
 * ‘Tis policy, my lord, to bait our hooks
 * With merry smiles, and promise of much weight;
 * But when your Highness needeth them no more,
 * ‘Tis good make sure work with them, lest indeed
 * They prove to you as to their natural king.

Meloun
 * Trust me my lord, right well have you advised,
 * Venom for use, but never for a sport
 * Is to be dallied with, lest it infect.
 * Were you installed, as soon I hope you shall,
 * Be free from traitors, and dispatch them all.

Lewis
 * That so I mean, I swear before you all
 * On this same altar, and by heaven’s power,
 * There’s not an English traitor of them all,
 * John once dispatched, and I fair England’s king,
 * Shall on his shoulders bear his head one day,
 * But I will crop it for their guilt’s desert.
 * Nor shall their heirs enjoy their signories,
 * But perish by their parents’ foul amiss.
 * This have I sworn, and this will I perform,
 * If e’er I come unto the height I hope.
 * Lay down your hands, and swear the same with me.

The French Lords swear.
 * Why so, now call them in, and speak them fair;
 * A smile of France will feed an English fool.
 * Bear them in hand as friends, for so they be;
 * But in the heart like traitors as they are.

Enter the English Lords.
 * Now famous followers, chieftains of the world,
 * Have we solicited with hearty prayer
 * The heaven in favor of our high attempt.
 * Leave we this place, and march we with our power
 * To rouse the tyrant from his chiefest hold;
 * And when our labors have a prosp’rous end,
 * Each man shall reap the fruit of his desert.
 * And so resolved, brave followers, let us hence.

Scene 17
Enter King John, Bastard, [Cardinal] Pandulph, and a many priests with them.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Thus, John, thou art absolved from all thy sins,
 * And freed by order from our father’s curse.
 * Receive thy crown again, with this proviso,
 * That thou remain true liegeman to the pope,
 * And carry arms in right of holy Rome.

John
 * I hold the same as tenant to the pope,
 * And thank your Holiness for your kindness shown.

Philip
 * A proper jest, when kings must stoop to friars;
 * Need hath no law, when friars must be kings.

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger
 * Please it your Majesty, the prince of France
 * With all the nobles of your grace’s land,
 * Are marching hitherward in good array.
 * Where e’er they set their foot, all places yield;
 * Thy land is theirs, and not a foot holds out
 * But Dover Castle, which is hard besieged.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Fear not, King John, thy kingdom is the pope’s,
 * And they shall know his Holiness hath power
 * To beat them soon from whence he hath to do.

Drums and trumpets. Enter Lewis, Meloun, Salisbury, Essex, Pembroke, and all the nobles from France, and England.

Lewis
 * Pandulph, as gave his Holiness in charge,
 * So hath the Dolphin mustered up his troops
 * And won the greatest part of all this land.
 * But ill becomes your grace, Lord Cardinal,
 * Thus to converse with John that is accursed.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Lewis of France, victorious conqueror,
 * Whose sword hath made this island quake for fear:
 * Thy forwardness to fight for holy Rome,
 * Shall be remunerated to the full.
 * But know, my lord, King John is now absolved;
 * The pope is pleased, the land is blessed again,
 * And thou hast brought each thing to good effect.
 * It resteth then that thou withdraw thy powers
 * And quietly return to France again,
 * For all is done the pope would wish thee do.

Lewis
 * But all’s not done that Lewis came to do.
 * Why, Pandulph, hath King Philip sent his son
 * And been at such excessive charge in wars,
 * To be dismissed with words? King John shall know
 * England is mine, and he usurps my right.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Lewis, I charge thee and thy complices,
 * Upon the pain of Pandulph’s holy curse,
 * That thou withdraw thy powers to France again
 * And yield up London and the neighbor towns
 * That thou has ta’en in England by the sword.

Meloun
 * Lord Cardinal, by Lewis’ princely leave,
 * It can be nought but usurpation
 * In thee, the pope, and all the church of Rome,
 * Thus to insult on kings of Christendom,
 * Now with a word to make them carry arms,
 * Then with a word to make them leave their arms.
 * This must not be: prince Lewis, keep thine own,
 * Let pope and popelings curse their bellies’ full.

Bastard
 * My lord of Meloun, what title had the prince
 * To England and the crown of Albion,
 * But such a title as the pope confirmed?
 * The prelate now lets fall his feigned claim:
 * Lewis is but the agent for the pope,
 * Then must the dolphin cease, sith he hath ceased;
 * But cease or no, it greatly matters not,
 * If you, my lords and barons of the land
 * Will leave the French, and cleave unto your king.
 * For shame, ye peers of England, suffer not
 * Yourselves, your honors, and your land to fall:
 * But with resolved thoughts beat back the French,
 * And free the land from yoke of servitude.

Salisbury
 * Philip, not so, Lord Lewis is our king,
 * And we will follow him unto the death.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Then in the name of Innocent the pope,
 * I curse the prince and all that take his part,
 * And excommunicate the rebel peers
 * As traitors to the king, and to the pope.

Lewis
 * Pandulph, our swords shall bless ourselves again;
 * Prepare thee, John; lords, follow me your king.

Exeunt.

John
 * Accursed John, the devil owes thee shame,
 * Resisting Rome, or yielding to the pope, all’s one.
 * The devil take the pope, the peers, and France!
 * Shame be my share for yielding to the priest.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Comfort thyself, King John, the cardinal goes
 * Upon his curse to make them leave their arms.

Exit.

Bastard
 * Comfort, my lord, and curse the cardinal,
 * Betake yourself to arms, my troops are pressed
 * To answer Lewis with a lusty shock;
 * The English archers have their quivers full,
 * Their bows are bent, the pikes are pressed to push.
 * God cheer my lord, King Richard’s fortune hangs
 * Upon the plume of warlike Philip’s helm.
 * Then let them know his brother and his son
 * Are leaders of the Englishmen at arms.

John
 * Philip, I know not how to answer thee;
 * But let us hence, to answer Lewis’ pride.

Scene 18
Excursions; enter Meloun with English lords.

Meloun
 * O, I am slain, nobles, Salisbury, Pembroke,
 * My soul is charged, hear me; for what I say
 * Concerns the peers of England, and their state.
 * Listen, brave lords, a fearful mourning tale
 * To be delivered by a man of death.
 * Behold these scars, the dole of bloody Mars,
 * Are harbingers from nature’s common foe,
 * Citing this trunk to Tellus’ prison house.
 * Life’s charter, lordings, lasteth not an hour:
 * And fearful thoughts, forerunners of my end,
 * Bids me give physic to a sickly soul.
 * O peers of England, know you what you do?
 * There’s but a hair that sunders you from harm,
 * The hook is baited, and the train is made,
 * And simply you run doting to your deaths.
 * But lest I die, and leave my tale untold,
 * With silence slaughtering so brave a crew,
 * This I aver, if Lewis win the day,
 * There’s not an Englishman that lifts his hand
 * Against King John to plant the heir of France,
 * But is already damned to cruel death.
 * I heard it vowed; myself amongst the rest
 * Swore on the altar aid to this edict.
 * Two causes, lords, make me display this drift,
 * The greatest for the freedom of my soul,
 * That longs to leave this mansion free from guilt;
 * The other on a natural instinct,
 * For that my grandsire was an Englishman.
 * Misdoubt not lords the truth of my discourse,
 * No frenzy, nor no brainsick idle fit,
 * But well advised, and wotting what I say.
 * Pronounce I here before the face of heaven,
 * That nothing is discovered but a truth.
 * ‘Tis time to fly, submit yourselves to John,
 * The smiles of France shade in the frowns of death.
 * Lift up your swords, turn face against the French,
 * Expel the yoke that’s framed for your necks.
 * Back war-men, back, embowel not the clime,
 * Your seat, your nurse, your birthday’s breathing place,
 * That bred you, bears you, brought you up in arms.
 * Ah, be not so ingrate to dig your mother’s grave,
 * Preserve your lambs and beat away the wolf.
 * My soul hath said, contrition’s penitence
 * Lays hold on man’s redemption for my sin.
 * Farewell my lords; witness my faith when we are met in heaven
 * And for my kindness give me grave room here.
 * My soul doth fleet; world’s vanities farewell.

Salisbury
 * Now joy betide thy soul well-meaning man.
 * How now my lords, what cooling card is this?
 * A greater grief grows now than erst hath been.
 * What counsel give you, shall we stay and die?
 * Or shall we home, and kneel unto the king.

Pembroke
 * My heart misgave this sad accursed news:
 * What have we done? Fie lords, what frenzy moved
 * Our hearts to yield unto the pride of France?
 * If we persever, we are sure to die;
 * If we desist, small hope again of life.

Salisbury
 * Bear hence the body of this wretched man,
 * That made us wretched with his dying tale,
 * And stand not wailing on our present harms,
 * As women wont: but seek our harms’ redress.
 * As for myself, I will in haste be gone,
 * And kneel for pardon to our sovereign John.

Pembroke
 * Aye, there’s the way, let’s rather kneel to him,
 * Than to the French that would confound us all.

Exeunt.

Scene 19
Enter King John carried between 2 lords.

John
 * Set down, set down the load not worth your pain,
 * For done I am with deadly wounding grief;
 * Sickly and succorless, hopeless of any good,
 * The world hath wearied me, and I have wearied it.
 * It loathes I live, I live and loathe myself.
 * Who pities me? To whom have I been kind?
 * But to a few; a few will pity me.
 * Why die I not? Death scorns so vile a prey.
 * Why live I not? Life hates so sad a prize.
 * I sue to both to be retained of either,
 * But both are deaf, I can be heard of neither.
 * Nor death nor life, yet life and ne’er the near,
 * Ymixt with death, biding I wot not where.

Philip
 * How fares my lord, that he is carried thus?
 * Not all the awkward fortunes yet befall’n,
 * Made such impression of lament in me.
 * Nor ever did my eye attaint my heart
 * With any object moving more remorse,
 * Than now beholding of a mighty king,
 * Born by his lords in such distressed state.

John
 * What news with thee? If bad, report it straight;
 * If good, be mute, it doth but flatter me.

Philip
 * Such as it is, and heavy though it be
 * To glut the world with tragic elegies,
 * Once will I breathe to aggravate the rest,
 * Another moan to make the measure full.
 * The bravest bowman had not yet sent forth
 * Two arrows from the quiver at his side,
 * But that a rumor went throughout our camp,
 * That John was fled, the king had left the field.
 * At last the rumor scaled these ears of mine,
 * Who rather chose as sacrifice for Mars,
 * Than ignominious scandal by retire.
 * I cheered the troops as did the prince of Troy
 * His weary followers ‘gainst the Myrmidons,
 * Crying aloud, “Saint George, the day is ours!”
 * But fear had captivated courage quite,
 * And like the lamb before the greedy wolf,
 * So heartless fled our war-men from the field.
 * Short tale to make, myself amongst the rest,
 * Was fain to fly before the eager foe.
 * By this time night had shadowed all the earth,
 * With sable curtains of the blackest hue,
 * And fenced us from the fury of the French,
 * As Io from the jealous Juno’s eye,
 * When in the morning our troops did gather head,
 * Passing the washes with our carriages,
 * The impartial tide deadly and inexorable,
 * Came raging in with billows threat’ning death,
 * And swallowed up the most of all our men.
 * Myself upon a Galloway right free, well paced,
 * Outstripped the floods that followed wave by wave,
 * I so escaped to tell this tragic tale.

John
 * Grief upon grief, yet none so great a grief,
 * To end this life, and thereby rid my grief.
 * Was ever any so infortunate,
 * The right idea of a cursed man,
 * As I, poor I, a triumph for despite.
 * My fever grows, what ague shakes me so?
 * How far to Swinstead, tell me do you know?
 * Present unto the abbot word of my repair.
 * My sickness rages, to tyrannize upon me,
 * I cannot live unless this fever leave me.

Philip
 * Good cheer my lord, the abbey is at hand.
 * Behold my lord, the churchmen come to meet you.

Enter the Abbot and certain 'Monks.

Abbot
 * All health and happiness to our sovereign lord the king.

John
 * No health nor happiness hath John at all.
 * Say abbot, am I welcome to thy house?

Abbot
 * Such welcome as our abbey can afford,
 * Your Majesty shall be assured of.

Philip
 * The king thou seest is weak and very faint;
 * What victuals hast thou to refresh his grace?

Abbot
 * Good store my lord, of that you need not fear,
 * For Lincolnshire, and these our abbey grounds
 * Were never fatter, nor in better plight.

John
 * Philip, thou never need’st to doubt of cates,
 * Nor king nor lord is seated half so well,
 * As are the abbeys throughout all the land.
 * If any plot of ground do pass another,
 * The friars fasten on it straight.
 * But let us in to taste of their repast,
 * It goes against my heart to feed with them,
 * Or be beholding to such abbey grooms.

Exeunt.

Manet the Monk.

Monk
 * Is this the king that never loved a friar?
 * Is this the man that doth contemn the pope?
 * Is this the man that robbed the holy church,
 * And yet will fly unto a friary?
 * Is this the king that aims at abbeys’ lands?
 * Is this the man whom all the world abhors,
 * And yet will fly unto a friary?
 * Accursed be Swinstead Abbey, abbot, friars,
 * Monks, nuns, and clerks, and all that dwells therein,
 * If wicked John escape alive away.
 * Now if that thou wilt look to merit heaven,
 * And be canonized for a holy saint,
 * To please the world with a deserving work,
 * Be thou the man to set thy country free,
 * And murder him that seeks to murder thee.

Enter the Abbot.

Abbot
 * Why are not you within to cheer the king?
 * He now begins to mend, and will to meat.

Monk
 * What if I say to strangle him in his sleep?

Abbot
 * What, at thy mumpsimus? away,
 * And seek some means for to pastime the king.

Monk
 * I’ll set a dudgeon dagger at his heart,
 * And with a mallet knock him on the head.

Abbot
 * Alas, what means this monk, to murder me?
 * Dare lay my life he’ll kill me for my place.

Monk
 * I’ll poison him, and it shall ne’er be known,
 * And then shall I be chiefest of my house.

Abbot
 * If I were dead, indeed he is the next,
 * But I’ll away, for why the monk is mad,
 * And in his madness he will murder me.

Monk
 * My lord, I cry your lordship mercy, I saw you not.

Abbot
 * Alas, good Thomas, do not murder me, and thou shalt have my place with thousand thanks.

Monk
 * I murder you? God shield from such a thought.

Abbot
 * If thou wilt needs, yet let me say my prayers.

Monk
 * I will not hurt your lordship, good my lord,
 * But if you please, I will impart a thing
 * That shall be beneficial to us all.

Abbot
 * Wilt thou not hurt me, holy monk? say on.

Monk
 * You know, my lord, the king is in our house.

Abbot
 * True.

Monk
 * You know likewise the king abhors a friar.

Abbot
 * True.

Monk
 * And he that loves not a friar is our enemy.

Abbot
 * Thou say’st true.

Monk
 * Then the king is our enemy.

Abbot
 * True.

Monk
 * Why then should we not kill our enemy, and the king being our
 * enemy, why then should we not kill the king?

Abbot
 * O blessed monk, I see God moves thy mind
 * To free this land from tyrant’s slavery.
 * But who dare venture for to do this deed?

Monk
 * Who dare? Why I my lord dare do the deed;
 * I’ll free my country and the church from foes,
 * And merit heaven by killing of a king.

Abbot
 * Thomas, kneel down, and if thou art resolved,
 * I will absolve thee here from all thy sins,
 * For why the deed is meritorious.
 * Forward and fear not, man, for every month
 * Our friars shall sing a mass for Thomas’ soul.

Monk
 * God and Saint Francis prosper my attempt,
 * For now my lord I go about my work.

Exeunt.

Scene 20
Enter Lewis and his army.

Lewis
 * Thus victory in bloody laurel clad,
 * Follows the fortune of young Lodowick,
 * The Englishmen as daunted at our sight,
 * Fall as the fowl before the eagle’s eyes.
 * Only two crosses of contrary change
 * Do nip my heart, and vex me with unrest.
 * Lord Meloun’s death, the one part of my soul,
 * A braver man did never live in France.
 * The other grief, aye, that’s a gall indeed
 * To think that Dover Castle should hold out
 * Gainst all assaults, and rest impregnable.
 * Ye warlike race of Francus, Hector’s son,
 * Triumph in conquest of that tyrant John.
 * The better half of England is our own,
 * And towards the conquest of the other part,
 * We have the face of all the English lords,
 * What then remains but overrun the land?
 * Be resolute, my warlike followers,
 * And if good fortune serve as she begins,
 * The poorest peasant of the realm of France
 * Shall be a master o’er an English lord.

Enter a Messenger.

Lewis
 * Fellow, what news?

Messenger
 * Pleaseth your grace, the earl of Salisbury, Pembroke, Essex, Clare,
 * and Arundel, with all the barons that did fight for thee, are on a
 * sudden fled with all their powers, to join with John, to drive thee
 * back again.

Enter another Messenger.

Messenger
 * Lewis, my lord, why stand’st thou in a maze?
 * Gather thy troops, hope not of help from France,
 * For all thy forces being fifty sail,
 * Containing twenty thousand soldiers,
 * With victual and munition for the war,
 * Putting from Calais in unlucky time,
 * Did cross the seas, and on the Goodwin sands,
 * The men, munition, and the ships are lost.

Enter another Messenger.

Lewis
 * More news? Say on.

Messenger
 * John, my lord, with all his scattered troops,
 * Flying the fury of your conquering sword,
 * As Pharaoh erst within the bloody sea,
 * So he and his environed with the tide,
 * On Lincoln washes all were overwhelmed,
 * The barons fled, our forces cast away.

Lewis
 * Was ever heard such unexpected news?

Messenger
 * Yet Lodowick, revive thy dying heart;
 * King John and all his forces are consumed.
 * The less thou need’st the aid of English earls,
 * The less thou need’st to grieve thy navy’s wrack,
 * And follow time’s advantage with success.

Lewis
 * Brave Frenchmen, armed with magnanimity,
 * March after Lewis who will lead you on
 * To chase the barons’ power that wants a head,
 * For John is drowned, and I am England’s king.
 * Though our munition and our men be lost,
 * Philip of France will send us fresh supplies.

Exeunt.

Scene 21
Enter two Friars laying a cloth.

Friar
 * Dispatch, dispatch, the king desires to eat. Would a might eat
 * his last for the love he bears to churchmen.

Friar
 * I am of thy mind too, and so it should be and we might be our
 * own carvers. I marvel why they dine here in the orchard.

Friar
 * I know not, nor I care not. The king comes.

John
 * Come on, Lord Abbot, shall we sit together?

Abbot
 * Pleaseth your grace sit down.

John
 * Take your places, sirs, no pomp in penury, all beggars and friends
 * may come; where necessity keeps the house, courtesy is barred the
 * table. Sit down, Philip.

Bastard
 * My lord, I am loath to allude so much to the proverb, “honors
 * change manners”; a king is a king, though fortune do her worst,
 * and we as dutiful in despite of her frown, as if your highness
 * were now in the highest type of dignity.

John
 * Come, no more ado, and you tell me much of dignity, you’ll mar my
 * appetite in a surfeit of sorrow. What cheer, Lord Abbot?  Methinks
 * you frown like an host that knows his guest hath no money to pay the
 * reckoning?

Abbot
 * No, my liege; if I frown at all, it is for I fear this cheer too homely
 * to entertain so mighty a guest as your Majesty.

Bastard
 * I think rather, my Lord Abbot, you remember my last being here, when
 * I went in progress for pouches—and the rancor of his heart breaks out
 * in his countenance, to show he hath not forgot me.

Abbot
 * Not so, my lord; you—and the meanest follower of his Majesty—are heartily
 * welcome to me.

Monk
 * Wassail, my liege, and as a poor monk may say, welcome to Swinstead.

John
 * Begin, monk, and report hereafter thou wast taster to a king.

Monk
 * As much health to your Highness as to my own heart.

John
 * I pledge thee, kind monk.

Monk
 * The merriest draught that ever was drunk in England. Am I not too bold
 * with your Highness?

John
 * Not a whit; all friends and fellows for a time.

Monk
 * If the inwards of a toad be a compound of any proof—why so it works.

John
 * Stay Philip, where’s the monk?

Bastard
 * He is dead, my lord.

John
 * Then drink not Philip for a world of wealth.

Bastard
 * What cheer, my liege? Your color ‘gins to change.

John
 * So doth my life! O Philip, I am poisoned.
 * The monk, the devil, the poison ‘gins to rage;
 * It will depose myself a king from reign.

Bastard
 * This abbot hath an interest in this act—
 * At all adventures take thou that from me.
 * There lie the abbot, abbey, lubber, devil.
 * March with the monk unto the gates of hell.
 * How fares my lord?

John
 * Philip, some drink! Oh for the frozen Alps
 * To tumble on and cool this inward heat
 * That rageth as the furnace sevenfold hot
 * To burn the holy three in Babylon.
 * Power after power forsake their proper power;
 * Only the heart impugns with faint resist
 * The fierce invade of him that conquers kings.
 * Help, God! O pain!  Die John—O plague
 * Inflicted on thee for thy grievous sins.
 * Philip, a chair, and by and by a grave,
 * My legs disdain the carriage of a king.

Bastard
 * Ah, good my liege, with patience conquer grief,
 * And bear this pain with kingly fortitude.

John
 * Methinks I see a catalogue of sin
 * Wrote by a fiend in marble characters,
 * The least enough to lose my part in heaven.
 * Methinks the devil whispers in mine ears
 * And tells me ‘tis in vain to hope for grace,
 * I must be damned for Arthur’s sudden death.
 * I see—I see a thousand thousand men
 * Come to accuse me for my wrong on earth,
 * And there is none so mercifull a god
 * That will forgive the number of my sins.
 * How have I lived, but by another’s loss?
 * What have I loved but wrack of other’s weal?
 * When have I vowed, and not infringed mine oath?
 * Where have I done a deed deserving well?
 * Who, what, when, and where, have I bestowed a day
 * That tended not to some notorious ill?
 * My life replete with rage and tyranny,
 * Craves little pity for so strange a death.
 * Or who will say that John deceased too soon,
 * Who will not say he rather lived too long?
 * Dishonor did attaint me in my life,
 * And shame attendeth John unto his death.
 * Why did I scape the fury of the French,
 * And died not by the temper of their swords?
 * Shameless my life, and shamefully it ends,
 * Scorned by my foes, disdained of my friends.

Bastard
 * Forgive the world and all your earthly foes,
 * And call on Christ, who is your latest friend.

John
 * My tongue doth falter; Philip, I tell thee man,
 * Since John did yield unto the priest of Rome,
 * Nor he nor his have prospered on the earth.
 * Cursed are his blessings, and his curse is bliss.
 * But in the spirit I cry unto my God,
 * As did the kingly prophet David cry,
 * (Whose hands, as mine, with murder were attaint)
 * I am not he shall build the lord a house,
 * Or root these locusts from the face of earth;
 * But if my dying heart deceive me not,
 * From out these loins shall spring a kingly branch
 * Whose arms shall reach unto the gates of Rome,
 * And with his feet treads down the strumpet’s pride,
 * That sits upon the chair of Babylon.
 * Philip, my heart strings break, the poison’s flame
 * Hath overcome in me weak nature’s power,
 * And in the faith of Jesu John doth die.

Bastard
 * See how he strives for life, unhappy lord,
 * Whose bowels are divided in themselves.
 * This is the fruit of popery, when true kings
 * Are slain and shouldered out by monks and friars.

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger
 * Please it your grace, the barons of the land,
 * Which all this while bare arms against the king,
 * Conducted by the legate of the pope,
 * Together with the prince his Highness’ son,
 * Do crave to be admitted to the presence of the king.

Bastard
 * Your son, my lord, young Henry craves to see
 * Your Majesty, and brings with him beside
 * The barons that revolted from your grace.
 * O piercing sight, he fumbleth in the mouth,
 * His speech doth fail; lift up yourself, my lord,
 * And see the prince to comfort you in death.

Enter [Cardinal] Pandulph, young Henry, the Barons with daggers in their hands.

Prince [Henry]
 * O let me see my father ere he die—
 * O uncle, were you here, and suffered him
 * To be thus poisoned by a damned monk?
 * Ah he is dead—father, sweet father, speak!

Bastard
 * His speech doth fail; he hasteth to his end.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Lords, give me leave to joy the dying king
 * With sight of these his nobles kneeling here
 * With daggers in their hands, who offer up
 * Their lives for ransom of their foul offence.
 * Then good my lord, if you forgive them all,
 * Lift up your hand in token you forgive.

Salisbury
 * We humbly thank your royal Majesty,
 * And vow to fight for England and her king;
 * And in the sight of John our sovereign lord,
 * In spite of Lewis and the power of France,
 * Who hitherward are marching in all haste,
 * We crown young Henry in his father’s stead.

Henry
 * Help, help, he dies! Ah, father, look on me.

Legate [Cardinal Pandulph]
 * King John, farewell; in token of thy faith,
 * And sign thou diest the servant of the lord,
 * Lift up thy hand, that we may witness here
 * Thou died’st the servant of our savior Christ.
 * Now joy betide thy soul—what noise is this?

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger
 * Help lords, the dolphin maketh hitherward
 * With ensigns of defiance in the wind,
 * And all our army standeth at a gaze,
 * Expecting what their leaders will command.

Bastard
 * Let’s arm ourselves in young King Henry’s right,
 * And beat the power of France to sea again.

Legate [Cardinal Pandulph]
 * Philip, not so, but I will to the prince,
 * And bring him face to face to parley with you.

Bastard
 * Lord Salisbury, yourself shall march with me,
 * So shall we bring these troubles to an end.

King [Henry]
 * Sweet uncle, if thou love thy sovereign,
 * Let not a stone of Swinstead Abbey stand,
 * But pull the house about the friars’ ears:
 * For thy have killed my father and my king.

Exeunt.

Scene 22
A parley sounded: Lewis, [Cardinal] Pandulph, Salisbury, etc.

[Cardinal] Pandulph
 * Lewis of France, young Henry, England’s king
 * Requires to know the reason of the claim
 * That thou canst make to anything of his.
 * King John that did offend is dead and gone—
 * See where his breathless trunk in presence lies—
 * And he as heir apparent to the crown
 * Is now succeeded in his father’s room.

Henry
 * Lewis, what law of arms doth lead thee thus
 * To keep possession of my lawful right?
 * Answer in fine if thou wilt take a peace,
 * And make surrender of my right again,
 * Or try thy title with the dint of sword.
 * I tell thee, Dolphin, Henry fears thee not,
 * For now the barons cleave unto their king,
 * And what thou hast in England they did get.

Lewis
 * Henry of England, now that John is dead,
 * That was the chiefest enemy to France,
 * I may the rather be induced to peace.
 * But Salisbury, and you, barons of the realm,
 * This strange revolt agrees not with the oath
 * That you on Bury altar lately sware.

Salisbury
 * Nor did the oath your Highness there did take
 * Agree with honor of the prince of France.

Bastard
 * My lord, what answer make you to the king?

Dolphin [=Lewis]
 * Faith, Philip, this I say: it boots not me,
 * Nor any prince, nor power of Christendom
 * To seek to win this island Albion,
 * Unless he have a party in the realm
 * By treason for to help him in his wars.
 * The peers which were the party on my side
 * Are fled from me; then boots not me to fight,
 * But on conditions, as mine honor wills,
 * I am contented to depart the realm.

Henry
 * On what conditions will your Highness yield?

Lewis
 * That shall we think upon by more advice.

Bastard
 * Then kings and princes, let these broils have end,
 * And at more leisure talk upon the league.
 * Meanwhile to Worster let us bear the king,
 * And there inter his body, as beseems.
 * But first, in sight of Lewis, heir of France,
 * Lords, take the crown and set it on his head,
 * That by succession is our lawful king.

They crown young Henry.
 * Thus England’s peace begins in Henry’s reign,
 * And bloody wars are closed with happy league.
 * Let England live but true within itself,
 * And all the world can never wrong her state.
 * Lewis, thou shalt be bravely shipped to France,
 * For never Frenchman got of English ground
 * The twentieth part that thou hast conquered.
 * Dolphin, thy hand; to Worster we will march.
 * Lords all lay hands to bear your sovereign
 * With obsequies of honor to his grave.
 * If England’s peers and people join in one,
 * Nor Pope, nor France, nor Spain can do them wrong.