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KING JOHN.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and Others, with CHATILLON.

K. John. Now, fay, Chatillon, what would France with us?

Chat. Thus, after greeting, fpeaks the king of France, In my behaviour, to the majefty,

The borrow'd majefty of England here.

Eli. A ftrange beginning;-borrow'd majesty!
K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the embaffy.
Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's fon,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair inland, and the territories;

To Ireland, Poitiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:
Defiring thee to lay afide the fword,

Which ways ufurpingly these feveral titles ;
And put the fame into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.

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K. John.

2 The word bebaviour seems here to have a fignification that I have never found in any other author. The king of France, fays the envoy, thus fpeaks in my behaviour to the majesty of England; that is, the King of France fpeaks in the character which I here affume, I once thought that these two lines, in my behaviour, &c. had been uttered by the ambaffador as part of his master's meffage, and that behaviour had meant the conduct of the King of France towards the King of England; but the ambassador's fpeech, as continued after the interruption, will not admit this meaning. JOHNSON.

In my behaviour means, in the manner that I now do.

M. MASON.

In my behaviour means, Í think, in the words and action that I am now going to ufe. MALONE.

K. John. What follows, if we difallow of this?
Chat. The proud control 3 of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce thefe rights fo forcibly withheld.

K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment; fo answer France.

Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
The furtheft limit of my embaffy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and fo depart in peace:
Be thou as lightning 4 in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canft report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon fhall be heard:
So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And fullen prefage of your own decay.—
An honourable conduct let him have ;-

3 Oppofition, from controller. JOHNSON.

Pembroke,

I think it rather means conftraint or compulfion. M. MASON.

4 The fimile does not fuit well: the lightning indeed appears before the thunder is heard, but the lightning is destructive and the thunder innocent. JOHNSON.

The altufion may notwithstanding be very proper fo far as Shakspeare had applied it, i. e. merely to the swiftness of the lightning, and its preceding and foretelling the thunder. But there is fome reafon to believe that thunder was not thought to be innocent in our author's time, as we elfewhere learn from himfelf. See King Lear, A&t HI. fc. ii. Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. fc. v. Julius Cafar, Act I. fc. iii. and ftill more deci fively in Meafure for Mcafure, A&t. II. fc. ii. This old fuperftition is fill prevalent in many parts of the country. RITSON.

King John does not allude to the deftructive powers either of thunder or lightning; he only mears to fay, that Chatillon fhall appear to the eyes of the French like lighting, which shows that thunder is approaching: and the thunder he alludes to is that of his cannon. Johnson also forgets, that though philofophically speaking, the deftructive power is in the lightning, it has generally in poetry been attributed to the thunder. M. MASON.

5 By the epithet fulien, which cannot be applied to a trumpet, it is plain that our author's imagination had now fuggefted a new idea. It is as if he had faid, be a trumpet to alarm with our invafion, be a bird of ill omen to croak out the prognoftick of your own ruin. JOHNSON.

I do not fee why the epithet fullen may not be applied to a trumpet, with as much propriety as to a bell. In our author's Henry IV. P. II. we find

"Sounds ever after as a fullen bell." MALONE.

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That here are two ideas, is evident; but the fecond of them has not been luckily explained. The fullen prejage of your own decay, means, dismal paffing bell, that announces your own approaching diffolution.

+ But artillery was In battle of Edepy

STEEVENS.

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1346.

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Pembroke, look to't: Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE.
Eli. What now, my fon? have I not ever faid,
How that ambitious Conftance would not ceafe,
Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her fon?

This might have been prevented, and made whole,
With very eafy arguments of love;

6

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our ftrong poffeffion, and our right, for us.
Eli. Your ftrong poffeffion, much more than your right;
Or else it must go wrong with you, and me:

So much my confcience whispers in your ear;

Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers ESSEX.

Effex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
Come from the country to be judg'd by you,

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

Our abbies, and our priories, fhall pay

[Exit Sheriff.

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

This expedition's charge.-What men are you?
Baft. Your faithful fubject I, a gentleman,

B 4

6 i. c. conduct, administration. STEEVENS,

Born

7 Though Shakspeare adopted this character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, it is not improper to mention that it is compounded of two diftinct perfonages.

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Matthew Paris fays:-"Sub illius temporis curriculo, Falcafius de Brente, Neufterienfis, et fpurius ex parte matris, atque Baftardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam defcenderat,' &c. Matthew Paris, in his Hiftory of the Monks of St Albans, calls him Falco, but in his General Hiftory, Falcafius de Brente, as above.

Holinfhed fays, "That Richard I. had a natural fon named Philip, who in the year following killed the Viscount de Limoges to revenge the death of his father." STEEVENS.

Born in Northamptonfhire; and eldest fon,
As I fuppofe, to Robert Faulconbridge;
A foldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
K. John. What art thou?

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Rob. The fon and heir to that fame Faulconbridge.
K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Baft. Moft certain of one mother, mighty king,
That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
But, for the certain knowledge of that truth,
1 put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother;
Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou doft shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence,

?

Baft. I, madam no, I have no reason for it ;
That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out
At leaft from fair five hundred pound a year:
Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land!

K. John. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance ?

Baft. I know not why, except to get the land.
But once he flander'd me with bastardy :
But whe'r 8 I be as true begot, or no,
That still I lay upon my mother's head;
But, that I am as well begot, my liege,
(Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!)
Compare our faces, and be judge yourself,
If old fir Robert did beget us both,

And were our father, and this fon like him ;

O old Perhaps the following paffage in the Continuation of Harding's Chroni❤ cle, 1543, fol. 24. b. ad ann. 1472, induced the author of the old play to affix the name of Faulconbridge to King Richard's natural fon, who is only mentioned in our hiftories by the name of Philip: ". -one Faul conbridge, therle of Kent, his baftarde, a ftoute-harted man."

Who the mother of Philip was, is not ascertained. It is faid that she was a lady of Poitou, and that King Richard bestowed upon her fon a lordship in that province.

8 Whe'r for whether. STEEVENS.

Lear

O old fir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee.

K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face,9
The accent of his tongue affecteth him :

Do you not read fome tokens of my fon
In the large compofition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts,
And finds them perfect Richard.Sirrah, fpeak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
Baft. Because he hath a half-face, like my father;
With that half-face would he have all my land:
A half-faced groat five hundred pound a year!
Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
Your brother did employ my father much;-
Baft. Well, fir, by this you cannot get my land;
Your tale must be, how he employ'd my mother.

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Rob.

9 The trik, or trickling, is the fame as the tracing of a drawing, meaning that peculiarity of face which may be sufficiently shown by the slightest outline. STEEVENS.

By a trick, in this place, is meant fome peculiarity of look or motion.

M. MASON.

Our author often uses this phrafe, and generally in the sense of a peculiar air or caft of countenance or feature. MALONE.

2 The old copy-with balf that face. But why with balf that face? There is no question but the poet wrote, as I have restored the text: With that half-face. Mr. Pope, perhaps, will be angry with me for discovering an anachronism of our poet's in the next line, where he alludes to a coin not ftruck till the year 1504, in the reign of King Henry VII. viz. a groat, which, as well as the half groat, bore but half faces impreffed. Vide Stowe's Survey of London, p. 47. Holinfbed, Camden's Remains, &c. The poet fneers at the meagre fhaip vifage of the elder brother, by comparing him to a filver groat, that bore the King's face in profile, so showed but half the face: the groats of all our Kings of England, and indeed all their other coins of filver, one or two only excepted, had a full face crowned; till Henry VII. at the time above mentioned, coined groats and half-groats, as alfo fome fhillings, with half faces, i. e. faces in profile, as all our coin has now. The first groats of King Henry VIII were like those of his father; though afterwards he returned to the broad faces again. Thefe groats, with the impreffion in profile, are undoubtedly here alluded to: though, as I faid, the poet is knowingly guilty of an anachronism in it: for in the time of King John there were no groats at all; they being first, as far as appears, coined in the reign of King Edward111. THEOBALD.

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