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King John: Act I, Scene 1

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King John
Act I, Scene 1

Scene 1

A room in King John’s palace.

  1. Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, and
  2. Salisbury, with the Chatillion of France.

King John

1
  1. Now say, Chatillion, what would France with us?

Chatillion

2 - 4
  1. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
  2. In my behavior to the majesty,
  3. The borrowed majesty, of England here.

Queen Elinor

5
  1. A strange beginning: “borrowed majesty”!

King John

6
  1. Silence, good mother, hear the embassy.

Chatillion

7 - 15
  1. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
  2. Of thy deceased brother Geffrey’s son,
  3. Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
  4. To this fair island and the territories,
  5. To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
  6. Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
  7. Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
  8. And put the same into young Arthur’s hand,
  9. Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

King John

16
  1. What follows if we disallow of this?

Chatillion

17 - 18
  1. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
  2. To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

King John

19 - 20
  1. Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
  2. Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

Chatillion

21 - 22
  1. Then take my King’s defiance from my mouth,
  2. The farthest limit of my embassy.

King John

23 - 30
  1. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace.
  2. Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
  3. For ere thou canst report, I will be there;
  4. The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
  5. So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
  6. And sullen presage of your own decay.
  7. An honorable conduct let him have.
  8. Pembroke, look to’t. Farewell, Chatillion.
  1. Exeunt Chatillion and Pembroke.

Queen Elinor

31 - 38
  1. What now, my son, have I not ever said
  2. How that ambitious Constance would not cease
  3. Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
  4. Upon the right and party of her son?
  5. This might have been prevented and made whole
  6. With very easy arguments of love,
  7. Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
  8. With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

King John

39
  1. Our strong possession and our right for us.

Queen Elinor

40 - 43
  1. Your strong possession much more than your right,
  2. Or else it must go wrong with you and me;
  3. So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
  4. Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.
  1. Enter a Sheriff and whispers Essex in the ear.

Earl of Essex

44 - 46
  1. My liege, here is the strangest controversy
  2. Come from the country to be judg’d by you
  3. That e’er I heard. Shall I produce the men?

King John

47 - 50
  1. Let them approach.
  2. Exit Sheriff.
  3. Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
  4. This expedition’s charge.
  5. Enter Robert Faulconbridge and Philip the Bastard.
  6.                           What men are you?

Bastard

51 - 55
  1. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
  2. Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
  3. As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,
  4. A soldier, by the honor-giving hand
  5. Of Coeur de Lion knighted in the field.

King John

56
  1. What art thou?

Robert Faulconbridge

57
  1. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree as King John

Herbert Beerbohm Tree as King John

Karl August Büchel, 1900

King John

58 - 59
  1. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
  2. You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Bastard

60 - 64
  1. Most certain of one mother, mighty King—
  2. That is well known—and, as I think, one father;
  3. But for the certain knowledge of that truth
  4. I put you o’er to heaven and to my mother.
  5. Of that I doubt, as all men’s children may.

Queen Elinor

65 - 66
  1. Out on thee, rude man, thou dost shame thy mother,
  2. And wound her honor with this diffidence.

Bastard

67 - 71
  1. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it;
  2. That is my brother’s plea and none of mine,
  3. The which if he can prove, ’a pops me out
  4. At least from fair five hundred pound a year.
  5. Heaven guard my mother’s honor, and my land!

King John

72 - 73
  1. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
  2. Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

Bastard

74 - 84
  1. I know not why, except to get the land;
  2. But once he slander’d me with bastardy.
  3. But whe’er I be as true begot or no,
  4. That still I lay upon my mother’s head,
  5. But that I am as well begot, my liege
  6. (Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!),
  7. Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.
  8. If old Sir Robert did beget us both,
  9. And were our father, and this son like him,
  10. O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
  11. I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!

King John

85
  1. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

Queen Elinor

86 - 89
  1. He hath a trick of Coeur de Lion’s face,
  2. The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
  3. Do you not read some tokens of my son
  4. In the large composition of this man?

King John

90 - 92
  1. Mine eye hath well examined his parts,
  2. And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
  3. What doth move you to claim your brother’s land?

Bastard

93 - 95
  1. Because he hath a half-face like my father!
  2. With half that face would he have all my land—
  3. A half-fac’d groat five hundred pound a year!

Robert Faulconbridge

96 - 97
  1. My gracious liege, when that my father liv’d,
  2. Your brother did employ my father much—

Bastard

98 - 99
  1. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land;
  2. Your tale must be how he employ’d my mother.

Robert Faulconbridge

100 - 116
  1. And once dispatch’d him in an embassy
  2. To Germany, there with the Emperor
  3. To treat of high affairs touching that time.
  4. Th’ advantage of his absence took the King,
  5. And in the mean time sojourn’d at my father’s;
  6. Where how he did prevail I shame to speak.
  7. But truth is truth. Large lengths of seas and shores
  8. Between my father and my mother lay,
  9. As I have heard my father speak himself,
  10. When this same lusty gentleman was got.
  11. Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath’d
  12. His lands to me, and took it on his death
  13. That this my mother’s son was none of his;
  14. And if he were, he came into the world
  15. Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
  16. Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
  17. My father’s land, as was my father’s will.
Costume design for King John

Costume design for King John

John Miller, George Scharf, 1823

King John

117 - 130
  1. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate,
  2. Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him;
  3. And if she did play false, the fault was hers,
  4. Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
  5. That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
  6. Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
  7. Had of your father claim’d this son for his?
  8. In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
  9. This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
  10. In sooth he might; then if he were my brother’s,
  11. My brother might not claim him, nor your father,
  12. Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:
  13. My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;
  14. Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.

Robert Faulconbridge

131 - 132
  1. Shall then my father’s will be of no force
  2. To dispossess that child which is not his?

Bastard

133 - 134
  1. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
  2. Than was his will to get me, as I think.

Queen Elinor

135 - 138
  1. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,
  2. And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land;
  3. Or the reputed son of Coeur de Lion,
  4. Lord of thy presence and no land beside?

Bastard

139 - 148
  1. Madam, and if my brother had my shape
  2. And I had his, Sir Robert’s his, like him,
  3. And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
  4. My arms such eel-skins stuff’d, my face so thin
  5. That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
  6. Lest men should say, “Look where three-farthings goes!”
  7. And to his shape were heir to all this land,
  8. Would I might never stir from off this place,
  9. I would give it every foot to have this face;
  10. It would not be Sir Nob in any case.

Queen Elinor

149 - 151
  1. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
  2. Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?
  3. I am a soldier, and now bound to France.

Bastard

152 - 155
  1. Brother, take you my land, I’ll take my chance.
  2. Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,
  3. Yet sell your face for five pence and ’tis dear.
  4. Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.

Queen Elinor

156
  1. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.

Bastard

157
  1. Our country manners give our betters way.

King John

158
  1. What is thy name?

Bastard

159 - 160
  1. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,
  2. Philip, good old Sir Robert’s wive’s eldest son.

King John

161 - 163
  1. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:
  2. Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,
  3. Arise Sir Richard, and Plantagenet.

Bastard

164 - 167
  1. Brother by th’ mother’s side, give me your hand;
  2. My father gave me honor, yours gave land.
  3. Now blessed be the hour by night or day
  4. When I was got, Sir Robert was away!

Queen Elinor

168 - 169
  1. The very spirit of Plantagenet!
  2. I am thy grandame, Richard, call me so.

Bastard

170 - 176
  1. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
  2. Something about, a little from the right,
  3. In at the window, or else o’er the hatch.
  4. Who dares not stir by day must walk by night,
  5. And have is have, however men do catch.
  6. Near or far off, well won is still well shot,
  7. And I am I, howe’er I was begot.
Charles Kean's productions at the Princess's and Haymarket theatres

From: Charles Kean's productions at the Princess's and Haymarket theatres

Charles Hamilton Smith, Emma Hamilton Smith, 19th century

King John

177 - 180
  1. Go, Faulconbridge, now hast thou thy desire,
  2. A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.
  3. Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed
  4. For France, for France, for it is more than need.

Bastard

181 - 222
  1. Brother, adieu, good fortune come to thee!
  2. For thou wast got i’ th’ way of honesty.
  3. Exeunt all but Bastard.
  4. A foot of honor better than I was,
  5. But many a many foot of land the worse.
  6. Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
  7. “Good den, Sir Richard!” “God-a-mercy, fellow!”
  8. And if his name be George, I’ll call him Peter;
  9. For new-made honor doth forget men’s names;
  10. ’Tis too respective and too sociable
  11. For your conversion. Now your traveler,
  12. He and his toothpick at my worship’s mess,
  13. And when my knightly stomach is suffic’d,
  14. Why then I suck my teeth, and catechize
  15. My picked man of countries. “My dear sir,”
  16. Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,
  17. “I shall beseech you”—that is question now;
  18. And then comes answer like an Absey book:
  19. “O sir,” says answer, “at your best command,
  20. At your employment, at your service, sir.”
  21. “No, sir,” says question, “I, sweet sir, at yours”;
  22. And so ere answer knows what question would,
  23. Saving in dialogue of compliment,
  24. And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
  25. The Pyrenean and the river Po,
  26. It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
  27. But this is worshipful society,
  28. And fits the mounting spirit like myself;
  29. For he is but a bastard to the time
  30. That doth not smack of observation—
  31. And so am I, whether I smack or no;
  32. And not alone in habit and device,
  33. Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
  34. But from the inward motion to deliver
  35. Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth,
  36. Which though I will not practice to deceive,
  37. Yet to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
  38. For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
  39. But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?
  40. What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband
  41. That will take pains to blow a horn before her?
  42. Enter Lady Faulconbridge and James Gurney.
  43. O me, ’tis my mother. How now, good lady,
  44. What brings you here to court so hastily?

Lady Faulconbridge

223 - 224
  1. Where is that slave, thy brother? Where is he,
  2. That holds in chase mine honor up and down?

Bastard

225 - 227
  1. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert’s son?
  2. Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
  3. Is it Sir Robert’s son that you seek so?

Lady Faulconbridge

228 - 230
  1. Sir Robert’s son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
  2. Sir Robert’s son! Why scorn’st thou at Sir Robert?
  3. He is Sir Robert’s son, and so art thou.
Costume design for Lady Faulconbridge

Costume design for Lady Faulconbridge

From Charles Kean's scrapbook

19th century

Bastard

231
  1. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?

Gurney

232
  1. Good leave, good Philip.

Bastard

233 - 242
  1.                          Philip? Sparrow! James,
  2. There’s toys abroad; anon I’ll tell thee more.
  3. Exit James Gurney.
  4. Madam, I was not old Sir Robert’s son;
  5. Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
  6. Upon Good Friday and ne’er broke his fast.
  7. Sir Robert could do well—marry, to confess—
  8. Could he get me. Sir Robert could not do it;
  9. We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,
  10. To whom am I beholding for these limbs?
  11. Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.

Lady Faulconbridge

243 - 245
  1. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,
  2. That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honor?
  3. What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?

Bastard

246 - 252
  1. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.
  2. What, I am dubb’d! I have it on my shoulder.
  3. But, mother, I am not Sir Robert’s son,
  4. I have disclaim’d Sir Robert and my land,
  5. Legitimation, name, and all is gone;
  6. Then, good my mother, let me know my father;
  7. Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?

Lady Faulconbridge

253
  1. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?

Bastard

254
  1. As faithfully as I deny the devil.

Lady Faulconbridge

255 - 260
  1. King Richard Coeur de Lion was thy father.
  2. By long and vehement suit I was seduc’d
  3. To make room for him in my husband’s bed.
  4. Heaven! Lay not my transgression to my charge,
  5. That art the issue of my dear offense,
  6. Which was so strongly urg’d past my defense.

Bastard

261 - 278
  1. Now by this light, were I to get again,
  2. Madam, I would not wish a better father.
  3. Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,
  4. And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;
  5. Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,
  6. Subjected tribute to commanding love,
  7. Against whose fury and unmatched force
  8. The aweless lion could not wage the fight,
  9. Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand.
  10. He that perforce robs lions of their hearts
  11. May easily win a woman’s. Ay, my mother,
  12. With all my heart I thank thee for my father!
  13. Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well
  14. When I was got, I’ll send his soul to hell.
  15. Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin,
  16. And they shall say, when Richard me begot,
  17. If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.
  18. Who says it was, he lies, I say ’twas not.
  1. Exeunt.

Byam Shaw, 1901

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