King John Act 5 – “I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen/Upon a parchment, and against this fire/ Do I shrink up.”

King John Act 5 – “I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen/Upon a parchment, and against this fire/ Do I shrink up.”

Many people in 1596 were starting to contemplate what life would be like after Elizabeth I. To speak their thoughts would probably be counted as treason. It is interesting that behind the metaphors and imagery of a play, that Shakespeare can raise crucial questions about royal succession, power and identity.

It seems like Rome will get its way, again. King John offers to give up his crown to get Rome’s help to drive back the French. Pandolf gives back the crown to represent that Rome and the Church gives John the permission and the power to rule. An Elizabethan audience must have gasped. Should England re-embrace Rome’s rule and the Catholic Church’s rule and allow themselves to be pawns of Vatican?

Sometimes it seems the French have all the luck and it seems so at this point as they advance across the English countryside and even take London, it seems that Fortune, Rome and God are on their side. The Bastard, a symbol in this play of those English people who are noble and loyal in their hearts, implores King John to hold fast. King John reveals that he has signed a deal with Pandolf and Rome but The Bastard urges the King to fight on and King John puts The Bastard in charge of the new offensive. Perhaps the original audience would read this as a message to the nobles and advisers of Queen Elizabeth I that they should be encouraged to put faith in the loyal and lowly born subjects of England.

Louis the Dauphin moves across the countryside of England, taking all in his stride. When Pandolf enters and reveals that Rome is now reconciled with King John, Louis refuses to back down or withdraw his forces.

“I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;

And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back

Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?”

Am I Rome's slave?”

The Bastard comes to speak on King John’s behalf and declares that John’s forces, his nobles and even the wives of England’s nobles will fight to drive back Louis forces. He suggests that the drums of King John will beat more loudly and rally more people than the drums of France. The drums of war sound.

The stirring words of The Bastard, along with the drums of King John’s forces are heard at least by heaven and by the deft ears of Fortune, for in the next scene King John hears that Frances reinforcements have be wrecked at sea. Shakespeare like many other writers of his time liked to remember and frequently recall Queen Elizabeth’s defeat of the Spanish through her hidden allies of Fate, Fortune and the weather of the English Channel. The tide is turning but the King grows faint, something is afoot.

Louis is astounded at the strength and heart of the English armies. I am sure this has always been an English fantasy, to hear a Frenchman comment on the strength and virtue of Englishmen. It is Louis turn to hear bad news. Melun is dead and the English lords he had on his side have now returned to join King John and his forces.

In an open place near Swinstead Abbey, Hubert and the Bastard meet and Hubert relays that King John is sick and dying because he was poisoned by a monk. King John’s punishment and plundering of the abbeys have ironically come back to bite him. The English lords have Prince Henry brought to King John’s side.

Prince Henry sees his father weak in body and mind before he sees King John die. Henry contemplates in a couplet, the nature of existence and mortality.

“What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,

When this was now a king, and now is clay? “

Revenge seems to be what The Bastard will pursue but then Salisbury brings news of Pandolf’s offer of peace with France. Prince Henry (soon to become King Henry III) advocates that they embrace peace while they can. Revenge is not on the menu for today, so The Bastard turns to a small serving of contemplation and hope topped with sprinkles of ominous warnings to end ‘The Tragedie of the Life and Death of King John’:

“O, let us pay the time but needful woe,

Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.

This England never did, nor never shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,

If England to itself do rest but true.”