are the closing words of The Troublesome Raigne which have remained almost intact in the recast: "Thus England's peace begins in Henry's reign If England's peers and people join in one, "KING JOHN" AND "THE TROUBLESOME RAIGNE" In comparing the two plays we note the following more striking points:-(i) Shakespeare has compressed the ten acts of his original into five,1 though he only omits four entire scenes, and introduces but one new one (at the end of Act IV): (ii) there is hardly a single line in the two plays exactly alike; by a mere touch, the re-arrangement of the words, the omission of a monosyllable, and the like, Shakespeare has alchemized mere dross: (iii) Shakespeare, for the most part, follows the older play in its treatment of historical fact,2 but he departs therefrom noticeably in representing Arthur as a child: (iv) certain characters of the play as well as striking incidents have been elaborated and refined, e. g. Constance, Hubert, Pandulph, and espe 3 1 Much actually takes place in The Troublesome Raigne which Shakespeare merely speaks of, e. g. there is a scene in which the five "moons" actually appear. 2 Surprise is often expressed at the omission of all mention of the Magna Charta in Shakespeare's play, but it is due in the first instance to the author of The Troublesome Raigne. 3 The famous scene of Constance's Lament (Act III. sc. iv.) was evolved from the following crude original: "My tongue is tuned to story forth mishap: When did I breathe to tell a pleasing tale? Must Constance speak? Let tears prevent her talk. cially Faulconbridge, whose character Shakespeare has rendered consistent and ennobled; he makes him not merely the central character, but also a sort of Chorus of the play, giving vent to sentiments of truest patriotism, and enunciating the highest national interests, an embodiment of the typical Englishman, plain, blunt, honest, and loyal: (v) Shakespeare omits altogether the coarse comic scenes which, in the older play, detract from the dignity of the historical surroundings: (vi) the two plays have the same fault in having no hero; John is not the hero of King John. On the other hand, there are three points in Shakespeare's play not as clear as in the original:—(i) Faulconbridge's hatred of Austria: (ii) his anger at the betrothal of Blanch to the Dauphin: (iii) the reason why the monk poisoned King John. The old play explains clearly (i) that Austria had been cruel to Coeur-de-Lion: (ii) that Blanch had previously been betrothed to Faulconbridge: (iii) that John "contemned" the Pope, and never loved a Friar; (cp. Shakespeare as an Adapter, Edward Rose, Preface to Troublesome Raigne, Part i; Forewords to Troublesome Raigne, Part ii, Dr. Furnivall; Critical Essays on the Plays of Shakespeare, Watkiss Lloyd; Commentaries on the Historical Plays of Shakespeare, Courtney; Warner's English History in Shakespeare (Longman, 1894), etc.). DATE OF COMPOSITION King John is mentioned by Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598). From internal evidence, it belongs to the same group as Richard II and Richard III, especially in the characteristic absence of prose. The large amount of rhyme in Richard II makes it, in all probability, anterior to King John. The play may safely be dated c. 1595. She weeps again to hear the wrack of Troy: Two words will serve, and then my tale is done- Similarly, the scene in which John suggests to Hubert his murderous design is based on a mere hint of the older play. DURATION OF ACTION The time of the play occupies seven days, with intervals comprising in all not more than three or four months. The historical time covers the whole of King John's reign. INTRODUCTION By HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, A.M. Shakespeare has probably done more to spread a knowledge of English history, than all the historians put together, our liveliest and best impressions of "merry England in the olden time" being generally drawn from his pages. Though we seldom think of referring to him as authority in matters of fact, yet in some way and for some reason or other we secretly make him our standard of old English manners, and character, and life, reading other historians by his light, and trying them by his measures, whether we be aware of it or not. He had indeed "A mind reflecting ages past, whose clear Drawing forth from "the dark backward and abysm of time" the shades of departed things, he causes them to live their life over again, to repeat themselves, as it were, under our eye, we being rather spectators than students of their course and passage. And yet, the further we push our historical researches, the more we are brought to acknowledge the general justness of his representations. Even when he makes free with chronology, and varies from the actual order of things, it is generally in quest of something higher and better than chronological accuracy; and the result is in most cases favorable to right conceptions: the events being thereby knit together and articulated into that vital harmony and circulation of nature, wherein they can be better understood, than if they were ordered with literal exactness of time and place. If, which is often the case, he bring in fictitious persons and events, mixing them up with real ones, it is that he may set forth into view those parts, and elements, and aspects of life, which lie without the range of common history, embodying in imaginary forms that truth of which the real forms have not been preserved. So that, without any loss, perhaps we should say, with much gain, of substantial truth, Shakespeare clothes the dry bones of historical matter with the warm living flesh of poetry and wit, and thus gives them an interest such as no mere narrative could be made to possess, insomuch that thousands, who would fail to be won even by the fascinating pages of Hume, are caught and held by the Poet's dramatic revivifications of the past. If there be any others able to give us as just notions, provided we read them, still there are none that come near him in the art of causing themselves to be read. But what, perhaps, is most remarkable is, that out of the materials of an entire age and nation he so selects and orders and uses a few, as to give a just conception of the whole; by subtle conveyances impressing upon the mind a sort of daguerre, wherein a close inspection may discern "the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure;" all the lines and features of its life and action, public and private, its piety, chivalry, policy, wit, and profligacy, being gathered up and wrought out in fair proportion and clear expression. So true is this, that even the gleanings of after-times have produced scarce any thing touching the history of old England, but what may be better understood for a previous acquaintance with the Poet's historical representations; though it must be owned that these have in turn received much additional light from those. Where he deviates most from all the historical authorities accessible to him, there is a large wise propriety in his deviations, such as to justify the conjecture entertained by some, that he must have written from some traditionary matter which the historians received in his day had failed to chronicle, but which later researches have amply verified. An in |