SCENE I. KING JOHN'S palace
Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON
KING JOHN
Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
CHATILLON
Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
In my behavior to the majesty,
The borrow'd majesty, of England here.
QUEEN ELINOR
A strange beginning: 'borrow'd majesty!'
KING JOHN
Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
CHATILLON
Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island and the territories,
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
And put these same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.
KING JOHN
What follows if we disallow of this?
CHATILLON
The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
KING JOHN
Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment: so answer France.
CHATILLON
Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
The farthest limit of my embassy.
KING JOHN
Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace:
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:
So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
And sullen presage of your own decay.
An honourable conduct let him have:
Pembroke, look to't. Farewell, Chatillon.
Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE
QUEEN ELINOR
What now, my son! have I not ever said
How that ambitious Constance would not cease
Till she had kindled France and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her son?
This might have been prevented and made whole
With very easy arguments of love,
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.
KING JOHN
Our strong possession and our right for us.
QUEEN ELINOR
Your strong possession much more than your right,
Or else it must go wrong with you and me:
So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.
Enter a Sheriff
ESSEX
My liege, here is the strangest controversy
Come from country to be judged by you,
That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?
KING JOHN
Let them approach.
Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
This expedition's charge.
Enter ROBERT and the BASTARD
What men are you?
BASTARD
Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
KING JOHN
What art thou?
ROBERT
The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
KING JOHN
Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.
BASTARD
Most certain of one mother, mighty king;
That is well known; and, as I think, one father:
But for the certain knowledge of that truth
I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother:
Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.
QUEEN ELINOR
Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother
And wound her honour with this diffidence.
BASTARD
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 least from fair five hundred pound a year:
Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!
KING JOHN
A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
BASTARD
I know not why, except to get the land.
But once he slander'd me with bastardy:
But whether 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 sir Robert did beget us both
And were our father and this son like him,
O old sir Robert, father, on my knee
I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!
KING JOHN
Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
QUEEN ELINOR
He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;
The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
Do you not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?
KING JOHN
Mine eye hath well examined his parts
And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
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