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Philip Faulconbridge—known in the play simply as “the Bastard”—is the illegitimate son of England’s late king, Richard the Lionhearted. We first meet him when he and his younger half-brother, Robert Faulconbridge, present their inheritance case before King John in the play’s opening scene. Though a bastard, Philip nonetheless has a claim on his foster father’s land, since he and his half-brother share have the same mother. In other words, his status as illegitimate doesn’t bar the way to his inheritance. Even so, when Eleanor notes his resemblance to Richard the Lionhearted and presents him with an opportunity to join the nobility, he jumps at the chance. John therefore knights him as Sir Richard Plantagenet, and the Bastard relinquishes the life of a landed squire to his half-brother. His first steps as a newly minted gentleman are somewhat awkward. Thus, he initially appears to be a mischievous figure related to the Vice archetype from medieval morality plays—a character known for pursuing immoral goals with high spiritedness.
As the play continues, however, Shakespeare documents the Bastard’s transformation into an honorable and loyal knight. In early scenes, the Bastard often speaks directly to the audience, reporting both his excitement to join the nobility and his confusion about how noblemen act. The first lesson he must learn is that the nobility subordinate everything to self-interest. Thus, when the Bastard champions the inherent nobility of war, he’s shocked to find how eagerly King John adopts a more politically advantageous solution. Though he’s disturbed to see that decisions at this level are made in terms of “commodity” (i.e., self-interest), he pledges henceforth to worship “gain” (2.1.598) as well. The Bastard’s soliloquies disappear as the king increasingly relies on him as a deputy. It is the Bastard, for instance, who takes on the ransacking of England’s monasteries. Later, the Bastard also leads the English army and serves as an ambassador to the French camp. A key trait of the Bastard is his superior capacity to heckle and deal out insults—a characteristic that links him to his upbringing as a commoner. Though he never loses this trait, by the final act he develops into the play’s most honorable and loyal character, becoming a key supporter of the king and, later, of his son.
