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Summary
King John enters his court with his mother, Queen Eleanor, the lords Pembroke, Essex, and Salisbury, and the French messenger Chatillon. John asks the messenger what he has to report. Chatillon says that King Philip of France speaks on behalf of John’s elder brother’s son, Arthur, and he declares Arthur’s legal claim to the throne of England and its Irish and French territories. Philip asks John to abdicate in favor of Arthur, and Chatillon insinuates that if John refuses, then France will declare war on England. John urges Chatillon to hasten back to France under threat of violence from England; he adamantly refuses to give up the throne.
Eleanor says that Arthur’s mother, Constance, must be behind this development. John says his righteous occupation of the throne will aid him in future conflicts, and Eleanor agrees, though she hints that his right to the throne may be questionable. A sheriff enters, leading two men who want him to adjudicate their conflict. Robert Faulconbridge and Philip the Bastard enter. The Bastard explains that he is the eldest son of the deceased Sir Robert Faulconbridge. Robert explains that he is the second son this same man, but he claims to be the man’s only legitimate heir.
The Bastard suggests that he and his brother did indeed have different fathers, and Eleanor scolds him for speaking so ill of his mother. But the Bastard insists that it’s his brother who has made this claim, declaring him illegitimate and laying claim to their father’s inheritance. John asks Robert why he makes such claims.
Robert explains that his father was away in Germany for a long time, while the former king, Richard the Lionhearted, stayed at his father’s estate. His father was convinced that the Bastard was not his son, and on his deathbed he willed his lands to his younger son. John points out that the elder Faulconbridge raised the Bastard as his son, thereby accepting him as his eldest son. And since a wife’s sons legally become the husband’s heirs, then it doesn’t matter whether
he is Richard the Lionhearted’s son: he remains the elder Faulconbridge’s heir. Robert indicates that the written will should be sufficient to prove his father’s desire to keep the lands from the Bastard.
At this point, Eleanor interrupts and asks the Bastard if he would rather claim his name as the bastard son of Richard the Lionhearted, without land, or be a Faulconbridge and enjoy his property. The Bastard notes that he doesn’t look anything like the elder Faulconbridge, so no one would believe he was his heir. Eleanor, impressed with the Bastard, asks him if he would rather give his land to his brother and follow her in an attack on France. The Bastard eagerly agrees. John then knights the Bastard, renaming him Sir Richard Plantagenet.
Everyone departs except for the Bastard, who contemplates his change of fortune. Now a knight, he expects his ambition will lead to a quick rise in status. Flattery will aid his ascent, he believes, but he must beware of deceitful flattery. Then Lady Faulconbridge and her attendant enter; she’s looking for Robert, the Bastard’s brother, to scold him for dragging her reputation through the mud. The Bastard announces that he is not her husband’s son and demands to know who his real father is. She asks him if he has conspired with his brother to scandalize her. He says he has given up the Faulconbridge title and lands. She then tells him that his father was Richard the Lionhearted, who seduced her when her husband was away. The Bastard assures her that he doesn’t think she sinned, for he could not wish to have a better father. He promises her that he will fight with anyone who says she sinned in giving birth to him.
Analysis
A major concern in King John is the matter of hereditary legitimacy—that is, the validity of the passage of land, title, or position to children from their deceased parents, according to an elaborate code of social rules. This matter arises in this first act through the figures of both King John and the Bastard. John’s lineage is undoubted; he is the third son of Henry II, who was the father of Richard the Lionhearted, the previous king. When Richard died childless, the throne legally should have passed to the eldest brother of the deceased king or the eldest brother’s children. Arthur is the son of Richard’s eldest remaining brother and legally should be king. John, on the other hand, stakes his claim to the throne by being the third son of Henry II. His mother—Henry II’s widow, Eleanor—supports him, and his claim to the throne is based on his personal strength compared to Arthur’s relative personal weakness. Yet Arthur has found a champion in Philip, the king of France.
John’s royal lineage is not in question, but what he can legally claim to possess based on that lineage is in doubt. The Bastard, by contrast, is legally entitled to inherit the lands of his foster father. His father’s deathbed will cannot move the law, which says that the offspring of a wife’s affair is still the legitimate son of her husband. Surprisingly, being a bastard child is not a barrier to inheritance; the Bastard can thus become a landed squire in place of his brother, an actual blood child of the Faulconbridge line. Clearly, then, being in the right position is vital to gaining possessions legally, even if one’s lineage is in question. Whereas Arthur, whose lineage is in order, is not in the right place to claim the throne of England, the Bastard is in the right position to overturn his scandalous birth. Even so, he turns down his inheritance, choosing to become a landless knight rather than a landholding squire. His ambitions are larger than those of a petty landholder, so he jumps at the opportunity to become a knight and take on the royal Plantagenet name.
Unlike many of the characters in King John, the Bastard is not an actual historical figure, and in the early parts of the play he is, arguably, less a coherent character than a set of theatrical functions. Shakespeare based him in part upon the Vice figure, a mischievous allegorical character common in earlier English morality plays. The Vice figure combines a commitment to evil with an alluring sense of fun, all the while maintaining an intimate relationship with the audience. In asides and soliloquies, Vice denounces the failings of the royals while gleefully announcing his contribution to their self-interested schemes. However, later in the play the Bastard becomes one of the more responsible figures, proving himself an ethical center in a play largely without a rhetoric of positive values. The Bastard ultimately becomes the most vital and honorable character in the play.
Lady Faulconbridge arrives with the intention of defending her honor against her son’s claims, first bringing up the play’s concern with the uncertainty of biologically legitimate patriarchal succession. Hereditary descent from father to son requires wives to be faithful to their husbands, but as King John himself points out, no father can ever be completely sure of his children’s paternity. Women are therefore necessary to hereditary lineage, but they also represent a potential threat. This anxiety is later reflected in vicious exchanges between Constance and Eleanor when they accuse each other of infidelity. These mothers threaten to compromise their sons even after their lineages are assured, as we see through their micromanagement of the careers of John and Arthur, and the fact that both sons seem to weaken considerably after the deaths of their mothers.
