King John

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This article is about the Shakespearean play. For the English monarch, see John of England. For other kings named John see Kings named John.

King John is one of the so-called Shakespearean histories, plays written by William Shakespeare and based on the history of England. Its first recorded performance was in 1598. The play dramatises the reign of King John of England, son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and father of Henry III of England.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The play opens with a demand from the French King Phillip for King John to abdicate in favor of his nephew Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, son of his elder brother Geoffrey. The five acts then depict a dizzying change of s, a Papal excommunication and subsequent acceptance, and the play ends finally with King John's death at the hands of a monk.

Throughout the play, a character known as "The Bastard" delivers a sceptical commentary on nobility, "commodity" (self-interest) and English sovereignty.

It is sometimes considered odd that the Magna Carta is never mentioned in the play, since this is what King John is best remembered for today. However, the Magna Carta was not considered to be of any great moment in Shakespeare's time. Also, the focus of the play is on the quarrel over the succession, and Shakespeare would not have thought the Magna Carta relevant to his story. Despite this, it was common for Victorian productions of the play to interpolate a spectacular tableau of the signing of the Magna Carta into the middle of the play.

Reputation

In the Victorian era, King John was one of Shakespeare's most frequently staged plays, in part because of the opportunities it offers for spectacle and pageantry that suited the style of the Victorian stage. However, the play has now dropped in popularity to the extent that it is one of Shakespeare's least-known plays and stagings of it are very rare.

Cast

King John
Prince Henry, son to the King (the future Henry III)
Arthur, Duke of Britain, nephew to the King (Arthur I, Duke of Brittany)
Earl of Pembroke (William Marshal)
Earl of Essex (Geoffrey FitzPeter)
Lord Bigot
Hubert de Burgh
Robert Faulconbridge, son of Sir Robert Faulconbridge
Philip the Bastard, his half-brother (also called Richard)
James Gurney, servant to Lady Faulconbridge
Peter of Pomfret, a prophet

Philip, King of France (Philip II of France)
Louis, the Dauphin (future Louis VIII of France)
Lymoges, Duke of Austria
Cardinal Pandolph, the Pope's Legate
Melune, a French Lord
Chatillion, ambassador from France to King John

Queen Elinor, widow of Henry II, mother to King John (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
Constance, widow to Geffrey (John's elder brother), mother to Arthur (Constance, Duchess of Brittany).
Blanch of Spain, daughter to the King of Castile, niece to King John (Blanche of Castile)

Lady Faulconbridge, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge

Lords, heralds, etc.

External links

[Complete Text of King John at MIT]
[King John] - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
[The life and death of King John] - HTML version of this title.

	The complete works of William Shakespeare
Tragedies:	Romeo and Juliet \| Macbeth \| King Lear \| Hamlet \| Othello \| Titus Andronicus \| Julius Caesar \| Antony and Cleopatra \| Coriolanus \| Troilus and Cressida \| Timon of Athens
Comedies:	A Midsummer Night's Dream \| All's Well That Ends Well \| As You Like It \| Cymbeline \| Love's Labour's Lost \| Measure for Measure \| The Merchant of Venice \| The Merry Wives of Windsor \| Much Ado About Nothing \| Pericles, Prince of Tyre \| Taming of the Shrew \| The Comedy of Errors \| The Tempest \| Twelfth Night, or What You Will \| The Two Gentlemen of Verona \| The Two Noble Kinsmen \| The Winter's Tale
Histories:	King John \| Richard II \| Henry IV, Part 1 \| Henry IV, Part 2 \| Henry V \| Henry VI, part 1 \| Henry VI, part 2 \| Henry VI, part 3 \| Richard III \| Henry VIII
Poems and Sonnets:	Sonnets \| Venus and Adonis \| The Rape of Lucrece \| The Passionate Pilgrim \| The Phoenix and the Turtle \| A Lover's Complaint
Apocrypha and Lost Plays	Edward III \| Sir Thomas More \| Cardenio (lost) \| Love's Labour's Won (lost)
See also:	Shakespeare on screen \| Titles based on Shakespeare \| Shakespearean characters \| Shakespeare's reputation

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