So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

Which none but Heaven and you and I shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire who whispers ESSEX.

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Come from the country to be judged by you,

That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?

K. John. Let them approach.

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

This expedition's charge.

[Exit Sheriff.

Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FALCONBRIDGE, and PHILIP his

bastard Brother.

What men are you?

Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
K. John. What art thou?

Rob. The son and heir to that same Falconbridge.
K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
You came not of one mother, then, it seems.

Bast. 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.

Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother And wound her honour with this diffidence.

Bast. 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!

K. John. A good blunt fellow. -Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

Bast. I know not why, except to get the land.

But once he slander'd me with bastardy :

But whêr6 I be as true begot or no,

That still I lay upon my mother's head.

K. John. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven sent us here!
Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;

The accent of his tongue affecteth him :8
Do you not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examinéd his parts,
And finds them perfect Richard. — Sirrah, speak,
What doth move you to claim your brother's land?

Bast. Because he hath a half-face, like my father,
With that half-face would he have all my land:
A half-faced groat9 five hundred pound a year!
Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father lived,
Your brother did employ my father much,

Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land.
Rob. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy

6 A frequent contraction of whether.

7 Trick, as here used, is properly an heraldic term for mark or note; hence meaning a peculiarity of countenance or expression.

8 To affect a thing is, in one sense, to draw or incline towards it; that is, to resemble it. The meaning here is, that the Bastard's speech has a smack of his alleged father's.

9 The groats of Henry VII. differed from other coins in having a halfface, or profile, instead of a full-face. Hence the phrase half-faced groat came to be used of a meagre visage. So in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: “ 'You half-fac'd groat, you thin-cheek'd chitty face."

To Germany, there with the Emperor

To treat of high affairs touching that time.
Th' advantage of his absence took the King,
And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's.
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd

10

His lands to me; and took it on his death,1
That this my mother's son was none of his :
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
My father's land, as was my father's will.

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate,
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him:
Your father's heir must have your father's land.
Rob. Shall, then, my father's will be of no force
To dispossess that child which is not his?

Eli. Whêr hadst thou rather,11 be a Falconbridge,
And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,

Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
Lord of thy presence,12 and no land besides?

Bast. Madam, an if my brother had my shape,

And I had his, Sir Robert his,13 like him;

10 This appears to have been a common form of making oath, or swearing to a thing. So in 1 Henry IV., v. 4: “I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh."

11 Whêr, again, for whether. And in alternative questions whether is often used as equivalent to which, or which of the two. So that the meaning here is," Which wouldst thou prefer, to be a Falconbridge," &c.

12 Presence is here equivalent to person; and the meaning is lord in right of thy own person. The lord of a thing is, properly, the owner of it; and lords are commonly such in virtue of the lands and titles that belong to them. As the son of a king, Falconbridge will be a lord by personal right, whether he has any lands or not. Sir Henry Wotton's Happy Man has a similar expression: Lord of himself, though not of lands."

13 Sir Robert his is merely equivalent to Sir Robert's; his being the old sign of the genitive.

And if my legs were two such riding-rods,

My arms such eel-skins stuff'd; my face so thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Lest men should say, Look, where three-farthings goes! 14
And, to 15 his shape, were heir to all this land;

Would I might never stir from off this place,
I'd give it every foot to have this face:

I would not be Sir Nob in any case.

Eli. I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune, Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?

I am a soldier, and now bound to France.

Bast. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my Your face hath got five hundred pound a year; Yet sell your face for five pence, and 'tis dear. — Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.

chance:

Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
Bast. Our country manners give our betters way.
K. John. What is thy name?

Bast. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun, — Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eld'st son.

K. John. From henceforth bear his name whose form

thou bear'st:

Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great,

Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.16

14 Alluding to the three-farthing pieces of Elizabeth, which, being of silver, were of course very thin. These pieces had a profile of the Queen on the obverse side, and a rose on the reverse. Staunton notes that, "as with the profile of the sovereign it bore the emblem of a rose, its similitude to a weazen-faced beau with that flower stuck in his ear, according to a courtly fashion of Shakespeare's day, is sufficiently intelligible and humorous." 15 Here to has the force of in addition to; a frequent usage.

16 Plantagenet was originally an epithet conferred upon a member of the House of Anjou from his wearing a stalk of the broom-plant, planta genista, in his cap or bonnet.

Bast. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand : My father gave me honour, yours gave land.

Eli. The very spirit of Plantagenet !

I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so.

Bast. Madam, by chance, but not by truth: what though? Something about, a little from the right,17

In at the window, or else o'er the hatch; 18
Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
And have is have, however men do catch;
Near or far off, well won is still well shot.

K. John. Go, Falconbridge: now hast thou thy desire;
A landless knight makes thee a landed squire. —
Come, madam, and come, Richard; we must speed
For France, for France; for it is more than need.
Bast. Brother, adieu: good fortune come to thee!
[Exeunt all but the Bastard.

A foot of honour better than I was,
But many a many foot of land the worse.

Well, now can I make any Joan a lady:

Good den,19 Sir Richard:- God-a-mercy, fellow!

17 That is, "I am your grandson, though, to be sure, somewhat irregularly so; but that matters little, since what a man has, he has, however he came by it; and, in a shooting-match, it makes no difference whether one hits close or wide of the mark, so long as he wins the game." Such is in substance Johnson's explanation. Here, as often, truth is put for honesty. So true man often means honest man.

18 These were proverbial phrases applied to persons born illegitimately. So in The Family of Love, 1608: "Woe worth the time that ever I gave suck to a child that came in at a window." And in The Witches of Lancashire, 1634: "I would not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap over the hatch."

19 Good den was a common collo quialism for good even. — God-a-mercy is an old colloquialism for God have mercy; that is, "God pardon me." Here it stands as a sort of apology for non-recognition. — Joan, in the line before, is used as a common term meaning about the same as wench.