[In this excerpt Collier examines Bale's seminal use of historical figures and events in his plays and the bridge his works created between medieval theater and modern drama.]

… The date when Kynge Johan was originally written cannot be clearly ascertained: perhaps before Bale was made an Irish prelate by Edward VI. in 1552; but this point may admit of dispute. From the conclusion, it would appear that Elizabeth was on the throne; but I apprehend that both the Epilogue (if we may so call it) and some other passages, were subsequent additions. The speech of Verity, on p. 84, in which John Leland is called upon to wake out of his slumber, was possibly one of these. It seems to have been inserted partly for the purpose of vindicating King John from the accusations of the “malicious clergy,” and partly for the sake of giving time to the actors to prepare for the ensuing scene. The introduction of the name of Darvell Gathyron on p. 48, of course establishes that the line was written after 1538, but of that fact there could be no doubt. It is known that in many of our plays, from the earliest times to the closing of the theatres, it was not unusual to make changes and substitutions, either to increase the interest, to improve the story, or to adapt it to the circumstances of the time.

Bale was originally a Roman Catholic, became a Protestant, was abroad during the reign of Mary, returned to England after the accession of Elizabeth, and was made a Prebendary of Canterbury about 1560. He never returned to his see in Ireland, and probably, therefore, derived no revenue from it. He died in 1563.

The design of the two plays of Kynge Johan was to promote and confirm the Reformation, of which, after his conversion, Bale was one of the most strenuous and unscrupulous supporters. This design he executed in a manner until then, I apprehend, unknown. He took some of the leading and popular events of the reign of King John, his disputes with the Pope, the suffering of his kingdom under the interdict, his subsequent submission to Rome, and his imputed death by poison from the hands of a monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them to the circumstances of the country in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII: on p. 43, that monarch is spoken of as dead:—

Tyll that duke Josue, whych was our late Kynge
          Henrye,
Clerely brought us into the lande of mylke and honye.

Among his plays in idiomate materno, Bale inserts another, which, from its title, we may perhaps infer related also to some well-known incidents in the life of Henry VIII.: it is super utroque regis conjugio.

This early application of historical events of itself is a singular circumstance, but it is the more remarkable when we recollect that we have no drama in our language of that date, in which personages connected with, and engaged in, our public affairs are introduced. In Kynge Johan we have not only the monarch himself, who figures very prominently until his death on p. 84; but Pope Innocent, Cardinal Pandulphus, Stephen Langton, Simon of Swynsett (or Swinstead), and a monk called Raymundus; besides abstract impersonations, such as England, who is stated to be a widow, Imperial Majesty, who is supposed to take the reins of government after the death of King John, Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, Treason, Verity, and Sedition, who may be said to be the Vice or Jester of the piece. Thus we have many of the elements of historical plays, such as they were acted at our public theatres forty or fifty years afterwards, as well as some of the ordinary materials of the old moralities, which were gradually exploded by the introduction of real or imaginary characters on the scene. Bale's play, therefore, occupies an intermediate place between moralities and historical plays, and it is the only known existing specimen of that species of composition of so early a date. The interlude, of which the characters are given in Mr. Kempe's “Loseley Manuscripts,” p. 64, was evidently entirely allegorical; and the plays of Cambyses and Appius and Virginia are not English subjects, and belong to a later period of our drama. On this account, if on no other, Kynge Johan deserves the special attention of literary and poetical antiquaries.

It will be seen, however, that the play (taking the two dramas as one entire performance) possesses both interest and humour, making allowance for the style of writing and particular notions of the time, and for the introduction of polemical and doctrinal topics in the dialogue. The “popetly playes” of the clergy, prior to the Reformation, are censured on p. 17; and it will be recollected that the object of the writers of them was to give the people such an acquaintance with Holy Writ, as suited the purpose of the Romish Church, and would enforce the tenets peculiar to it. (Vide Hist. Engl. Dram. Poetr. II. 156.) Bale's intention was directly the reverse, and instead of founding himself upon some portion of the Old or New Testaments, he resorted to the Chronicles, and thus endeavoured to give attractive novelty to his undertaking. Nevertheless, on p. 30 he terms his play a “Pageant,” which was the common designation of dramatic performances such as they had existed from the earliest period. It will be seen also that on p. 42 he inserts an explanatory speech by a personage whom he calls “the Interpreter,” a course consistent with very ancient practice, and sometimes necessary for the development of the story, or the enforcement of the moral. Here also we meet with the words Finit Actus Primus, but in no other part of the Manuscript is there any trace of such artificial divisions; and no intimation is given of the separation of the scenes, excepting by the entrances or exits of the characters, many of which, as pointed out in the notes, are not marked.

At the end of the Manuscript we meet with these words, “Thus endeth the ij playes of Kynge Johan;” but it is not possible now to ascertain precisely where the first play ended and the second began. On p. 68 will be found a notice of a defect in the manuscript, the probability being that one of the additions made by Bale, and intended by him to separate the two parts of the drama, has been irrecoverably lost.

This separation of the production into “two plays” is the earliest instance of the kind, although at a later date the practice became general whenever our dramatists treated historical subjects. In the case before us, the drama would obviously be too long for a single performance.

In another important respect Bale seems to have set an example in this interesting department of our literature. He neither observed the unity of time nor place. By reference to p. 74 it will be remarked that “seven years” are supposed to occur between the “interdiction” of the kingdom in a former part of the play, and the removal of the curse; and on p. 94 is a passage from which we may infer that the character is supposed to be speaking after King John had been some time dead, and had been followed on the throne by subsequent Princes. On p. 34 occurs a line which shows that the scene in which it is inserted represents the persons speaking out of England, (where the scene of the main body of the piece is laid,) while the Pope is brought in person upon the stage. The stage was no doubt a temporary erection, or as it was sometimes called a “scaffold” or “place;” and on p. 53 Sedition is represented as being heard extra locum, or as we should now express it “at the wing,” prior to making his re-appearance before the audience. It will not seem strange to those who are at all acquainted with the incongruities of our plays, even in the best age of our drama, that on p. 63 it should be asserted that Alphonso was on his way from Spain to assail King John with “ships full of gun-powder” and that on p. 77 we should be told also that the Dauphin Louis was about to invade the kingdom

                                                                      —with his menne, and ordinaunce,
With wyldefyer, gunpouder, and suche lyke myrye
          trickes.

It is evident that an endeavour was made to give distinguishing and appropriate characteristics to some of the personages in the play: thus the abstract representative of the Romish Clergy was probably artificially stuffed, to give him a consistent degree of rotundity. When Clergy, on p. 15, tells King John,

Yowr grace is fare gonne: God send yow a better
          mynde,

the King replies,

Hold yowr peace, I say; ye are a lytyll to fatte:
In a whyle, I hope, ye shall be lener sumwhatte.

Again, on p. 30 the spectacles worn by Dissimulation are mentioned: Sedition observes,

By the mas, me thynke they are syngyng of placebo;

and Dissimulation answers,

Peace, for with my spectables vadam et videbo.

The various stage directions prove that the characters were habited with sufficient appropriateness of costume.

In the original manuscript the names of the different characters are inserted at length, but the spelling of them is often merely arbitrary, and it was thought that it would be a sufficient indication of a change of speakers to give their initials, as they are generally mentioned, with all necessary particularity in this respect, at the commencement of the scene, or on the entrance of each performer. It will be remarked that in the portion of the play copied for Bale, in another handwriting, but corrected by him, England is usually spelt “Ynglond,” but in that portion of the play which he penned himself, it is spelt “England.” The initial, therefore, for this character, after p. 66, has been unavoidably altered from Y to E. In the same way Bale's scribe usually spelt Civil Order with an S., and Bale himself with a C. No list of the characters is given at the commencement or conclusion of the performance, but one has been prefixed for more convenient reference and greater intelligibility: hence we may conclude that the piece was performed by six principal actors, some of them quadrupling their parts.

Several of Bale's dramatic productions are in print, and are enumerated in the various accounts of his life. He possesses no peculiar claims as a poet, and though he could be severe as a moral censor, and violent as a polemic, he had little elevation and a limited fancy. His versification also is scarcely as good as that of some of his contemporaries, and the only variety he attempts is the abandonment of couplets in the shorter speeches for seven-line stanzas in the longer. On the whole, however, the “two playes of Kynge Johan” have great merit for the time when they were written, and great curiosity for our own.