SOURCE: Five Plays about King John, University of Uppsala, 1977, pp. 4-7, 21-27, 60-71, 95-99, 122-130.

[In the following excerpts, Mattsson explores Bale's use of the medieval King John to further the cause of the burgeoning Protestant Reformation by dissecting King Johan into such subject areas as royal power, the church, the barons and private morality. Mattsson emphasizes Bale's manipulation of history and his use of the ancient king's story as an analogy to comment on Henry VIII's struggle with the Catholic Church.]

INTRODUCTION

The three plays from the sixteenth century—Bale's King Johan, The Troublesome Reign of King John and Shakespeare's King John—were written during or after the reign of Henry VIII, so all the authors had experienced a reformation of the English Church.¹ There were no revolutionary changes in church government or in doctrine—the Reformation “had not yet become a theological struggle”—but there was probably a pervasive alteration in religious sentiment.²

Bale tried to promote and strengthen the Reformation in two ways. First, he adapted chronicle-writing to the new ideas. Formerly most annalists had been Catholic priests and monks who had seen “the outside world through a distorting lense whenever it impinged on the monastery's interests.”³ Bale was a professional historian who wrote powerful chronicles for nearly thirty years (1536-63), and he had a decisive influence on later Protestant historians such as Hall, Holinshed and Foxe. Moreover he was a learned man and owned a great collection of British chronicles himself.⁴ As part of their polemical writing he and his friends wrote about Protestants persecuted for their faith. In a way they created the Protestant martyr.⁵

Secondly Bale wrote propaganda plays to arouse anti-Catholic feeling. He seems for a while, between 1538 and 1540, to have been in charge of a company of strolling players.⁶ All his twenty-one dramas, of which only five have survived, were in English. He is the first playwright to use drama for propaganda in the Protestant cause, a development which Craig calls “the Protestantizing of the mystery plays.”⁷

King Johan is Bale's most important play. It is listed in the Anglorum Heliades—a catalogue of British writers composed by Bale himself in 1536. But there is also evidence that this list was added to the original manuscript of the Heliades.⁸ What we know for certain is that Bale tried to make the play suitable for stage-production in 1538, and that it was part of the entertainment at Cranmer's house at Christmas 1539—the only recorded performance of the play.⁹ It underwent other revisions when Bale introduced contemporary events, one during the reign of Edward VI, and probably one when Elizabeth visited Ipswich in August, 1561.¹⁰ The play survives in a single sixteenth-century manuscript (found at Ipswich), dating from about 1561. This is in two hands, one of which is Bale's. Barry Adams' critical edition, which I have used, is based on the final version—the B-text of the manuscript.¹¹

For his historical facts Bale has used his thorough knowledge of chronicle material, and it is difficult to pinpoint particular chroniclers. He appears to have been familiar with Roger of Wendover's and Matthew Paris's as well as Polydore Vergil's accounts of the reign of King John. Adams emphasizes his use of the English Prose Brut. For the essential source for the view taken of the King I completely agree with Adams when he argues for William Tyndale's Obedience of a Christen Man (1528).¹²

Most of King Johan is about the struggle between good and evil—Vice and Virtue—for the soul of man as found in the morality play, a technique taken over from the plays in which the Catholic Church had taught doctrine.¹³ But in the play one historical character—King John—is a participant, and we are therefore informed about historical events.

Thus Bale's play deserves a place in English literary history primarily because it marks the emergence of a dramatic genre that fifty years later was to become important.¹⁴ Irving Ribner explains that “in Kynge Johan we can see the history play emerging from the morality” and moreover that it is a morality play where the political question is more important than the religious—a political morality.¹⁵

There is a great difference in aim between later writers of history plays and Bale. Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote plays to entertain and teach, for instance the Tudor doctrine about passive obedience. Bale's single-minded aim was to preach the tenets of the New Learning—to use his plays for political purposes, and he must have been aware what a good instrument for didactic purposes a play was. Both Bale himself and Cromwell probably agreed with Sir Richard Morison who, in a short treatise “A discourse touching the reformation of the lawes of England,” wrote that “into the commen people thynges sooner enter by the eies, then by the eares: remembering more better that they see then that they heere.”¹⁶

.....

KING JOHN AND ROYAL POWER

In Bale's King Johan the King's problem with the Church is more important than the succession question. Thus one of the most difficult problems in the other plays about King John is not discussed in Bale's King Johan: Arthur and the complicated issue of who was the lawful king was avoided by Bale. This is of course deliberate. A saintly king could not be accused of murdering his nephew. John has lawfully inherited the crown:

Iohn kyng of Ynglond þe cronyclys doth me call.
My grandfather was an emperowre excelent,
My fathere a kyng by successyon lyneall.
A kyng my brother lyke as to hym ded fall;

(ll. 9-12)

He is a king by God's will:

By the wyll of God and his hygh ordynaunce
In Yerlond and Walys, in Angoye and Normandye,
In Ynglond also, I haue had the governaunce.

(ll. 15-17)

He has been powerful and victorious:

I haue worne the crown and wrowght vyctoryouslye,

(l. 18)

He wants to reform the laws and is above all interested in the welfare of his subjects:

To reforme the lawes and sett men in good order,
That threw iustyce may be had in euery bordere.

(ll. 20-21)

All this taken together makes him the undisputed ruler of the country. But in spite of all these advantages he is a loser in the struggle against the Vices, the most important among them in this morality play being Sedition.¹⁷ In John's dying speech, he explains why he cannot defend himself against them:

But now I perceyue that synne and wyckednesse
In thys wretched worlde, lyke as Christe prophecyed,
Haue the ouerhande; in me is it verefyed.

(ll. 2169-71)

This assumption is also made by the Interpretour at the end of the first part:

But Satan the Deuyll, whych that tyme was at large,
Had so great a swaye that he could it not discharge.

(ll. 1091-92)

The problem for King John is the same as for Bale's contemporary, Henry VIII, viz. to emphasize that all authority—both spiritual and temporal—belongs to the King. Bale makes a direct reference to the 1534 Act of Supremacy when, in the second part of the play, Imperial Majesty declares that:

No man is exempt from thys, Gods ordynaunce—
Bishopp, monke, chanon, priest, Cardynall nor pope.
All they by Gods lawe to kynges owe their
          allegeaunce.
Thys wyll be wele knowne in thys same realme, I
          hope.
Of Verytees wurdes the syncere meanynge I grope;
He sayth that a kynge is of God immedyatlye.
Than shall neuer pope rule more in thys monarchie.

(ll. 2380-86)

King John knows who oppose this rule, who are his enemies. He knows that he must defend himself, the Royal power, and the country against the totally evil Sedition—the chief Vice of the play—, Private Wealth, Dissimulation, Usurped Power, and Treason. In the first 555 lines of the play he is successful and powerful. He is not blind like Respublica, he knows that some walk “in shepes aparell” (l. 549), and he even defends himself for not admitting Stevyn Langton into the country by combining him with Sedition (ll. 1327-29), but as all the Vices change shapes, it is often difficult for him to find them, to know where to attack. Henry VIII's problems were the same, how to strike at Usurped Power, viz. the evil force of the Catholic Church, and how to destroy Private Wealth, for instance the pluralist system among the clergy.¹⁸ Sedition himself draws attention to what is the crucial conflict in the play, viz. the struggle between papal authority and national sovereignty:

I am Sedycyon playne.
In euery relygyon and mvnkysh secte I rayne,
Havyng yow prynces in scorne, hate and dysdayne.

(ll. 186-88)

John is reported to be a tyrant by Catholic chroniclers, because he is trying to eradicate evil from his country:

The prystes report me to be a wyckyd tyrant
Be cause I correct ther actes and lyfe vnplesaunt.
Of thy prince, sayth God, thow shalt report non yll,
But thy selfe applye his plesur to fulfyll.

(ll. 1402-05)

Usurped Power expands this theme by accusing him of trying to reform

Þe tythes and offrynges
And intermedleth with other spyrytuall thynges

(ll. 910-11)

This contempt for the Catholic chroniclers Bale might have taken from Tyndale, referred to by Thomas More as “the captain of our Englyshe heretikes,” and who, according to Rainer Pineas, “professes a distinct lack of enthusiasm” for them.¹⁹ To John their attacks are only wicked talk. He has tried to be a good king and help those who need help. He is an authoritative king. He knows what he and kingship stand for:

God hathe me ordeynned in this same princely estate
For þat I shuld helpe such as be desolate.

(ll. 171-72)

He has courage and defies both the Pope and the Cardinal and explains to them that no one has the right to threaten him whose “powr … ys gevyn from God above” (l. 1342). Through him and other princes “God spekyth in þer lyppes whan they geve iugement” (l. 1344).

It is not enough to be a good ruler, the King must be—as John is—a good human being. He must be pleasant, temperate but firm. Verity explains this at the end of the play, while he is questioning the three Estates. Clergy tries to defend Nobility after his attacks on the King by saying that Nobility was speaking against the man, not against the crown. Verity rebukes him:

The crowne of it selfe without the man is nothynge.

(l. 2235)

Kings are appointed by God to rule and to correct vice—to fulfill God's will by being the cause or instrument through which God works. King John is a powerful and energetic prince trying to carry out his duties, but as he has no support from his Establishment, it is an impossible attempt. Reese suggests that, in an ideal state, King and subject realize their partnership in greatness. When they do not work together the “cease of majesty” occurs.²⁰ This is what happens in Bale's play.

The representatives of the Catholic Church believe that they can disobey and depose a king, and they use all the rites of the church to come to power. Sedition has been given the authority to subdue both kings and emperors, and according to him no prince can have his people's obedience if it is not the Pope's will—Usurped Power's will:

Here ys Vsurpid Powr, þat al kynges doth subdwe,
With such avtoryte as is neyther good ner trewe;

(ll. 815-16)

The only one who stands behind King John and his royal power to the bitter end is England—the grief-stricken widow and the mother of Commonalty, Nobility, Clergy and Civil Order.²¹ She is a representative of all people in England in the sixteenth century who understood that political obedience was a religious duty. To her it is not only a sin to rebel against the good ruler but even against the bad, both having been appointed by God—her husband (l. 109):

For be he good or bade, he is of Godes apoyntyng:
The good for the good, þe badde ys for yll doyng.

(ll. 103-04)

This thesis is of course a commonplace taken from the Bible:

Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear;
Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the
          froward.

(I Peter, 2.18)

The evil rulers are God's scourge for the sins of the people. In another of his morality plays The Three Lawes Bale makes Fides Christi say the same thing with more emphasis:

Then obey your king, like as shall you behove,
For he, in his life, that Lord doth represent,
To safeguard the just, and sinners punishment,
See that ye regard such laws as he doth make
For they are of God, as Solomon doth report.(22)

To England John is a good ruler, she trusts him and thinks that in his Royal power he has strength enough to help her against the Vices:

And lett me haue ryght as ye are a ryghtfull kyng,
Apoyntyd of God to haue such mater in doyng;

(ll. 127-28)

But in the eyes of the chroniclers the King has not been a good ruler. He has not built monasteries or churches. But he himself draws our attention to the fact that he has done more important things, for instance helping the poor. He is the ideal Old Testament king—pious and interested in social questions, among other things a spokesman for the poor and depressed. Knights declares that the good medieval king is not “concerned … with his own power, nor simply with the power of the state, but with the common good.”²³ England understands this and is willing to suffer to defend her King and her country. She even tries to prevent John from giving away his crown to the Pope:

So noble a realme to stande tributarye, Alas,
To the Deuyls vycar! Suche fortune neuer was.

(ll. 1755-56)

England proves her loyalty by staying with the King, the Royal martyr, until he dies.

Eng. With the leaue of
God I wyll not leaue ye thus,
But styll be with ye tyll he do take yow from vs,
And than wyll I kepe your bodye for a memoryall.
K. John. Than plye it,
Englande, and prouyde for my
          buryall.
A wydowes offyce it is to burye the deade.

(ll. 2181-85)

The only mistake this saintly king makes is to give up his crown, but he does so out of compassion. He cannot see his people suffer. He even tries to get England to understand that she cannot sacrifice more of her subjects to defend their principles of kingship. Adams thinks that Bale has taken this picture of the saintly and pious John and the theme of obedience to a ruler from Tyndale's Obedience of a Christen Man—a Protestant version of history which was first printed in 1528.²⁴ It is certain that the two works are closely connected, for among other things they agree that John's bad reputation is due to the unfair picture of him that the Catholic writers have given, and that history had to be written from a Protestant point of view. Pineas calls Tyndale's theory the Catholic-conspiracy theory of chronicle writing.²⁵

Considre the story of kynge Iohn / where I doute not but they have put the best and fayrest for them / selves and the worst of kinge Iohn / For I suppose they make the cronycles them selves. … Did not the legate of Rome assoyle all the lordes of the realme of their due obedience which they oughte to the kynge by the ordinaunce of God? wolde he not have cursed the kynge with his solemne pompe / because he wolde have done that office which God commaundeth every kynge to do and wherfore God hath put the swerde in every kynges hande? that is to wete / because kynge Iohn wolde have punished a weked clerke that had coynned false money. … Sent not the Pope also vnto the kynge of France remission of his synnes to goo and conquere kynge Ihons realme. So now remission of synnes cometh not by fayth in the testamente y^t God hath made in Christes bloude: but by fyghtinge & murtheringe for the popes pleasure. Last of all was not kinge Iohn fayne to delyver his crowne vnto the legate & to yeld vp his realme vnto y^e Pope / wherefore we pay Peterpence.²⁶

John is a secular anti-papal prince in Bale's play, but it is more questionable whether he is a tragic hero. This is a classic situation for a hero in the Middle Ages, the fall of a king, symbolized so many times by the Wheel of Fortune.²⁷ He alone—pious and virtuous—tries to oppose the evil world but has to surrender. Still, I do not think this makes the play a tragedy, because John is lacking in individuality. He is too good. He cannot be tempted. He is not a human being of flesh and blood—he is a type—the Protestant moralist or the Reformation saint. Blatt calls this type rex justus—the ideal king.²⁸ He is a king chosen and anointed by God's will, a king who must be obeyed. Verity explains why subjects must obey their king:

For in hys owne realme a kynge is iudge ouer all
By Gods appoyntment, and none maye hym iudge
          agayne
But the lorde hymself. In thys the scripture is playne.
He that condempneth a kynge condempneth God
          without dought;
He that harmeth a kynge to harme God goeth abought;
He that a prynce resisteth doth dampne Gods
          ordynaunce
And resisteth God in withdrawynge hys affyaunce.
All subiectes offendynge are vndre the kynges
          iudgement;
A kynge is reserued to the lorde omnypotent.
He is a mynyster immedyate vndre God,
Of hys ryghteousnesse to execute the rod.

(ll. 2347-57)

Bale's King Johan is the first example of a play in which the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience are expressed. In the play secular government has the same kind of divine character as in the early Christian Church.²⁹

In Bale's play we find the perfect king—a king both de facto and de jure. He is a king who loses his struggle against the Vices, but not for ever. He arises anew as Imperial Majesty, who with his Royal power controls Nobility, Clergy and Civil Order—Nobility to defend the king and what kingship stands for, the Clergy to preach (the doctrines of the New Learning) and Civil Order to execute justice. The means of salvation seem to be political unity.

.....

KING JOHN AND THE CHURCH

In England as in other North European countries the moral and religious sides of the Renaissance were emphasized.³⁰ Accordingly, the struggle with the Church is the most important theme in Bale's play. To be able to make King John into a saint, a “morning star of the Reformation”³¹, and a martyr of the New Learning, Bale had to contradict nearly everything that the chroniclers had revealed about the King, by selecting and manipulating the chronicles to support the doctrines of the New Learning. For the chroniclers had been fairly unanimous in describing him as a despicable king who had brought England to the point of ruin.³²

Bale, who was a professional historian—Davies regards him as “the first real scholar in the history of English studies,” takes his facts from the chroniclers but changes the point of view.³³ Of the Catholic writers he makes Verity say:

I assure ye, fryndes, lete men wryte what they wyll,
Kynge Iohan was a man both valeaunt and godlye.
What though Polydorus reporteth hym very yll
At the suggestyons of the malicyouse clergye?
Thynke yow a Romane with the Romanes can not
          lye?

(ll. 2193-97)

Bale and the other English reformers saw in John, actually the worst of the Plantagenets, an unsuccessful precursor of Henry VIII. It was easily demonstrated that John's struggle against Innocent III had a direct parallel in the struggle between Henry VIII and Clement VII.³⁴ Kinghorn points out that John was represented “as a Protestant whose relations with Rome were not unlike those of Henry VIII before his excommunication”.³⁵ To make John into a Protestant hero Bale had to describe the representatives of the Catholic Church as fiends. The Vices in the play are all symbols of a degenerate Catholicism—Dissimulation represents the monastic houses like Private Wealth whom Dissimulation himself had made “a monke and a perfytt cloysterere” (l. 742). Usurped Power represents the papacy, and Treason treasonable priests and men in general. According to Bale this kind of religion had nothing to do with the early British Church which was of non-Roman origin. The Protestant Church is the original church and fifteen hundred years old, and Bale attacks the new-fangled ideas, for instance the celebrating of Mass, matins, lauds, prime and vesper, the litany of the souls, the rites for the dead, the sacraments, Purgatory, the systems of discipline, and ceremonies in general.³⁶

The purity of British ecclesiastical traditions is emphasized in Bale's attacks on the Catholic Church. He is not afraid of overstatements, and in his own preface to The Image of Both Churches he calls it “the proud church of hypocrites, the rose-coloured whore, the paramour of anti-christ, and the sinful synagogue of Satan.”³⁷ In King Johan England is a widow because the Pope has exiled her from God, her husband:

Thes vyle popych swyne hath clene exyled my
          hosband.

(l. 107)

The pope is the “wyld bore” of Rome (l. 83) who in the disguise of Usurped Power tells Sedition that he is a man like other men:

Sumtyme I must hunt, sumtyme I mvst Alysen kys.

(l. 842)

Sexual accusations against representatives of the Catholic Church were one of the commonest ways of defaming Catholicism used by all Protestant writers, and accordingly, later on in the play when King John has been forced to give up his country to the Pope, Sedition is pleased that

Our holye father maye now lyue at hys pleasure
And haue habundaunce of wenches, wynes and
          treasure.

(ll. 1686-87)

Whatever in Roman Catholic doctrine or deed the left-wing Protestants could not approve of they saw as a sign of Anti-Christ, and the most common symbol for Anti-Christ was the Pope. He is also the leader of all earthly powers who symbolize evil and sin. This connection had been made by many other writers, for instance Wyclif and Tyndale. Tyndale points out that “the bisshope of Rome, now called Pope, at the beginning crope alonge vpon the erth and euerye man trode vppon him in this worlde. But assone as there came a christen Emperoure he ioyned him silf vnto his fete and kissed them.”³⁸ The Holy Father was immoral as was the whole Catholic Church, and this was one of the most serious accusations against the Catholics from the New Learning. The most immoral characteristic of the Church was its penitential and disciplinary system—confession, absolution, indulgences, jubilees, the keys, the seal, the treasury of merits. According to Tyndale this system was introduced in the early Church, then it was given voluntarily to the bishop by the congregation, but as soon as the clergy understood what power it gave them they started to abuse it.³⁹ The whole of this system had no real significance for the men of the Reformation. You could only get salvation through faith, you could not buy it. But Nobility believes, like Dissimulation at the end of the play, that he can buy himself free from Purgatory by prayers. Stevyn Langton asks:

Do ye not beleve in purgatory and holy bred?

and Nobility answers:

Yes, and þat good prayers shall stand my solve in
          stede.

(ll. 1162-63)

Sedition, who at once reveals his identity by swearing by the Mass and the Trinity and by using lewd language,⁴⁰ informs John that if he tries to “eradicate” Sedition and his equals from this country, he will find it impossible because

I saye I can dwell whan all other placys fayle me
In ere confessyon, vndernethe Benedicite,(41)
And whan I am ther, þe pryst may not bewray me.

(ll. 266-68)

The seal of secrecy makes it impossible for the state to expose Sedition. One of Bale's pet aversions in the Catholic system was this kind of auricular confession (which, in 1215, had been made “a matere nessessary” at least once a year by Innocent III), and the absolution following it. The priest could forgive or retain sin. The Church built this doctrine on St. Matthew XVI:19:

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
          heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
          in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
          loosed in heaven.

The satire is sharpened when Nobility asks Sedition, in his disguise as Good Perfection, to hear his confession (l. 1145). Before he is absolved he has to promise that he knows his creed and his Ave Maria in Latin, and that he will have nothing to do with the New Learning, that he believes in Purgatory and Holy Bread and moreover he must promise to fight against his king. Both Clergy and Civil Order get absolution from Sedition too. To show that the pope is more important than God Sedition changes the formula to “In nomine domini pape, amen” (l. 1150). The political meaning is explicit—the Church encourages treason by means of confession, the priests and the monks are subversive elements within the state and they can use their information against the state while the state cannot punish the traitors because its leaders cannot unmask them.⁴² The three representatives of the Establishment are traitors or made into traitors, but Sedition promises them:

Sytt downe on your kneys and ye shall haue
          absolucyon
A pena et culpa, with a thowsand
dayes of pardon.

(II. 1213-14).

After they have been given absolution they are ordered to:

Aryse now lyke men and stande vppon yowr fete,
For here ye haue caught an holy and a blyssyd hete.

(ll. 1232-33)

The practices of the Church were not only considered to be immoral, they were also superstitious. And in his attacks on images Bale is quite in line with the policy of the Government after 1536. Relics and images were destroyed all over the country and a few of the more popular ones were burnt in London.⁴³ King John's judgement on the superstitious Church is very severe:

I can not perseyve but ye are becum Belles prystes,
Lyvyng by ydolles; yea, the very Anty chrystes.

(ll. 1354-55)

And England tells the pope how his church has undone the country by belief in false works like purgatory, shrift, penance, pardon, and poena:

I smarte all redy throw yowr most suttell practyse,
And I am clene ondone by yowr false merchandyce—
Yowr pardons, yowr bulles, yowr purgatory
          pyckepurse
Yowr lent fastes, yowr schryftes—that I pray God
          geve yow his cursse!

(ll. 1624-27)

This can be compared to Bale's description of the Pope and his superstitious works in The Image of Both Churches:

… he is the high priest, he is of equal power with Peter, he cannot err, he is head and spouse of the church, and he is Christ's immediate vicar … he maketh men to believe he may constitute laws, keep under the gospel, distribute kingdoms, sell promotions and benefices, set up purgatory, provide satisfactions, make new bodies to Christ, redeem men's souls, and remit sin for money.⁴⁴

Bale's satire on all the different manners of binding people to it that the Church uses is now and then very amusing, for instance when Sedition gives examples of comical objects which are sanctified as relics and used at the absolution of Clergy and Civil Order. Among other things he uses

a bone of the blyssyd trynyte, a toth of seynt Twyde, owr blyssyd ladys mylke, a lowse of seynt Fraunces, a nayle of Adams, a maggot of Moyses, a fart of saynt fandigo, the Deuyll that was hatcht in maistre Iohan Shornes bote, a ioynt of darvell gathyron.⁴⁵

(ll. 1215-30)

But mostly Bale is not humorous at all, only vindictive and vituperative. He does not want to amuse his audience but give his own very personal version of the highly charged question of the relation between Church and State and in this way wreck the old system. For the bad condition in the country the Church is to be blamed entirely, because it has shown contempt for the welfare of England and God's words, and tried to delude people with superstition. Bale makes King John sum up the accusations:

Than for Englandes cavse I wyll be sumewhat playne:
Yt is yow, Clargy, that hathe her in dysdayne
With yowr Latyne howrrs, serymonyes and popetly
          playes.
In her more and more Godes holy worde decayes,

(ll. 413-16)

The picture of a Church where religious devotion consisted mainly in external practices and doctrines is true. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the English Church, like most of the churches in Europe, was in a period of decline and in grave need of reform.⁴⁶ Bale's satire on priests, monks and sects was in close conformity with Cromwell's campaign, but, according to Harris, Bale's attacks on monks and monasteries are very mild compared to what really happened during the visitation that was begun in 1535. Cromwell's investigators accused two thirds of the houses of drunkenness, simony, and of the foulest and most revolting crimes. All the smaller houses were closed.⁴⁷

According to Miller in his valuable article about the Roman rite in King Johan every important event in the text is dramatized in a parody which is very close to reality, the only difference being the context and the verse, for instance when Usurped Power dressed as the Pope excommunicates the King (ll. 1035-51).⁴⁸ The closer the parody is to what it is trying to ridicule the greater is the impression it makes on the reader. What is described was the normal procedure at an excommunication—the use of cross, book, bell and candle—what makes it into a parody is the fact that the audience knows that the Pope is Usurped Power and that he is made to parody his own ritual.⁴⁹ An impressive parody is also to be found at the point in the play in which Dissimulation enumerates many of the rites on which the Catholic Church built its power. He is referring to God's own vicar, Usurped Power, the Pope:

With ymages and rellyckes he shall wurke sterracles.
He wyll make mattens, houres, masse and euensonge
To drowne the scriptures for doubte of heresye;
He wyll sende pardons to saue mennys sowles
          amonge,
Latyne deuocyons, with the holye rosarye.
He wyll apoynt fastynges and plucke downe
          matrimonye;
Holy water and breade shall dryue awaye the deuyll;
Blessynges with blacke bedes wyll helpe in every
          euyll.

(ll. 997-1004)

Miller summarizes what Bale tried to tell his contemporaries, viz. that the punishments and rewards of the Church made it stronger than the secular government. He points out that “the whip, which is the fear of hell, and the unguent, which is the hope of heaven, govern the subjects of the state more than the state itself can, and make them pliant to the will of the Church, even when it means treason to the state and murder of the king.”⁵⁰ The Pope had usurped the power of both the King and God.

Harris declares that “Bale's hatred of Catholics did not grow out of any desire on his part for religious toleration.” Clergy, who is very close to becoming one of the Vices in the play, is openly defiant of King John, which the other authorities, Nobility and Civil Order, are not. He has learnt from Sedition how to distort the Bible and how to strut in borrowed plumes, for instance in those of a priest, and he accuses John of wanting no Church at all. John, however, denies this and gives a positive answer:

Yes, I would haue a churche, not of dysgysyd
          shavelynges,
But of faythfull hartes and charytable doynges,
For whan Christes chyrch was in her hyeste glory,
She knew neyther thes sectes nor ther ipocrysy.

(ll. 429-32)

And further on in the play the author makes it quite clear that the Reformation party, here in the shape of Imperial Majesty who represents Henry VIII, does not want any kind of Puritan sects either:⁵¹

The Anabaptystes, a secte newe rysen of late,
The scriptures poyseneth with their subtle allegoryes,
The heades to subdue after a sedicyouse rate.

(ll. 2626-28)

Apart from his fanaticism Bale had a very good reason for his contempt for Clergy. There were not enough educational institutions, so many of the lower clergy were illiterate and superstitious, and moreover, as Kinghorn explains “sexual licence among the priesthood … and the opportunities for leading an idle life encouraged people of limited education to join the Holy Orders.”⁵² In the play Clergy is trying to use the Bible as a weapon but as he cannot understand it himself he concludes the argument by telling King John, Nobility and Civil Order that the Pope is the only one who can explain the Scriptures:

Of owr holy father in this I take my grownd,
Which hathe awtoryte þe scripturs to expownd.

(ll. 467-68)

At the beginning of the sixteenth century monasteries had a bad reputation too. They were in decline like the secular church “and doomed to a hasty extinction”.⁵³ Kinghorn declares that “the monasteries themselves had ceased to be centres of culture or even luxurious palaces for idle clerics and by this time had degenerated into places wherin the country's unemployables, the untalented, the shiftless and even the criminal could establish themselves out of harm's way. Their connection with religious observance had in many respects become purely nominal.”⁵⁴ People's reactions to the monasteries were full of contradictions. At the same time that the monks and the nuns were accused of being lazy, ignorant and worldly, the monasteries were important to many people. The saints and the relics were part of their religious life. Kinghorn regards them as “a powerful bulwark of medieval Catholicism.”⁵⁵ In the monasteries saints often lay buried and there the most famous relics were to be found. So when the New Learning party destroyed the monasteries they performed the most crucial political act of the sixteenth century—“the last outpost of Papal Power” was removed.⁵⁶ To Cromwell and his party the Church and the monasteries had been too wealthy too long to be of any spiritual value at all. But King John knows how to solve this problem:

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

(ll. 373-74)

Clergy makes a parody of all the sects to be found within the Church—he sees them as examples of the variety within the church that should surround David. But King John upbraids him:

Davyd meanyth vertuys by þe same diversyte,
As in the sayd psalme yt is evydent to se,
And not mvnkysh sectes; but yt is euer yowr cast
For yowr advauncement þe scripturs for to wrast.

(ll. 463-66)

If one of Bale's pet aversions is auricular confession, another one is benefit of the clergy. Carter declares that “it was ordinary for persons after the greatest crimes, to get into orders, and then not only what was past must be forgiven them, but they were not to be questioned for any crime after holy orders given, till they were first degraded and till that was done they were the bishop's prisoners.”⁵⁷ There are several examples of benefit of the clergy in the play. In the first part Private Wealth, Usurped Power, and Sedition are discussing King John's use of the Church's liberty. They are horrified, for John accuses and condemns clerks for criminal offences (l. 914). Treason has coined false money, a criminal offence that was punished by hanging, but he is defiant to the King. He knows that no secular power can touch him:

I haue holy orders. By þe messe, I defye your wurst!
Ye can not towche me but ye must be accurst.

(ll. 1863-64)

Not even murder is condemned by this corrupt Church. Dissimulation dressed as a monk, Simon of Swynsett—with the alias of monastycall deuocyon (ll. 2102-03)—is quite willing to drink half the cup of poison he is going to offer King John. By this act he is released from the certainty of Hell and buys himself eternal life in Paradise without any Purgatory:

If the priestes woulde for me yewle
And grunt a good pace placebo with
Requiem Masse,
Without muche tarrayaunce I shulde to paradyse passe,

(ll. 2037-39)

This is Bale's most severe thrust at Catholicism in King Johan. A church that forgives and even encourages such an act as murder is not worth any consideration at all. And Private Wealth sees the point. If the Vices cannot destroy King John who wants to abolish benefit of clergy it will be a death blow to the Church:

Pr. W. Yf ye se not to
that the churche wyll haue a fall.
Sed. By the masse, than
pristes are lyke to haue a
          pange;
For treson, mvrder and thefte they are lyke to hange.

(ll. 915-17)

In the play Bale asks how anyone can believe in such an institution, and he provides the answer himself. It is because people are ignorant. They do not know the truth. To know the truth they must know the Bible, and there is no authorised version in English available to people.⁵⁸ They cannot inform themselves because the gospel is hidden in a language that very few people can understand.⁵⁹ The priests do not help, sometimes because they cannot read themselves but mostly because they cling to Latin as a means of power, they use it for greed. They do not want any dissemination of the scriptures. They enjoy an authority based on ignorance and illiteracy. In Panegyrics it is said about illiterate priests that “ignorance on the part of priests is a very muddy spring, from which flow the majority of the Church's diasters.”⁶⁰ Even Dissimulation pokes fun at the ignorance of the priests: “Sum syng at þe lectorne, with long eares lyke an asse” (l. 703). In A Supplication for the Beggars (1529) Simon Fisch tries to inform Henry VIII about this crisis within the Church:

This is the great scabbe why they will not let the newe testament go a brode yn your moder tong lest men shulde espie that they by theyre cloked ypochrisi do translate thus fast your kingdome into theyre hondes, that they are not obedient vnto your highe power, that they are cruell, vnclene, vnmerciful, and ypochrites, that thei seke not the honour of Christ but their owne, that remission of sinnes are not giuen by the popes pardon, but by Christ, for the sure feith and trust that we haue in him.⁶¹

And in the play England complains:

The popys pyggys may not abyd this word to be hard
Nor knowyn of pepyll or had in anye regard.

(ll. 119-20)

And this is for the adherents of the Reformation the central conflict with the Catholic Church. They believed in justification by faith alone and the priesthood of all believers, while the Catholics preached justification by works. Kinghorn declares that “the introduction to the Lutheran formula of Concord said that the Holy Scriptures alone remain the only judge, rule and guiding line by which all doctrines shall be tested and judged and that the belief in the Bible as the word of God is the self-evident foundation of Reformation.”⁶² But the starting-point of such a priesthood must be the circulation of the Scriptures among common people so that they themselves can judge the doctrines. England sees clearly the importance of God's word:

Yf yowr grace wold cawse Godes word to be tawȝt
          syncerly
And subdew those pristes that wyll not preche yt
          trewly,
The peple shuld know to ther prynce þer lawfull
          dewty;

(ll. 1586-88)

Dissimulation is appalled. If he has to explain about the relics in English, he will be unmasked, so instead he uses deception:

The myracles wrowght ther I can no wyse expresse.
We lacke neyther golde nor sylwer, gyrdles nor
          rynges,
Candelles nor tapperes, nor other customyd
          offerynges.
Thowgh I seme a shepe, I can play the suttle foxe:
I can make Latten to bryng this gere to þe boxe.
Tushe, Latten ys alone to bryng soche mater to passe;
Ther ys no Englyche þat can soche profyghtes
          compasse.
And therfor we wyll not servyce to be songe,
Gospell nor pystell, but all in Latten tonge.

(ll. 711-19)

And he looks forward to a period when

eare confessyon [is] a matere nessessary.
…
The Gospell prechyng wyll be an heresy.

(ll. 1020, 1023)

Throughout the play it is re-emphasized that faith is obtained by reading the scriptures. King John comments upon his own excommunication and admits that if he is “defylyd” (l. 1424) and if it is proved “by scriptur, and than wyll I yt alowe” (l. 1435). And Treason admits that he has duped people to ignore God's word:

I haue so conuayed that neyther priest nor lawer
Wyll obeye Gods wurde, nor yet the Gospell fauer.
In the place of Christe I haue sett vp supersticyons;
For preachynges, ceremonyes; for Gods wurde, mennys tradicyons.

(ll. 1821-24)

Anti-Christ's supporters do not try to conceal themselves. They are openly defiant. Blatt declares that “disguises would imply weakness.”⁶³ And the Vices are not weak. In the first part of the play they triumph. Dissimulation has the last word. John is both defeated and murdered. But in the long run, as in all morality plays, Virtue gets the better of the Vices. From John's death on the play is only a mirror of contemporary events. We are in the sixteenth century and can see how Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, according to Bale, for the moment at least reveal and destroy the power of Anti-Christ.

.....

KING JOHN AND THE BARONS

Bale emphasizes that John is the king by divine right, and no other successor to the throne is mentioned. Thus in King Johan Arthur is only referred to as the nephew to whom John voluntarily gives part of his French possessions: “And Angoye he gaue to Artur his nevy in chaunge” (l. 579). So one of the most important reasons for the rebellion against King John in the other plays, viz. the fact that the nobles thought that the King had killed his elder brother's son, is not to be found in this play.⁶⁴ In Bale the motive is greed, ambition, ignorance, or a mixture of all three.

At the beginning of the play King John is notably active in his attempt to solve the problem of his country. He is eager to help the widow England to get her husband—God—back by eradicating the vices within the Church. To do this he needs help from the “three estates”—Nobility, Clergy, and Civil Order.⁶⁵ Bale's ideal society seems to be a theocracy where the servants of state and church work together with the King as master of them all under God. At first all of them promise their support more or less willingly. Clergy wants to gain time—he knows that he can turn to the Pope if circumstances demand it—and Civil Order wants to see what there may be of material reward in it for himself. Nobility is the most loyal. He believes in the King's divine authority. But Nobility's loyalty lasts only up to a certain point. His fear of damnation is so strong that he is more afraid of going against Church than against God:

had moche rather do agaynst God, veryly,
Than to holy chyrche to do any iniurye.

(ll. 1455-56)

This is a clever description of the Catholic Church's power to delude human beings with outward works. Nobility is so confused that he cannot see what is really important in religion. Nor can he see that within Holy Church there is a congregation of priests and monks that John calls “an hepe of adders of Antecristes generacyon” (l. 493).

All “the three estates” have special functions in society, and these are pointed out by Imperial Majesty at the end of the play:

The adminystracyon of a princes gouernaunce
Is the gifte of God and hys hygh ordynaunce,
Whome with all your power yow thre ought to
          support
In the lawes of God, to all hys peoples comfort.
First yow, the clergye, in preachynge of Gods worde;
Than yow, Nobilyte, defendynge with the sworde;
Yow, Cyuyle order, in executynge iustyce.

(ll. 2634-40)

So Nobility's true function in the body politic is to defend his prince with his sword. The relationship between him and the King must be one of mutuality and trust. Society must be founded on those qualities. The King is surprised to learn that Nobility does not know of the deceit within the Church, but Sedition willingly explains that this is because Nobility is so easily deluded. He believes nothing that is not uttered by Holy Church (l. 278). Sedition is only performing one of his most important tasks, viz. to dupe his victim, and he himself is not afraid to reveal that to be “a lecherovs man” is the same as to be “a relygyovs man” (ll. 304-05).⁶⁶ When John meets Nobility, the latter is accused by the King of knowing Sedition, but he denies it, and truthfully too, because he has only met the Vice in a priest's clothes:

Syns I was a chyld, both hym and his condycyon
I euer hated for his iniquite.

(ll. 330-31)

King John is satisfied with this answer because “A clere tokyn þat is of trew nobelyte” (l. 332). The three Estates promise their cooperation and afterwards, in a patriotic speech, John tells them that their duty is to look after the state of England:

For the love of God, loke to the state of Englond!
Leate non enemy holde her in myserable bond.
Se yow defend her as yt becummyth nobilite,
Se yow instructe her acordyng to yowr degre,
Fovrnysh her yow with a cyvyle honeste.

(ll. 527-31)

Nobility himself agrees that “Yt becommyth Nobelyte his prynces fame to preserue” (l. 591). But Nobility is easily corrupted by Sedition. He is frightened, he dare not even talk to the excommunicated King, and John upbraids him, saying:

Oh, this is no tokyn of trew nobelyte,
To flee from yowr kyng in his extremyte.

(ll. 1452-53)

Further on in the play the King analyses the nature of true Nobility:

Sum thynkyth nobelyte in natur to consyst,
Or in parentage; their thowȝt is but a myst.
Wher habundance is of vertu, fayth and grace,
With knowlage of þe lord, nobelyte is ther in place,

(ll. 1522-25)

And at the end of the play Verity reproaches Nobility, accusing King John of being “a man of a very wycked sorte” (l. 2223):

Ye are muche to blame your prynce so to reporte.
How can ye presume to be called nobilyte,
Diffamynge a prynce in your malygnyte?

(ll. 2224-26)

The reformed Nobility at the end of the play advises Imperial Majesty what to do with Sedition. He now knows well the signs of true Nobility. Imperial Majesty sums up:

It is a clere sygne of a true Nobilyte
To the wurde of God whan your conscyence doth
          agree.
For as Christe ded saye to Peter, Caro et sanguis
Non reuelauit tibi, sed pater meus celestis:
Ye haue not thys gyfte of carnall generacyon,
Nor of noble bloude, but by Gods owne
          demonstracyon.

(ll. 2415-20)

In Bale's play the whole Establishment—Nobility, Clergy, and Civil Order—rebel. The author condemns both the clergy and the civil authority, and despises common people represented by Commonalty. He analyzes why they rebel. Clergy wants power, Civil Order follows Clergy's example because he is greedy:

For yf the church thryve than do we lawers thryve,
And yf they decay, ower welth ys not alyve.

(ll. 1263-64)

Nobility rebels because of his fear of damnation. As a pattern for this rebellion Bale might have used such contemporary crises as the Lincolnshire Rebellion and the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536-37.⁶⁷ These historical events were well known and had been used by the anonymous author of the morality fragment of Albion Knight.⁶⁸ Both Cromwell and Cranmer were much concerned about these outbreaks of rebellion. One reason for this was of course that they were a confirmation of the unstable situation in the country. Morris declares that “in the 1530's England ran as great a risk of foreign invasion and of civil war as she did fifty years later.”⁶⁹ But the most important ground for their concern was probably that one of the demands of the rebels was the removal of Thomas Cromwell and other low-born politicians. Bevington, thinks that a reflection of the treatment of Robert Aske, the leader of the rebellion, can be seen in Imperial Majesty's deluding of Sedition. Robert Aske begged Henry VIII for the dismissal of Thomas Cromwell. At first Henry VIII was extremely friendly to him and gave him land and promotion, but only a short time after sentenced him to be hanged.⁷⁰

At the beginning of his reign Henry VIII was popular and had no problems with his barons, but after twenty years the situation had changed completely. Henry then had the same difficulties with his Establishment as King John before him. The country was, Madeleine Dodds says, suffering from “a famine, a detested minister, and the king's extravagance.”⁷¹ Henry could not trust his noblemen, his lawyers or his common people to defend him against the Church. Bale probably tried to show his contemporaries that the same dangerous situation could arise again in the same way as it had done in King John's time.

Nobility in King Johan wants to be true to his King. It worries him that there is a controversy between the Church, which he promised to defend when he was dubbed knight, and his King. He has been very proud of John: “the kyng is a man of wonderfull wytt” (l. 557). And when Clergy attacks John because he has lost his dominions in France, Nobility defends him by saying that “he gate moche more in Scotland, Ireland and Wales” (l. 571). The excommunication changes Nobility's attitude: “Sir, nothyng grevyth me but yowr excomynycacyon” (ll. 1494).

John is deserted by his Establishment and has to submit to the Pope to save his poor people from suffering. This is not considered enough by the evil forces. Stephen Langton—as the Arch-Vice he is in the play—reveals his plan to invite Lewis to conquer England and thus completely destroy John (ll. 2000-04). But in this way the rebels bring about their own damnation.

After the King's death we meet the three repentant Estates again, together with Verity and Imperial Majesty. I agree with Adams who declares that Verity represents the Reformation generally and Imperial Majesty Henry VIII.⁷² Nobility is most humble:

Most godly gouernour, we axe your gracyouse pardon,
Promysynge neuermore to maynteyne false sedicyon.

(ll. 2329-30)

The three estates are forced to swear the oath of allegiance to Imperial Majesty:

I. Maj. Than in thys purpose
ye are all of one mynde?
Cler. We detest the pope
and abhorre hym to the
          fynde.
I. Maj. And are wele content
to disobeye hys pryde?
Nob. Yea, and hys lowsye
lawes and decrees to sett
          asyde.
I. Maj. Than must ye be
sworne to take me for your
          heade.
C. Ord. We wyll obeye yow
as our gouernour in Gods
          steade.

(ll. 2431-36)

The description of Nobility as a representative of the Establishment is very thoroughly and cleverly done. He is not really a bad sort, he is not the blackest of the three estates, he does what he believes to be the right thing: “Sur, that I haue don was of a good intent” (l. 489). He is a little dull, a timid and weak character, easily swayed from one side to another. His only fault is that he has no imagination, he cannot see outside himself, he cannot see that in destroying the “bad” king he is really destroying everything that kingship stands for. Blatt regards him as “an easy-going, thick-headed gentleman with little learning and love of tradition.”⁷³ In this stubborn character Bale probably wants to reveal how the love of tradition and the fear of damnation made many of Henry VIII's barons react negatively to his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and to Protestantism.

.....

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MORALITY

In Bale's King Johan there are no alternative standards of value. The King is the representative for what is true and right. Moreover, he is a guide-post to follow in determining what is right and what is wrong. He is the one who supports order in society—metaphysical and moral order. He is a king in fact but also a king in nature.⁷⁴

In a morality play there was generally one character, often the most important one, who was tempted, and wavered between Vice and Virtue. At the end of the play this character was to decide for Virtue. Though King John is the central figure of Bale's play, he never wavers. He never accepts the destructive and evil forces in his society. He does not seem to have any mental struggle. When he is subdued, it is not because of a wrong moral choice, but because the Vices are stronger than he is. They have more power in the material world. As it is an imperfect world the good do not always prosper and the wicked do not always receive their due. The King understands that himself:

But now I perceyue that synne and wyckednesse
In thys wretched worlde, lyke as Christe prophecyed,
Haue the ouerhande; in me is it verefyed.

(ll. 2169-71)

Instead it is the three estates—Nobility, Clergy and Civil Order—who waver. John is not tempted, not sinning, he is Virtue, but the representatives of the Establishment are, at least occasionally, very close to becoming Vices. This is at least true of Clergy, who leaves for Rome at the end of the second scene.

John is the touchstone of the others. Bevington says of Bale's hero that he “seems to have been born old and wary.”⁷⁵ The whole idea of creating order is a wrong way of looking at this play. Order was, to medieval man, and that is what we have to deal with in Bale's play, created once and for all by God.⁷⁶ It is this kind of “natural order” that John represents and sustains, not a kind of order that is reached after an inner or outer struggle. Therefore King Johan is not a dynamic play. It is static. There is a definite way of interpreting a scene, and as a reader one never questions it. Who is right? Who is wrong? One always knows the answer, even when the Vices put on their “public morality.” Adams says that in this play “the key to the understanding of history is to be found in the perennial opposition between the forces of Christ and antichrist as expounded mystically in the Apocalypse.”⁷⁷ The playwright accepts this as a valid and established fact, and it is not necessary or even desirable to try to explain it.

The King has to yield to Antichrist's power, but his honour is unstained, and at the end of the play the Vices are punished and the three estates return to sanity and honour. What is morally wrong may have seemed to be effective, but in the long run it is a failure. The machiavellian definition of virtue, viz. power, can in this world only live for a short time.⁷⁸ Satan has been in power but the ultimate victory is the Church's. Verity, who is Bale's mouthpiece, orders the three estates to kneel in front of Imperial Majesty (l. 2328). This is a symbol of the fact that Virtue wins in the long run.

Thus in this play, John has no difficulty with his own position in society, but he has to learn the ways of deceit and recognize them when used by others. At the beginning of the play King John is still full of a rather starry-eyed optimism. He is gullible and guileless. He has not yet discovered what is happening in the world around him. He is only a little surprised that he does not recognize England, the widow. From the play it is quite clear that he has seen her before, but in this chaotic world she has changed completely. He is astonished: “I mervell ryght sore how thow commyst chaungyd thus” (l. 42). But the King is not the only one not to recognize a person he has seen before. As an audience we know that Sedition has been trying to delude Nobility for a long time. But Nobility does not know him. He tells us this twice, first when he is warning the King against the Vice, and secondly when he is asking Sedition who he is and gets the answer that he is “good perfeccyon” (l. 1136).⁷⁹ Sedition is using a disguise, as always in this play that of a cleric, so that the audience can at once see that he belongs to Catholicism, the forces of evil.⁸⁰ But for King John and the Establishment Sedition is difficult to recognize and to understand in the body politic. He is at home everywhere. He changes his dress and public character the whole time, but his private character of deceit is the same. At one point at the end of the play John himself is perspicuous enough to grasp the connection between the public and private faces of the Vice. It is when Treason enters as a priest:

K. John. A pryste and a
traytour? How maye that wele
          agree?
Tr. Yes, yes, wele ynough
vnderneth Benedicite.
Myself hath played it, and therfor I knowe it the
          better.
Amonge craftye cloyners there hath not bene a gretter.
K. John. Tell some of thy
feates; thu mayest the better
          escape.
…
Tr. Twenty thousand traytour
I haue made in my tyme
Vndre Benedicite betwyn hygh masse
and pryme.

(ll. 1811-14, 17-18)

Sedition seems to be an extrovert, easily amused person, in a word good company. He laughs and jokes, showing traits of character common to the Vice in most morality plays to reveal the Vice's evil nature, for instance mocking-echo, laughter, singing, and the slip-of-the-tongue device. But behind this smiling face he is strong and powerful. He is impossible to stop. He moves where and when he chooses. The King tries to hinder him, but he has to admit that he is too strong: “The devyll go with hym! þe vnthryfte knaue is gon” (l. 313). In this world Sedition is the only character who is so powerful that he can, now and then, show his private face. He reveals that he was born in Rome (l. 183), and he tells John that he holds princes “in scorne, hate and dysdayne” (l. 188). Sometimes he is upbraided because of this. He can destroy the whole “chaotic world” if he is not more careful. He is happy when he understands that the King is nearly ruined, but he does not put on a public, saintly, gloomy face; instead, he says “Is not thys a sport? By the messe, it is, I trowe (l. 1682). But the Pope warns him: “Holde thy peace, whorson! I wene thu art accurst. / Kepe a sadde countenaunce” (ll. 1695-96). The first time in the play that Sedition reveals his private face is when John marvels that he can behave in such an unnatural way to his mother England. England had accused him and the clergy of exploiting the country and trying to destroy it. But Sedition denies any relationship with her:

I am not her chyld! I defye hyr, by þe messe!
I her sonne, quoth he? I had rather she were hedlesse.

(ll. 179-80)

He is the Pope's ambassador (l. 213), and he is quite willing to tell the King his right name: “As I sayd afore, I am Sedycyon playne” (l. 186). But the other Vices are more careful. Dissimulation, for instance, admonishes the others that “Thowgh we play þe knavys, we must shew a good pretence” (l. 688). Bale symbolically shows Sedition's superiority when he lets Usurped Power, Dissimulation and Private Wealth carry Sedition in, because all of them have something of him in their own characters: “we shall bare hym all thre … For ther is non of vs but in hym hath a stroke” (ll. 799, 801).

Sedition tries to give the King a picture of the public world—the world of Commodity. He seems to enjoy informing John about all the deceiving, fooling and disguising that is going on around him. Sedition demonstrates that he is John's superior, and in his contempt for the weaker he is not afraid of telling the King that he and all other princes are powerless unless they have the support of the Pope (ll. 219-20). But the King expects well of his Establishment, so he is difficult to persuade, although Sedition assures him that his three estates are great friends of his. But ultimately the King begins to see the world as it really is: “I perseyve this worlde is full of iniquite” (l. 292). But in spite of this acknowledgement the King is deceived by the three estates, when they put on their public faces shortly after. The reader or the audience knows the whole time that their public morality differs to all intents and purposes from their private morality—that they are plotting against the King and the country. The King believes in their conversion, for instance when Civil Order admits that he needs someone to guide him on the right way (l. 390), and when he promises on behalf of them all that “With the wyffe of Loth we wyll not backeward locke / Nor turne from owr oth, but euer obeye yowr grace” (ll. 522-23).

Clergy kneels and submits himself “body and goodes” (l. 506) to the King. The King is entirely satisfied when they promise that, even if Sedition should come in disguise, they would not consent to ungodliness (l. 542-47). But when Clergy is ordered to reveal who is his ruler, his private face crops up, he stumbles and admits that it is the Pope, only to correct his mistake at once: “Ha! Ded I stomble? I sayd, my prynce ys my ruler” (l. 514).⁸¹

Sedition introduces the Vices to the audience. Spivack points out that he does so “in the order of their doctrinal rank and sequence”:⁸²

We of þe chirch now are þe.iiij. generall proctors.
Here ys fyrst of all good father Dyssymulacyon,
Þe fyrst begynner of this same congregacyon;
Here is Privat Welthe, which hath þe chyrch infecte
With all abusyons and brovght yt to a synfull secte;
Here ys Vsurpid Powr, þ at all kynges doth subdwe,
With such avtoryte as is neyther good ner trewe;

(ll. 810-16)

But even if the King is too good to take part in the deceit and cheating in this world, he cannot avoid the truth any longer. When Private Wealth in the clothes of a Cardinal wants him to make restitution to the Church, he has to admit that the charity of the Church does not exist, and he warns Christian men against following this corrupt church. He also understands how common people are treated and realizes his own powerlessness:

Blessed lorde of heauen, what is the wretchednesse
Of thys wycked worlde! An euyll of all euyls,
          doubtlesse.

(ll. 1534-35)

Before giving up his crown the King tries one last time to reform his three estates, but they are already parts of the world of Commodity. The Clergy is trying to get common people to avoid the King by blaming the interdict on him, and Civil Order is helping the Church not because he likes him, but because it is important for him that the Church is in power—his profits will otherwise be less. Nobility is useless to the King. He is too afraid to do anything to support his prince.

But there is one more touchstone than John in this play. England never wavers either:

Rest vpon this, ser, for my governor ye shall be
So long as ye lyve; God hath so apoyntyd me.

(ll. 1580-81)

She is willing to disown her own child. Commonalty—the victim of Clergy, Nobility, and Civil Order—when he proves himself too poor, blind and easy to fool to find the right way. But England knows that Commonalty is not the only blind character in this play; she reveals of priests and monks that they “are the trees that God dyd never plant, / And as Christ dothe saye, blynd leaders of the blynd” (ll. 33-34).

Everything circles around gain in the play, everything is made for Commodity—priests do anything “for a thowsand pownd” (l. 250)—and the best example of this is the discussion between Usurped Power, Private Wealth and Sedition about the Irish. The Irish people have always been faithful to the Church and active on its side when kings have been disobedient.⁸³ They have behaved in this way to obtain indulgence and power. But the Vices admit that this kind of devotion to the Church is useless:

Sed. By the messe, and þat
is not worth a rottyn
          wardon!
Us. P. What care we for
that? To them yt is venyson.

(ll. 971-72)

In demonstrating that in the world of Commodity there is no compassion, not even for those who are on the same side, not even for your friends, the Vices are condemning themselves.⁸⁴ It is not enough for them to have brought the King to his knees, they must crush him utterly and ridicule him. They lay yokes upon him that he cannot bear, give him a “a sawce that he no longar endure” (l. 1997). They make fun of him, call him a parish clerk and imagine they have got him to the point where he would commit murder if they asked him to. To make sure that he will have no opportunity of raising himself from his degradation they ultimately bring foreigners into the country. Clergy assures Stevyn Langton and Civil Order that this will be easily brought about—the interdict and the fear of damnation will move people to pull him down (ll. 1243-47). The King does not waver morally, but as he is a human being he cannot hold out and he wants to die: “And now to the, lorde, I woulde resygne vp gladlye” (ll. 2061). At this critical moment England supports him, assures him that there is a world where virtues stand fast. God will never fail him (ll. 2064-65). And shortly before his death, King John, being the same reliable, worthy man as at the beginning of the play, realizes that in this world “synne and wyckednesse … Haue the ouerhande” (ll. 2169-71). John dies the same honourable man as he has been in life and, like Christ, he forgives all the representatives of the “Chaotic World”:

Farwell, noble men, with the clergye spirytuall;
Farwell, men of lawe, with the whole commynnalte.
Your disobedyence I do forgyue yow all
And desyre God to perdon your iniquyte.

(ll. 2174-77)

The development in moral progress can be followed in the kneeling to different authorities. Firstly, Clergy kneels to John to delude him that he is humble (l. 506). Secondly, Nobility, Clergy and Civil Order kneel to Sedition (as Stephen Langton) to prove that they subordinate themselves to the Vices (l. 1213). Thirdly, all three kneel to Imperial Majesty, Virtue, to be forgiven (l. 2328).

This analysis of a world in which Commodity once and for all had been defeated by a King who in his death had revealed to people the right way, would have been true, if the play had been brought to an end with the death of a royal martyr. But Bale points out to his readers that in his own sixteenth century world the chaotic situation still exists. The “underlings”—Dissimulation, Private Wealth and Usurped Power do not appear—but their leader Sedition is still there at the climax of the play. And though Clergy promises to exile Usurped Power, Nobility gives an assurance that he will expel Private Wealth from the monasteries, and Civil Order reveals that he will hang False Dissymulation (ll. 2447-52), Verity—according to Adams “a personification of Reformation doctrine generally”⁸⁵—has to admit that he has problems with the “popish prelates”. Clergy does not appear to be completely reliable. In 1529 Simon Fisch, in A Supplication for the Beggars, declared that the clergy wanted to do to Henry VIII as they had done “vnto your nobill predecessour king Iohn.”⁸⁶ Clergy is a little too knowledgeable about the Bible and the Pope. Imperial Majesty upbraids him when he thinks that he is powerful enough to make a King supreme Head of the Church.

Here is a nyce tale! He sayth, if it be my pleasure
He wyll do thys acte to the popes most hygh
          displeasure,
As who sayth I woulde for pleasure of my persone
And not for Gods truthe haue suche an enterpryse
          done.
…
I wyll the auctoryte of Gods holy wurde to do it
And it not to aryse of your vayne slypper wytt.
That scripture doth not is but a lyght fantasye.

(ll. 2391-94, 2397-99)

To change the world the authorities must crush Sedition, Dissimulation, and Private Wealth. When this is achieved usurped Power cannot survive. At the end of the play, Imperial Majesty and the three estates deceive and condemn Sedition. It is the chaotic world the other way around.⁸⁷ Sedition explains to them, giving, at the same time, a fairly true picture of Henry VIII's troubled reign, that it is very difficult to destroy Popish customs, in spite of Acts, as long as the priests do not preach the gospel but persecute those who teach the Holy Scriptures. If the teaching of the gospel were to fail for only a single day, they would set up the Pope again. Bale appears to say in this play that, although Virtue has triumphed for the moment, all righteous people have to be on their guard. Sedition still dominates the scene and derides them:

In your parlement commaunde yow what ye wyll,
The popes ceremonyes shall drowne the Gospell styll.

(ll. 2522-23)

Bale and the other prophets of the New Learning had experienced how difficult it was to reform and change an established pattern of society. They cannot reform Sedition and that is why it is important for people to get to know about him. In a short treatise, probably written at the same time as Bale's play (c. 1538), Sir Richard Morison—evidently to enlighten the King—explains the same thing about evil powers, viz. that they cannot be reformed. Sydney Anglo renders Morison's thoughts in the following way:

However, it is not enough that people should have knowledge only of good; they should be acquainted with evil. Therefore it is both dishonest and dangerous to refrain from all mention of the Bishop of Rome in the hope that he will thus be forgotten, because, though expelled from England, he still lurks in neighbouring lands and people should be reminded of the miseries they endured under his thralls.⁸⁸

Sedition will always be found in the world of Commodity. He dies giving thanks for the honour of being worthy of the same fate as Thomas á Beckett:

                    I maye be put in the holye letanye
With Thomas Beckett, for I thynke I am as wurthye.
Praye to me with candels, for I am a saynt alreadye.
O blessed saynt Partryck, I see the, I verylye!

(ll. 2589-92)

In his analysis of public morality Bale concentrates on the point in which politics and religion clash. He is interested “in the devotional life of the social body, and in the political aspects of religious leadership.”⁸⁹ And in his King Johan Bale shows us how deeply public morality depends on private morality. Politics, religion and private life meet in one human being—John.

Notes

1. But it is important to keep in mind what Hardin Craig points out in English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955) that “there was no general agreement among Englishmen as to how far the Reformation should go and as to whether there was need of reform, or, if it were needed, what should be reformed” (p. 386).

2. A. M. Kinghorn, The Chorus of History: Literary-Historical Relations in Renaissance Britain (London: Blandford Press, 1971), p. 280; cf. Cumberland Clark, Shakespeare and the Supernatural (London: William & Norgate, 1931), p. 159. Henry VIII's personal conviction was Roman Catholic and after the Six Articles Act in 1539 the climate for the New Learning party became inflexible once again. Once more orthodox belief involved auricular confession, celibacy for priests and only one sort of communion. See Blatt, p. 14.

3. Antonia Granden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 320.

4. For a complete list see Honor McCusker, John Bale, Dramatist and Antiquary (Bryn Mawr: Privately printed, 1942), pp. 32-47.

5. Jesse W. Harris, John Bale: A Study in the Minor Literature of the Reformation (Urbana I11.: The Univ of I11. Press, 1940), pp. 116-19.

6. May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 13.

7. P. 370.

8. See Introduction to the Camden Society Edition, p. vii. Harris believes that it was in existence by 1536 but “with strong possibilities of having been written by about 1533-34” (p. 71). Adams declares that “from the playlist alone it is impossible to say whether King Johan belongs to the same year [1538], but at least it is not necessary to push the date of composition back to 1536” (p. 21). W. T. Davies in “A Bibliography of John Bale,” Oxford Bibliographical Society: Proceedings & Papers (Oxford: The Univ. Press, 1940), V, 209, thinks that “the list of plays was an addition to the original manuscript … and that it was drawn up in 1538.” Rainer Pineas and Craig are both convinced that Bale built King Johan on Kirchmayer's antipapal play Pammachius which was written in 1538. See Craig, p. 368 and Pineas, Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, (Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1972), p. 5.

9. Madeleine Hope Dodds, “Early Political Plays,” The Library, 3rd Ser., 4 (Oct. 1913), 407.

10. Harris, p. 71 note 10.

11. For an account of the manuscript and its fate see the introduction to the Camden Society Edition, or Blatt, pp. 99-105, or Adams, pp. 1-19. A thorough analysis of the dates of the different texts is to be found in Adams, pp. 20-24; cf. Davies, pp. 211-12.

12. Adams, pp. 36, 25-26. Barke points out each historical event in the earlier chronicle material (pp. 44-136). Davies believes that Bale has taken most of his facts from the Chronica Majora. He declares that “on the whole the chronicle is violently hostile to John, but its general opposition to Papal exactions must have pleased Bale” (p. 212).

13. Pineas, Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, p. 15.

14. For a summary of the plays see Harris, pp. 91-92, or Blatt, pp. 99-129. Bale wrote several plays of the same kind that as far as we know, are no longer extant. Harris gives as examples On the King's Two Marriages and Impostures of Thomas à Becket (p. 98).

15. Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princetown: The Univ. Press, 1957; rev. ed. Methuen, 1965), p. 34 and Ribner, “Morality Roots of the Tudor History Play,” Tulane Studies in English, 4 (1954), 21-23. I agree with Davies who says that “stripped of its allegory, Bale's play stands out as a surprisingly modern piece of history, highly selective and extremely partial, of course, but still notably analytical and interpretative” (p. 212).

16. Sydney Anglo, “An Early Tudor Programme for Plays and Other Demonstrations Against the Pope,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 20 (1957), 179. Dodds points out that “from 1530 onwards the stage. was used by both parties as a weapon in the religious conflict” (p. 401).

17. For a thorough analysis of the emergence of the Vice see Bernard Spivack, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil: The History of a Metaphor in Relation to his Major Villains (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1958).

18. Blatt, p. 108.

19. Rainer Pineas, “William Tyndale's Influence on John Bale's Polemical Use of History,” Archiv f. Reformationsgeschichte, 53 (1962), 80-81. Thomas More is quoted by Pineas in his article “William Tyndale: Controversialist,” Studies in Philology, 60 (April 1963), 117.

20. M. M. Reese, The Cease of Majesty: A Study of Shakespeare's History Plays (London: Edward Arnold, 1961), p. 109.

21. Pineas points out that in the widow England the effect of “theological error on an entire country” is physically portrayed. See Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, p. 15.

22. John S. Farmer, ed., The Dramatic Writings of John Bale Bishop of Ossory (London: Privately Printed for Subscribers by the Early English Drama Society, 1907), p. 77.

23. L. C. Knights, “Shakespeare's Politics: With Some Reflections on the Nature of Tradition,” Proceedings of the British Academy, 43 (April 1957), 126.

24. P. 25. Bale developed other themes Tyndale had suggested, for instance the polemical use of ecclesiastical and secular history, the establishing of Protestant martyrs, the use of sexual insults, etc. See Pineas, “William Tyndale's Influence on John Bale's Polemical Use of History,” p. 79.

25. Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, p. 19.

26. Quoted by Adams, p. 25.

27. Howard R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1927), pp. 147-77. Kinghorn looks upon Bale's John almost “as a tragic hero” (p. 285).

28. Blatt, p. 106.

29. William A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1913), p. 35.

30. Sidney Carter, The English Church and the Reformation (London: Longmans-Green and Co., 1925), p. 3.

31. Reese, The Cease of Majesty, p. 69.

32. Painter, p. 232.

33. P. 203.

34. Bale used the chroniclers in a different way from Tyndale. The latter did not trust them at all. Pineas in “William Tyndale's Influence on John Bale's Polemical Use of History” maintains that Bale took the information and forged “it into a polemical weapon for himself” (p. 85), and Kinghorn points out that “although Leland, Bale, Foxe and others condemned Vergil, they did not scruple to use Anglica Historia as a main source for their own writing” (p. 53).

35. Kinghorn, p. 285.

36. Edwin S. Miller, “The Roman Rite in Bale's King John,” PMLA, 64 (Sept. 1949), p. 803.

37. Henry Christmas, ed., Select works of John Bale, D. D. Bishop of Ossory (Cambridge: The Univ. Press, 1849), p. 251.

38. Blatt points out that “the age into which Bale was born was prolific in references to Antichrist” (pp. 45-47). Wyclif saw the Pope as Anti-Christ, for instance when he was encouraging war and bloodshed among Christians. See Thomas Arnold, ed., Select English Works of John Wyclif (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), III, 140-42. The quotation is from Tyndale, The Practice of Prelates, cited by Norman Davis in William Tyndale's English of Controversy (London: H. K. Lewis & Co., 1971), p. 18.

39. Pineas, “William Tyndale's Influence on John Bale's Polemical Use of History,” p. 80. Tyndale accused the Church of having permitted treason: “The Bisshopes with the Pope have a certeyne conspiration and secret treason agenst the whole worlde.” See William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christen Man and How Christen Rulers ought to Governe. … (Antwerp, 1528), fol. III^r-v.

40. Pineas declares that it was common for “the Vice … during his first appearance on stage … to announce his evil nature and intentions to his audience.” See “The English Morality Play as a Weapon of Religious Controversy,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 2 (1962), 161.

41. Benedicite is what the penitent says at the beginning of a confession. See Miller, p. 806.

42. Cf. Adams, p. 153 note to pp. 244-52.

43. Harris, pp. 94-95.

44. Christmas, p. 262.

45. L. W. Cushman in The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1900) calls this “the catalogue-motif” (p. 87).

46. Carter, p. 4.

47. Harris, p. 39; cf. Green, pp. 331-48. The suppression of the monasteries was nearly completed in a period of five years time (1539). See James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie (arr. and cat.) Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, XIV, Part II (London: Printed for Her Majesty's Stationery Office by Eyre and Spottiswoode), xxiii. In his writing Bale often shows regret that the monastic libraries were destroyed by fanatics from his own party: “Avaryce … hath made an ende both of our lybraryes and bokes.” Quoted by McKisack, p. 17 from Labouryouse Journye.

48. Miller, pp. 802-22. Bale seems to mix details dealing with the interdict with those dealing with the excommunication.

49. Pineas, “The English Morality Play as a Weapon of Religious Controversy,” p. 175.

50. Miller, p. 821. Bale is close to Tyndale in his description of the punishments and the rewards. Tyndale wrote ironically about the clergy who wanted to rule over the dead “and to haue one kyngdome more then God him selfe hath” and ridiculed the Church's craving for wealth “Shew the Pope a litle money, and God is so mercifull that there is no Purgatory,” and he asked “What am I the better for the beliefe in Purgatory? to feare men thou wilt say. Christ and his Apostles thought hell inough. And yet … what great feare can there be of that terrible fire which thou mayst quench almost for three halfe pence?” The quotations can be found in Pineas, “William Tyndale: Controversialist,” pp. 119, 127.

51. The Anabaptists' capture of Münster in 1532 was known in England and regarded as a warning. See Harris, p. 98. After 1555 Bale had to fight both against the Church of Rome and the new rebels who talked about a church of purity. See Davies, p. 227.

52. P. 133.

53. Harris, p. 22.

54. Pp. 278-79.

55. Ibid., p. 296.

56. Ibid., p. 296.

57. P. 19. The benefit of clergy was, according to Christoper R. Cheney in “King John and the Papal Interdict,” John Rylands Library Bulletin, 31 (Dec. 1948), 301 generally respected even during the interdict of England.

58. The Great Bible was recognised by Henry VIII in 1538, but already in 1543 it was forbidden to interpret the Bible (except by those licensed) and to study it. See Green, pp. 334, 341, 351-52.

59. Bale used Latin for purposes of satire in his plays. See Blatt, p. 58.

60. Quoted by Kinghorn, p. 238.

61. Simon Fisch, A Supplicaton for the Beggars (Spring of 1529), ed. Edward Arber (Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co., 1895), p. 11.

62. P. 132.

63. P. 108.

64. Historically this is true. Arthur's death had nothing to do with the rebellion a decade later.

65. Together with Commonalty they represent the whole population. The three estates are common in both French and English literature from this period. In Lyndsay's Three Estates (probably acted for the first time before James V of Scotland in 1540) they are the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commonalty. See Kinghorn, p. 243.

66. In a morality play the Vice was to play three rôles: the opponent of God, the corrupter of man, and the buffoon. See Cushman, p. 72.

67. Dodds, p. 406.

68. Ribner, “Morality Roots of the Tudor History Play,” pp. 27-29.

69. P. 57.

70. P. 100.

71. P. 396.

72. Pp. 190-91.

73. Pp. 109-10.

74. A main requirement for a good king in the Middle Ages. But King John is something more, he is trying to be the leader of the servants of both state and church. Bale, writing in a transitional period, is interested in “the political aspects of religious leadership.” See Blatt, p. 59 and Danby, p. 200.

75. Pp. 98-105.

76. Sigurd Burckhardt, “King John: The Ordering of the Present Time,” ELH, 33 (June 1966), 133.

77. Adams, p. 59. Bale himself wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse—The Image of Both Churches. See Christmas.

78. It is interesting to notice that Bale himself was close to Cromwell, who is said to have been one of the earliest disciples of Machiavelli in England. Cardinal Reginald Poole is supposed to have read The Prince in manuscript on the suggestion of Cromwell. See Lewis Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1902), pp. 291-92. At this point in the play Bale seems to disagree with Cromwell.

79. Adams points out that “this kind of deception, in which a representative of evil adopts a name signifying a good concept or practice, is frequently exploited in other sixteenth-century plays which make use of morality conventions” (p. 170, note to p. 103, 1. 1136).

80. To establish that the Vice was a Catholic various techniques could be used: (a) association (for instance clerical garb, which is common in this play), (b) using Catholic oaths, (c) direct revelation. Sedition has such confidence in himself that he uses the third method here. See Pineas, Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, p. 16.

81. This slip-of-the-tongue device is one of the many ways in which the Vice reveals his evil nature to the audience. See Pineas, “The English Morality Play as a Weapon of Religious Controversy,” p. 173.

82. P. 144.

83. Bale was an expert on Catholic Ireland. Edward VI had made Bale Bishop of Ossory against Bale's will. Harris declares that “the Ireland which he entered was Catholic to the very core, a land of sacred images and holy shrines.” Bale was not a man of compromise, so when the King died in 1553 the Catholic clergy were happy because they understood that the Bishop had to go into exile once more. See Harris, pp. 42-50.

84. To condemn themselves and to add the virtues that teach the truth is common for the Vices in both Catholic and Protestant morality plays. See Pineas, Tudor and Early Stuart Anti-Catholic Drama, p. 15.

85. P. 149.

86. Fisch, p. 6; Prouty declares that “the Elizabethans did not possess our modern view of history, for to them the past and present were indissolubly mixed” therefore it was natural for a dramatist to hold up a previous period as a mirror for contemporaries. See Charles T. Prouty, “Some Observations on Shakespeare's Sources,” Sh-Jahrbuch, 96 (1968), 73.

87. Bale knew of course, even if he never mentions it in his polemical writing, that Henry VIII was a distinguished character in the “world of Commodity.” At the same time that he passed severe laws against heresy, he tried to make friends with the German Protestants. The Lutheran princes behaved in the same way out of mutual interest. See Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Vol. XIV, Part II, vi-vii, xviii-xix.

88. Morison was used by Thomas Cromwell as a propagandist between the years 1536 and 1539, and his work included “the defence of the royal divorce and supremacy, the literary offensive against the rebels during the Pilgrimage of Grace, the campaign against Cardinal Pole, and the encouragement of patriotic enthusiasm during the dangers of French invasion.” See Anglo, pp. 176-77. As he encouraged the performances of plays as a means of propaganda he must have been close to Bale.

89. Blatt, pp. 58-59.

Works Cited

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Farmer, John S. Ed. The Dramatic Writings of John Bale Bishop of Ossory. London: Privately Printed for Subscribers by the Early English Drama Society, 1907.

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