Bryant, James C. “Shakespeare's Use of Religious Controversy in King John.” In Tudor Drama and Religious Controversy, pp. 129-49. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1984.

[In the following essay, Bryant maintains that in King John Shakespeare was able to achieve a measure of objectivity in his treatment of late fifteenth-century religious disputes.]

Shakespeare was too much an artist and too much a businessman to make himself vulnerable to either the antitheatre officials in London or the anti-Romanist agents at Court. He wrote for a popular audience and was completely dependent upon the pleasure of that general public during the last decade of the sixteenth century. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Shakespeare would have used the stage to support his private notions about religion. At first he seemed more interested in reflecting public taste, not in prescribing it.

Like other successful dramatists of his period, Shakespeare held the mirror up to not only nature but also contemporary attitudes, including the instinctive religious beliefs of his audience. That mirror reflected the attitudes and fears generated by the recent, infamous Spanish Armada and its resultant surge of anti-Roman Catholic hostility in the name of patriotism.

Hostility against Roman Catholic subversive activity reached an apex in 1591 when Elizabeth issued a proclamation against Jesuit missionary priests. Two years later the hostility against all Roman Catholics was so pronounced that Parliament passed the Act Against Recusants. The Preamble of that document reflects the official view concerning Roman Catholics in England.

For the better discovering and avoiding of all such traitorous and most dangerous conspiracies and attempts as are daily devised and practiced against our most gracious sovereign lady the queen's majesty and the happy estate of this commonweal, by sundry wicked and seditious persons, who, terming themselves Catholics, and being indeed spies and intelligencers, not only for her majesty's foreign enemies, but also for rebellious and traitorous subjects born within her highness's realms and dominions, and hiding their most detestable and devilish purposes under a false pretext of religion and conscience, do secretly wander and shift from place to place within this realm, to corrupt and seduce her majesty's subjects, and to stir them to sedition and rebellion. …¹

The act, in short, provided that every English subject older than the age of sixteen, “being a popish recusant” and refusing to attend divine services of the Church of England, would be restricted to his place of residence, from which he was forbidden to travel more than a distance of five miles.

An anonymous play entitled Troublesome Reign of King John was printed in 1591, right in the midst of general anti-Roman Catholic hostility. It is as vitriolic as Bale's play. It was also in the midst of anti-Roman Catholic hostility that Shakespeare wrote his own King John, and for the same audience as the anonymous play. Since the days of Henry VIII's reformation of the Church of England, the historical King John had been regarded as a champion of English kings against the usurpation of Roman bishops. If Shakespeare did not have his fingers upon the pulse of the nation, it is impossible to explain why he chose such a subject as King John for a play at all.

It has been customary to say that Shakespeare's King John is a condensation of the anonymous Troublesome Reign, and that Shakespeare's play was written sometime during the years 1594-1597. But one editor, E. A. J. Honigmann, in the new Arden edition (1954), argues for an earlier date, 1590 or 1591. That would mean, of course, that Shakespeare's play would have had no necessary relationship to the Troublesome Reign, and that the Troublesome Reign could have been an expansion of Shakespeare's original. In view of the evidence we now have, there is as much to favor Honigmann's view as the traditional one. Should the earlier date theory prevail, all of the scholarship based upon Shakespeare's omission or toning down of the Roman Catholic derogation contained in the Troublesome Reign would have to be reevaluated.

Since placing a date on the writing of King John is an impossibility in view of present evidence, it seems far more beneficial to read Shakespeare's play without reference to the Troublesome Reign. And, of course, by reading King John as a self-contained whole, one is left with what is most desirable: Shakespeare's writing.

Shakespeare's The Life and Death of King John,² unlike most of the Tudor drama in which the religious controversy plays a significant part, successfully avoids many individual grievances of Protestants against Catholics by sustaining the essentially Anglican point of view in matters of church and state that had been brought down in history from the time of William the Conqueror. That is, in the controversy between England and Rome, neither the English Church nor the English nation was to be dominated by foreign powers.

Shakespeare, with remarkable restraint when one considers the anti-Roman Catholic temper during the period of the play's composition, presents the bitter conflict as a matter of politics rather than merely a religious quarrel. Consequently, he raises certain questions in the drama which lift the entire problem above the vitriolic charges and countercharges for which the sixteenth century is noted.

The questions Shakespeare raises in King John are these: Does a king rule his dominions by the grace of God or by the grace of the pope? Does a de facto king have the right to expect absolute loyalty and obedience from his subjects, even when his right to the succession is questionable? Is rebellion against the king ever justifiable, even when the king proves to be wicked and an enemy of the Church? Do foreign princes have the right to interfere with a Christian king's administration of his own dominions? Having been raised to hear questions such as these resolved by the enforced preaching of the Book of Homilies, Shakespeare's audience would have known the right answer to a man. Further, official censorship would have guaranteed the correct response by dramatists in their plays.

When Shakespeare stresses the political nature of the religious dispute with Rome, he is writing within the range of a wide historical background, thoroughly familiar to the audience during the last decade of the century. It is no accident, therefore, that King John begins with allusions to the question of usurpation. While the king may have succeeded by “borrowed Majesty,” the problem of usurpation is dealt with on several levels as a recurring theme throughout the play.

From an Anglican point of view, however, the most detestable usurpation was perpetrated by the Roman papacy. One recalls that the queen had begun her reign upon the assumption that the popes had usurped ancient royal prerogatives by interfering with the internal affairs of England's citizens and her Church. Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy (1559) abolished all papal jurisdiction in England, so that “all usurped and foreign power and authority, spiritual and temporal” could be removed forever.³ Her Royal Injunctions (1559) began by ordering all ecclesiastics to preach sermons against papal usurpation. It need not be surprising to learn that homilies and propaganda tracts of the period coupled the name of the pope with usurpation.

If English subjects were not convinced already, Pope Pius V's bull excommunicating and deposing Elizabeth (1570) reinforced the charge of usurpation. In that document Pius referred to himself as “chief over all nations and all kingdoms, to pluck up, destroy, scatter, dispose, plant and build …”⁴ The presence of the papal legate, Cardinal Pandulph, onstage would have been a sufficient reminder to Shakespeare's audience that the question of Rome's usurpation was still a live issue.

In act 3 Shakespeare implicitly raises the question of whether a king rules in his own right by the grace of God, or whether he rules by permission of the pope. Pandulph, as legate from Rome, demands to know why King John defies the Holy Church by refusing to admit Stephen Langton, the pope's choice for England's archbishop of Canterbury. John answers as Henry VIII or Elizabeth would have answered: “What earthly name to interrogatories / Can task the free breath of a sacred king?” (3.1.147-148).

Ironically, Pandulph had made his entrance by addressing King John and King Philip of France as “you anointed deputies of Heaven!” Perhaps without realizing it, Pandulph gives lip service to the divine right of kings, while his message from the pope would seem to deny that right. It may be recalled that John Bale's King John had centered the stage action upon this very point: a king was God's anointed minister to rule over his people. As such, he was answerable to no other power under heaven. Henry's assumption of the title “Supreme Head” (1531) was an affirmation of the right to rule his own dominions in matters spiritual and temporal, answerable to God alone. Elizabeth recognized her function as “Supreme Governor as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal.” Political tracts and certain official homilies had stressed the point that kings, whether good or evil, reigned by divine sanction. Consequently, when John answers the cardinal, his words carry the whole force of the English understanding of a king's divine right to rule his dominions without interference from any foreign power, temporal or spiritual.

John's antipapal remarks can be seen, within the context of the times, not as being derogatory to the Roman Catholic Church but as an expression of the Reformation position. That position sees the pope as merely the bishop of Rome and an Italian priest with no more legal rights in the king's dominions than any other ecclesiastic.

Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name
So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous
To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.
Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England
Add thus much more: that no Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions,
But as we, under Heaven, are supreme head,
So under Him that great supremacy,
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold
Without the assistance of a mortal hand.
So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart
To him and his usurped authority.

(3.1.149-160)

The point is clear: John assumes the Anglican position that his authority to reign is independent of the pope's claims to the contrary. As Supreme Head of the Church in England, John does not require assistance from the pontiff. As Supreme Head he also retains Edward the Confessor's precedents of investing his own primate and administering ecclesiastical affairs in the national Church. Elizabeth had demonstrated her position when she wrote to Dr. Richard Cox, bishop of Ely, demanding his conformity: “You know what you were before I made you what you are now. If you do not immediately comply with my requests, I will unfrock you, by God.”⁵ Elizabeth did not unfrock Archbishop Grindal, but when he refused to comply with her wishes, she placed him under house arrest for five years and assumed his duties personally. Thus, John does not reply to Cardinal Pandulph as a spiritual subject of the Roman See, but as a “sacred king” who is subject only to God. Whenever the bishop of Rome attempts to interfere with this normal state of affairs, he does so by “usurped authority.”

The whole issue became clear in the Restraint of Appeals Act (1533) in which the king of England is referred to as the embodiment of ancient power, under whom “spiritualty and temporalty, be bounden and ought to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience,” for he rules by the sufferance of Almighty God and without restraint from any foreign powers. The act reiterates the statutes of the realm passed during the reigns of Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, and others, in an effort to preserve ancient royal prerogatives from the “annoyance” of the Roman See as well as “other foreign potentates.”⁶

The important First Act of Succession (1534) began with the explanation that such legislation is necessary because “the Bishop of Rome, and see apostolic, contrary to the great and inviolable grants of jurisdictions given by God immediately to emperors, kings, and princes, in succession to their heirs, has presumed, in times past, to invest who should please them, to inherit in other men's kingdoms and dominions.”⁷ Significantly, the act acknowledged England as “an imperial realm,” in which Henry VIII maintained the status of any other emperor: “rex est imperator in regno suo.” Clearly, Shakespeare's audience was prepared to share in King John's reply to Cardinal Pandulph and would have maintained that the king rules in his dominions without prerequisite permission from Rome.

King Philip probably represents a standard Roman Catholic response to John's bold defiance of papal jurisdiction: “Brother of England, you blaspheme in this” (3.1.161). After all, Pope Boniface VIII's famous Unam Sanctam bull (1302) was still in force as a reminder to loyal Roman Catholics that “it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”⁸ Thus when King John derogates the papal office, he also defies the sacred decisions of Church Councils and popes over the course of several centuries.

But King John deviates from the general principle under discussion and alludes to certain objectionable features of Roman Catholic practices in a manner not characteristic of Shakespeare at his best. John answers Philip's charge:

Though you and all the kings of Christendom
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
Dreading the curse that money may buy out,
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man
Who in that sale sells pardon from himself,
Though you and all the rest so grossly led
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish,
Yet I alone, alone do me oppose
Against the Pope and count his friends my foes.

(3.1.162-171)

Pardons and indulgences were among the chief objects of Luther's attack upon the Church, and they remained the objects of abuse and satire throughout the century. In John's derogation of the “meddling priest,” the commonplace ridicule of the “curse that money may buy out” is not unlike similar attacks reflected in stage plays during the polemical period of the English Reformation. Elizabethans of the Settlement period would have understood John's implication of the Reformation position that while pardons may be purchased, it is for the profitable market of man and not sanctioned by Scripture, for only God has the power to pardon sin. Moreover, the allusion to indulgences as a part of “juggling witchcraft” is little different from official statutes of the realm which never seemed to tire of associating Roman Catholic practices with superstition.

The inclusion of such allusions at this point is further evidence of how closely Shakespeare reflects the attitudes of the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion. The audience may have seen John's solitary position among the temporal sovereigns of Europe as essentially the position of England during the period of the Counter-Reformation. For Shakespeare's audience, Elizabeth alone of the reigning princes was not “grossly led” by “witchcraft” to fill the coffers of Rome. Recent plots against the government not only placed English Roman Catholics under official surveillance as potential traitors, but almost of necessity “friends” of the pope became “foes” of the Protestant queen's government. Thus, John's anachronistic position had particular relevance for Shakespeare's audience because John's reply reflects precise English attitudes of the Reformation.

A second question Shakespeare's play raises demanded considerably more delicacy in handling on the stage: Does a de facto king have the right to expect absolute loyalty, even when his right to the succession is questionable? It required particular delicacy on Shakespeare's part because of the very tenuous claim to succession by the House of Tudor.

In the play, France accuses John of disregarding the natural order of succession by usurping the throne with utter disregard for Prince Arthur's more immediate right to the succession. John vindicates his role by implying that might makes right, “Our strong possession and our right for us” (1.1.39). Queen Mother Elinor responds to this significantly. “Your strong possession much more than your right, / Or else it must go wrong with you and me” (1.1.40-41). When Elinor and Constance debate the relative merits of the right of succession, Elinor says, “… Thou unadvised scold, I can produce / A will that bars the title of thy son” (2.1.191-192).

Thus far the problem is one which no doubt had occurred to Shakespeare's audience. Not only had the right of the Scottish line been overlooked in the English succession, but Mary Stuart had bypassed her own son, by terms of her will, in favor of Philip II of Spain as heir apparent. Moreover, while Cardinal Pandulph's quarrel with John is not at first directly concerned with his “usurpation” or his right to succeed to the throne, Pope Pius V's Regnans in excelsis (1570), excommunicating and deposing Elizabeth, had expressed the common Romanist position that Elizabeth was not the rightful successor to the throne. Pius's bull deprived the queen “of her pretended right to the aforesaid realm.”

The first Tudor king had solved the problem about his right to succession, even when there remained the possibility of Yorkist heirs more immediate in the line of succession. Henry VII helped secure his position on the throne by a marriage with a descendant of Edward IV, and in 1495 he led Parliament to enact legislation making it no treason to obey a de facto king. John seems to share the Tudor point of view by asking a most significant question, “Doth not the crown of England prove the King?” (2.1.273).

The problem of a dubious access to the throne can not justify the attitude assumed by the citizens of Angiers. They will not recognize King John nor obey him until they are assured that he is the rightful king: “… but he that proves the King, / To him will we prove loyal” (2.1.270-271).

An Elizabethan audience would probably have felt that France's “usurpation” of England's right to obey a crowned king was, as it proved to be in the case of Lewis, a mere pretext for personal gain. By the same token, Roman Catholic charges that England's queen had no right to rule would probably have impressed the audience as being a variation on the same theme, except in this case for the personal advantage of the pope.

At any rate, the fact that a king ruled in England by sanction of the Parliament should have been sufficient to answer the question about dubious rights to succession, and this had been the most effective means of answering those who pressed Mary Stuart's claims.

A third question raised by Shakespeare's play provides more effective dramatic possibilities: Is rebellion against the king ever justifiable, even when the king proves to be wicked and an enemy of the Church? No matter how much Englishmen may have changed their point of view on this question before the year 1649 when King Charles I was beheaded by Parliamentary consent, Shakespeare's audience had been instructed over a long period of time in the doctrine that rebellion against the prince was among the gravest sins imaginable. It was a part of the doctrine of Tudor absolutism.

The most relevant part of the rebellion theme occurs in act 3 when Cardinal Pandulph excommunicates King John.

Then, by the lawful power that I have,
Thou shalt stand cursed and excommunicate.
And blesséd shall he be that doth revolt
From his allegiance to an heretic;
And meritorious shall that hand be called,
Canónizéd and worshipped as a saint,
That takes away by any secret course
Thy hateful life.

(3.1.172-179)

Actually, such a charge against Roman Catholic policy had been at the heart of several plots to assassinate the queen, even extending to late in the century. For example, as late as 1594 one Hugh Cahill, an Irishman, is reported to have confessed voluntarily “that when at Brussels, Father Holt and others said it would be a most blessed thing to kill the Queen, as by it he would win Heaven, and become a saint if he should be killed; he that would do it would be chronicled for ever.”⁹

Sir Edward Coke, solicitor general, described a number of Roman Catholic attempts to incite rebellion and kill the queen.

To this end many needy and desperate young men are seduced by Jesuits and seminary priests with great rewards and promises to kill the Queen, being persuaded that it is glorious and meritorious, and that if they die in this action, they will inherit Heaven and be canonized as saints.¹⁰

Two pamphlets written probably by Cardinal Allen for distribution upon the occasion of the Spanish invasion (1588) are significant for the light they bring to this dark business. The first calls Elizabeth “an incestuous bastard, begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan,” and it calls upon Roman Catholics in England to rise up in arms against the “infamous, depraved, accursed, excommunicate heretic.”¹¹ The second, called Declaration, calls for the “deprivation and deposition” of the queen in the pope's name, and for those who help to capture “the said usurper or any of her accomplices,” Plenary Indulgence is to be allowed.¹²

The point of view expressed in Allen's pamphlets is reinforced by Pope Gregory XIII's license for political assassination. Gregory had told a group of assassins that “whoever sends ‘the Queen’ out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service … gains merit.”¹³ Other allegations of ecclesiastical sanction of the assassination of Elizabeth are recorded by Holinshed in connection with various conspiracies centered around Mary Stuart's claims to the throne.¹⁴

The question of rebellion seems to fascinate Shakespeare. In the play, Pandulphus calls upon English citizens in the name of His Holiness to rebel against an heretical king. On the other hand, John Bale's thesis was that citizens never have a right to rebel, even when the king may be wicked, for rebellion against God's anointed minister is tantamount to rebellion against God Himself. Shakespeare seems to champion this doctrine in his plays, although it would have been practically impossible for him to have done otherwise in view of the vigilance of official censors.

The Northern Rebellion (1569) may have prompted the addition of the important homily “Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” (1571) in the official Book of Homilies. It would have been difficult for any man in Shakespeare's audience to have escaped hearing this homily many times during his lifetime. Yet the homily is little more than a summation of absolutist doctrine extending from the first Tudor king and reiterated by statesmen and ecclesiastics of the New Faith for most of the century.¹⁵ The homily repeats the point from Paul's epistle to the Romans that Bale's King John had expressed: “The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation” (Romans 13:1-2). The scriptural passage goes on to say that even wicked kings rule according to God's will and must be obeyed as though they were good. The homily further maintains that Satan is the author of rebellion.

The homily “Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” discusses the possibility that the king may prove to be an enemy of the Church, and if he does, what should be the attitude of his subjects toward obeying his will? In the play, Cardinal Pandulph has stated the attitude of the papacy just as clearly as Pope Pius V had stated it in Regnans in excelsis: subjects are absolved from oaths of loyalty in such a case, and they are forbidden to obey an heretical sovereign. In 1580, however, Pope Gregory XIII qualified Pius's bull by allowing English Romanists to obey and accept Elizabeth as queen “rebus sic stantibus.” But, of course, the implication is that when the rebellion came, Roman Catholics in England were to be released from oaths of loyalty and participate in the rebellion against the queen's government.

But the homily states emphatically that subjects are no more qualified to judge the merits of their king than the foot is qualified to judge the head: the result could only be rebellion. And rebellion is the greatest of all mischiefs. Moreover, a rebel is worse than the worst prince, and rebellion is far worse than the worst government of the worst prince. Just as Bale had cited scriptural texts to indicate examples of good men who obeyed bad kings, the homily recites examples of those who obeyed wicked rulers, even when it meant great personal discomfort: for example, the Virgin, in advanced pregnancy, obeyed a decree of Caesar Augustus to submit to an official census. Indeed, says the homilist, rebellion represents a combination of all the sins against God and humanity.

Curiously, in the play John's subjects do not seem to rebel against him because of the cardinal's injunction. Shakespeare suggests rather that there are other motives more immediate than the pope's deposition. For example, Englishmen at large are in a state of unrest because they believe that King John is responsible for Prince Arthur's death. Hubert de Burgh relates to John the strange goings-on in the city and the widespread rumors circulating among the commoners: “Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths” (4.2.187). Even when the nobles are about to rebel against their king, it is not because of any religious dispute; it is because their king has abandoned what great princes must safeguard—magnanimity. Salisbury reflects the rumor concerning Arthur's death: “It is apparent foul play, and 'tis shame / That greatness should so grossly offer it” (4.2.93-94). It is after the nobles have discovered Arthur's dead body that Salisbury justifies his decision to rebel against his king upon the basis of John's wickedness.

The King hath dispossessed himself of us.
We will not line his thin bestainéd cloak
With our pure honors, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.

(4.3.23-26)

By the time rebellion breaks out in earnest, King John has submitted to Rome and acknowledged England as a papal fief. But even before the king's submission, Pembroke implies that Pandulph's deposition did not alter John's status as England's king.

This “once again,” but that your Highness pleased,
Was once superfluous. You were crowned before,
That that high royalty was ne'er plucked off,
The faiths of men ne'er stainéd with revolt.
Fresh expectation troubled not the land
With any longed-for change or better state.

(4.2.3-8)

Indeed, it is not a question of rebellion caused by the pope's demands, but of rebellion that occurs against a king who apparently has proven himself an evil ruler by “murdering” Arthur.

While the commoners and nobles may seem to have just cause for rebellion against their king, Shakespeare continues to deal with the question by demonstrating the truth expressed in the homily “Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion.” That is, rebellion is worse than the worst government of the worst prince. Salisbury, expressing the outrage of the “distempered lords,” not only determines to cease obeying his king, but he also dedicates himself to vengeance.

It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand,
The practice and the purpose of the King;
From whose obedience I forbid my soul,
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
And breathing to his breathless excellence
The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
Never to be infected with delight
Nor conversant with ease and idleness
Till I have set a glory to this hand
By giving it the worship of revenge.

(4.3.62-72)

The practical consequence of rebellion in the realm is the invasion by the French. To Shakespeare's highly patriotic and freedom-loving audience, nothing could have been more detestable, except perhaps a similar invasion by the Spanish. One can imagine the effect upon the audience hearing the Bastard's account of French successes.

All Kent hath yielded. Nothing there holds out
But Dover Castle. London hath received,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy,
And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.

(5.1.30-36)

John submits to Rome only because he seeks to avoid the bloodshed of his subjects. Yet as he submits, the Bastard reflects a thoroughly English spirit of Elizabethan patriotism in his response to the news of John's new peace with the papacy.

                                        Oh, inglorious league!
Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
Send fair-play orders and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce
To arms invasive?

(5.1.65-69)

It is almost too late when the rebels discover what a dear price England must pay for rebellion. With the Dauphin installed in London and refusing to cease hostilities, even after the pretext of invasion has been removed, the rebels realize, perhaps for the first time, that foreign domination by a greedy French prince will be the consequence of their own disloyalty and rebellion.

In such a case, rebellion proved to be worse than any alleged evil on the king's part. The rebels have committed an unnatural sin against God's laws in taking up arms against their anointed king and in betraying England to a foreign prince. Shakespeare underscores this point by assigning to the Bastard—here the voice of English nationalism—the most celebrated lines of the play.

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue
If England to itself do rest but true.(16)

(5.7.112-118)

Shakespeare's audience, if not convinced before, could hardly avoid a proper response to the question of justifiable rebellion, even in the case of a wicked king who may be an enemy of the Church. It is certainly possible that Shakespeare may have had English Roman Catholics in mind when he raised the question, since Cardinal Allen and the papacy assumed that Roman Catholics would rise up in armed rebellion when the anticipated foreign invasion of England began.

A fourth question raised by Shakespeare's play would have been timely while bringing into focus the case of John's submission to Rome and a clear example of Rome's policy with dissenting nations: Do foreign princes have the right to interfere with a king's administration of his own dominions?

The answer would have been easy for the highly nationalistic English of Shakespeare's day. But such an answer would have presupposed the whole controversy with the papacy reaching back to the days of William the Conqueror. William's case was well known: he was willing to accept the pope's spiritual jurisdiction, but he would not acknowledge Rome's temporal claims within his dominions. William insisted, successfully, upon the ancient right of English kings to appoint their own bishops (lay investiture). Yet when the German Henry insisted upon similar claims, Pope Hildebrand deposed him and forced his submission in the snow of Canossa. By acting as both governor of the Church in England and Defender of the Faith, William the Conqueror limited papal jurisdiction in England.

By the time Shakespeare's play was composed, the temporal claims of the papacy had increased to the point that loyal Roman Catholics could acknowledge as their sovereigns only those whom the papacy permitted. The right of a prince to rule in his dominions was dependent upon a prerequisite of obedience and loyalty to the Holy See. If a sovereign defected from such obedience, or if he succeeded to the throne without papal consent, the pope could depose him as a heretic and call upon loyal Catholic countries to effect the deposition.

On the other hand, throughout the Middle Ages England had maintained that while her kings owed spiritual fealty to Rome, the papacy had no right to interfere with the temporal administration of matters claimed by royal prerogatives from the time of Edward the Confessor. By the time of the English Reformation, the changed conception of papal jurisdiction could be regarded by England only as papal usurpation.

In the play, act 1 proposes a war between France and England on the pretext that John is a usurper. Consequently, France claims the right to invade England, if necessary, since John's usurpation “religiously provokes” such recourse. But Shakespeare makes it clear that France's real motive is more one of personal gain than religious provocation. As Philip confesses, France came to champion the widow Constance's claims for Arthur, but dropped the cause in favor of personal advantage and greed: “… In her right we came; / Which we, God knows, have turned another way / To our own vantage” (2.1.548-550).

The Bastard exemplifies the perceptive English subject as he comments upon France's apparent duplicity, “fickle France,” and he rightly sees that commodity is the real motivating factor in France's enterprise. In act 3, Cardinal Pandulph almost parallels instances of papal policy by urging Prince Lewis to invade England.

                                        The bastard Faulconbridge
Is now in England, ransacking the Church,
Offending charity. If but a dozen French
Were there in arms, there would be as a call
To train ten thousand English to their side,
Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful
What may be wrought out of their discontent
Now that their souls are topful of offense.

(3.4.171-180)

But while Lewis agrees to invade England upon a religious pretext, Cardinal Pandulph appeals to Lewis's covetousness to enlist his aid in the papal enterprise. He tells the prince that when Arthur is dead, Lewis becomes heir to Arthur's claims because of his recent marriage to Lady Blanch: “You, in the right of Lady Blanch, your wife, / May then make all the claim that Arthur did” (3.4.142-143). Lewis, taken in by the cardinal's Machiavellian policy, agrees to invade England and says significantly, “Strong reasons make strong actions” (3.4.183).

Shakespeare makes it clear that Lewis's invasion of England, though under the pretext of restoring the realm to papal control, was actually motivated by personal gain. When Lewis sees the cardinal approaching his camp at St. Edmundsbury, he tells the English rebels of his holy enterprise.

Look, where the holy legate comes apace
To give us warrant from the hand of Heaven
And on our actions set the name of right
With holy breath.

(5.2.65-68)

But even before the cardinal arrives, the Dauphin assures his English rebels that they will share with him in the spoils of victory.

Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
Into the purse of rich prosperity
As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all
That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

(5.2.60-63)

When Cardinal Pandulph comes onstage he tells the Dauphin that since King John has submitted to Rome there is no further need for war; consequently, Lewis should withdraw from England. Yet, and this is the crux, Lewis reveals that he has no intention of being ordered about by the cardinal.

Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back.
I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a secondary at control,
Or useful servingman and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.

(5.2.78-82)

He also accuses Pandulph of being the instigator of the whole business.

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
Between this chastised kingdom and myself
And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out
With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
You taught me to know the face of right,
Acquainted me with interest to this land,
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart.

(5.2.83-90)

Then the Dauphin lowers the shield of hypocrisy upon which he had justified his invasion of England and reveals his true motivation.

And come ye now to tell me John hath made
His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
I, by the honor of my marriage bed,
After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
And, now it is half-conquered, must I back
Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
Am I Rome's slave?

(5.2.91-97)

Thus fired by his own covetousness, Lewis assumes a position not unlike that taken by John at the beginning of the play in his attitude toward Rome. Shakespeare demonstrates that Lewis's sense of holy mission is merely a pretext for invading England in his own right. When the papal legate tries to stop him, Lewis defies the legate and refuses to be ruled by Rome.

The parallel to Spanish Philip's pretext for the Armada is too apparent at this point to be ignored. While Philip claimed to be the champion of the papacy in restoring “heretical” nations to the Roman See, in the case of his invasion of England his motivation was that of pressing his claim to the English throne. He claimed the right of succession in England on three grounds: (1) his previous marriage to Mary Tudor, (2) his inheritance of the English throne from Mary Stuart's will, and (3) his descent from John of Gaunt. Shakespeare's play implies that foreign invasions of England in the name of the Holy Church are in reality no more than the personal ambitions of greedy princes. It is certainly true in the case of the Dauphin.

If Shakespeare's audience felt a sense of betrayal because of John's submission to Rome while foreign powers plundered the realm, it would have felt a pleasant relief when the Bastard announces that King John was not entirely serious about the whole business. The king has not submitted to Pandulph as thoroughly as it may have seemed.

                                                                                                    For at hand,
Not trusting to this halting legate here,
Whom he hath used rather for sport than need,
Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
A bare-ribbed Death, whose office is this day
To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

(5.2.173-178)

During the last battle, the rebellious English nobles return to John's camp, the Dauphin's armada is wrecked on Goodwin Sands, and King John himself is maliciously poisoned by a monk at Swinstead Abbey. Yet it is a victory for England, and the French forces are compelled to withdraw. Future hope for England becomes apparent in the magnanimous spirit of the king's son, Prince Henry.

Shakespeare's play supports the general Elizabethan consensus that all such efforts on the part of foreign powers to invade England were without legal and moral justification. They were, in fact, no more than instances of usurpation—whether they were initiated by the papacy or by covetous princes. King John's early response to King Philip's interference may very well reflect the attitude of Englishmen in this regard: “Alack, thou dost usurp authority” (2.1.118). It is, therefore, essential to understand the technical aspects of the political-religious point of view before one can appreciate how skillfully Shakespeare has managed the question he raises. His attitude in the play is thoroughly Protestant insofar as he denies the papacy any right to invade by force the dominions of a reigning Christian prince. Shakespeare also seems to vindicate the Protestant assumption that since kings rule as anointed ministers of God, they are not answerable to any foreign power, temporal or spiritual. No foreign princes have the right to interfere with a Christian king's administration of his own dominions.

In King John Shakespeare has used the highly charged materials of ecclesiastical controversy for their artistic value. By reducing the controversy to basic political questions and lifting them above the contemporary strife to an earlier, more remote period of English history, he is able to maintain a degree of objectivity missing in the writings of other dramatists who had used similar materials.

While Shakespeare does not seem to be a violent partisan of the Settlement position, one cannot avoid observing that he comes through as a wise and perceptive spokesman for his age. For example, while the traditional commentaries relegate to Shakespeare an uncommon tolerance for Roman Catholics and the Old Faith, it is difficult to ignore the fact that he has made of Cardinal Pandulph a character much darker than necessary—almost the Vice of the play. A careful study of the cardinal shows him to be the cause of discord and strife among nations. He is the instigator of rebellion, he demands that King Philip break his sacred vows of peace and friendship with England, he appeals to the Dauphin through dubious means to invade England, and he seems to serve all the while at the altar of Commodity. Lewis made these exact charges against the legate, and the cardinal himself confessed that he alone was responsible for the rebellion in England and the foreign invasion.

It was my breath that blew this tempest up,
Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;
But since you are a gentle convertite,
My tongue shall hush again this storm of war
And make fair weather in your blustering land.

(5.1.17-21)

But, of course, not even the papal legate could restrain the forces of discord he had released. If one persists in the contention that Shakespeare was always fair in dramatizing the Old Faith, it is indeed difficult to explain his treatment of the cardinal.

What is nevertheless gratifying about Shakespeare's use of religious controversy in King John is that he universalizes the conflict on a purely human basis. Pandulph may function as a papal legate in the play, but at the same time he is a fallible human being, subject to invoking unworthy policy for what he considers a worthy end. By the same token, John may be a Christian prince, but he is also subject to the same disintegrating forces that enter into the experience of all mortals: he is covetous, often ignoble, and Machiavellian in policy, but he is no villain. When his land is torn apart by hostile armies, he submits to the pontiff to spare his subjects further bloodshed. King Philip leads his armies against England in the name of justice for Prince Arthur, but he is vulnerable to Commodity and soon forgets his worthy commission. The Dauphin invades England on behalf of Cardinal Pandulph, but he too serves Commodity.

The issues, therefore, are never a simple matter with Roman Catholics as Vices and Protestants as Virtues. Rather, each character pursues his own course through the drama as a fallible human being. Perhaps it is such an awareness of human character as this that separates Shakespeare from other Tudor dramatists.

Notes

1. See “Act Against Recusants,” in Gee and Hardy, 498-508.

2. References to the play are to the text in G. B. Harrison, ed., Shakespeare: The Complete Works (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1952) 547-78.

3. See the “Supremacy Act of Elizabeth,” in Bettenson, 332-33.

4. See “Regnans in excelsis,” in Bettenson, 340-41.

5. G. B. Harrison, ed., The Letters of Queen Elizabeth (London: Cassel and Company, 1935) 121.

6. See “Restraint of Appeals,” in Gee and Hardy, 187-95.

7. See the “First Act of Succession,” in Gee and Hardy, 232-43.

8. See the excerpt from Unam Sanctam, in Bettenson, 161-63.

9. G. B. Harrison, Elizabethan Journals (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955) 288.

10. Harrison, 289.

11. Philip Hughes, The Reformation in England (London: Hollis and Carter, 1950) 3:380.

12. Hughes, 3:381.

13. E. I. Watkin, Roman Catholicism in England from the Reformation to 1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957) 37.

14. For example, the celebrated case of Dr. William Parry's treason produced as evidence the following letter from Cardinal di Como in Rome, dated 30 January 1584: “Monsignor, the Sanctity of our Lordship first has read the letters of your Lordship in full faith and cannot but praise the good disposition you profess towards the public welfare, for which his Sanctity exhorts you to persevere so that you might attain the ends that your Lordship promises. In order that you may be further assisted by that good spirit which moved you, he grants you his blessing and full forgiveness of all sins, as your Lordship has requested, assuring that besides the reward that your Lordship will have in heaven his Sanctity will also put himself in your debt recognizing the merits of your Lordship in the best manner, and so much more so because your Lordship shows great modesty in expecting nothing. So carry out your saintly and honored intentions and be well. Finally I offer you from my heart and wish you every good and happy success.” Holinshed, 4:573. Translated from the Italian by Frida A. Norman, professor of Italina, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA.

15. Irving Ribner cites other Tudor documents in which this doctrine of absolutism appears: John Cheke's The hurt of sedicion howe grevous it is to a communwelth (1549, repeated in Holinshed in 1587), an Edwardian homily entitled An Exhortation concerning good order and obedience to Rulers and Magistrates, John Jewel's Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanaes (1562, 1564, 1581, 1591), John Whitgift's Defence of the Answer to the Admonition Against the Reply of Thomas Cartwright, Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, and Thomas Bilson's True Difference Between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion (1585). The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957) 311-12.

16. Compare the following passage from Holinshed's account of Campion's trial (1581): “This little Lland, God hauing so bountifullie bestowed his blessings vpon it, that except it prooue false within it selfe, no treason whatsoeuer can preuaile against it, and the pope being hereof verie well persuaded, by reason that all his attempts haue prooued of no effect: he hath found out a meane, whereby he assureth himselfe to speed of his desire. Secret rebellion must be stirred here at home among our selues, the harts of the people must be obdurated against God and their prince: so that when a foren power shall on a sudden inuade this realme, the subjects thus seduced most ioine with these in armes, & so shall the pope atteine the sum of his wish.” 4:449. (Italics mine.)