us with a figure of the monarch wearing over his armour the military surcoat as yet undistinguished by armorial blazonry. On his head is either a cylindrical helmet, without the aventaile, or a cap of cloth or fur. It is difficult, from the state of the impressions, to decide which. He bears the knightly shield, assuming at this period the triangular or heater shape, but exceedingly curved or embowed, and emblazoned with the three lions, or leopards, passant regardant, in pale, which are first seen on the shield of his brother, Richard I.

The spur worn at this period was the goad or pryck spur, without a rowel. The principal weapons of the knights were the lance, the sword, and the battle-axe. The shape of the sword may be best ascertained from the effigy of King John, who holds one in his hand; the pommel is diamond-shaped, and has an oval cavity in the centre for a jewel.

The common soldiery fought with bills, long and cross-bows, slings, clubs, and a variety of rude but terrific weapons, such as scythes fastened to poles (the falcastrum), and a sort of spear, with a hook on one side, called the guisarme. The arbalast, or crossbow, is said to have been invented in the previous reign, but Wace mentions it as having been known to the Normans before the Conquest. Engines of war, called the mangonell and the petraria, for throwing heavy stones, are mentioned by Guliel. Britto in his Phillippeis,'l. 7:

“Interea grossos petraria mittit ab intus

Assidue lapides mangonellusque minores." And in the close rolls of John is an order, dated 2nd April, 1208, to the Bailiff of Porchester, to cause machines for flinging stones, called petrariæ and mangonelli, to be made for the King's service, and to let Drogo de Dieppe and his companions have iron and other things necessary for making of them. Philip sent to his son Louis a military engine, called the malvoisine (bad neighbour), to batter the walls of Dover Castle.

The costume of the following personages of the drama will be found in their portraits, which are introduced into the Historical Illustration accompanying each act :-King John, Queen Elinor, King Philip, Prince Lewis, Blanch of Castile, Salisbury, Pembroke, Henry III

Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, Essex, SALIS

BURY, and others, with CHATILLON. King John. Now say, Chatillon, what would France with

us?

Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France, In my behaviour,a to the majesty, The borrow'd majesty of England here.

a Behaviour. Haviour, behaviour, is the manner of having, the conduct. Where,

Eli. A strange beginning ;-borrow'd majesty!
K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the Embassy.

Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island, and the territories;
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,
Which sways usurpingly these several titles;
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows if we disallow of this?

Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,
The farthest limit of my embassy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace :
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard :
So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen presage of your own decay.
An honourable conduct let him have :-
Pembroke, look to 't: Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE.
Eli. What now, my son ? have I not ever said,
How that ambitious Constance would not cease,
Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her son ?
This might have been prevented, and made whole,
With very easy arguments of love;

1

then, is the difficulty which this expression has raised up? The king of France speaks, in the conduct of his ambassador, to “ the borrow'd majesty of England;"– a necessary explanation of the speech of Chatillon, which John would have resented upon the speaker himself, had he not in his “behaviour" expressed the intentions of his sovereign.

and me:

Which now the manage

a of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession, and our right, for us.

Eli. Your strong possession much more than your right; Or else it must go wrong

with

you
So much my conscience whispers in your ear;
Which none but Heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.
Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex.

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,
Come from the country to be judg’d by you,
That c’er I heard : Shall I produce the men ?
K. John. Let them approach.

[Exit Sheriff. Our abbeys, and our priories, shall pay Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCON BRIDGE, and Philip,

his bastard Brother.
This expedition's charge.—What men are you?

Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
Born in Northamptonshire; and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge ;
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Caur-de-lion knighted in the field.2

K. John. What art thou ?
Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir ?
You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king,
That is well known: and, as I think, one father :
But, for the certain knowledge of that truth,
I put you o'er to Heaven, and to my mother,
Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

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

a

Manage has, in Shakspere, the same meaning as management and managery,— which, applied to a state, is equivalent to government. Prospero says of Anthonio :

“ He whom next thyself
Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put
The manage of my state."

Bast. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it;
That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
The which if he can prove, ’a pops me out
At least from fair five hundred pound a-year:
Heaven guard my mother's honour, and

my

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

Bast. I know not why, except to get the land.
But once he slander'd me with bastardy:
But whera I be as true begot, or no,
That still I lay upon my mother's head;
But, that I am as well begot, my liege,
(Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!)
Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.
If old sir Robert did beget us both,
And were our father, and this son, like him ;
O old sir Robert, father, on my knee
I give Heaven thanks I was not like to tlice.

K. John. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven lent us here!

Eli. He hath a trick b of Cour-de-lion's face;
The accent of his tongue affecteth him :
Do
you

not read some tokens of my son
In the large composition of this man?

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

Bast. Because he hath a half-face, like my father;

a Wher. This in the original is where; it is sometimes wher. The word, however spelt, has the meaning of whether, but does not appear to have been written as a contraction either by Shakspere or his contemporaries.

b Trick, here and elsewhere in Shakspere, means peculiarity. Gloster remembers the “trich” of Lear's voice ;-Helen, thinking of Bertram, speaks

“ Of every line and trick of his sweet favour;" —
Falstaff notes the “ villanous trick” of the prince's eye. In all these cases trick
seems to imply habitual manner. In this view it is not difficult to trace up the
expression to the same common source as trick in its ordinary acceptation; as, ha-
bitual manner, artificial habit, artifice, entanglement; from tricare. Wordsworth
has the Shaksperean use of “trick” in “The Excursion(book i.):-

6 Her infant babe
Had from its mother caught the trick of grief,
And sigh’d among its playthings.”