ellect prompts him to attempt what is really beyond
the powers of his nature to perform. By his side, with an irony that is
seldom praised, Shakespeare places the figure of the Bastard, the man
who ought to have been king, the man fitted by nature to rule the
English, the man without intellect but with a rough capacity, the man
whom we meet again, as a successful king, in the play of _Henry V_.

King John is placed throughout the play in treacherous relations with
life. He is a traitor to his brother's son, to his own ideas, to the
English idea, and to his oath of kingship. He has a bigger intellect
than any one about him. His brain is full of gusts and flaws that blow
him beyond his age, and then let him sink below it. Persistence in any
one course of treachery would give him the greatness of all well-defined
things. He remains a chaos shooting out occasional fire.

The play opens with a scene that displays some of the human results of
treachery. John's mother, Elinor, has been treacherous to one of her
sons. John has usurped his brother's right, and, in following his own
counsel, has been treacherous to his mother. These acts of treachery
have betrayed England into a bloody and unjust war. The picture is
turned suddenly. Another of the results of human treachery appears in
the person of the Bastard, whose mother confesses that she was seduced
by the "long and vehement suit" of Coeur de Lion. The Bastard's
half-brother, another domestic traitor, does not scruple to accuse his
mother of adultery in the hope that, by doing so, he may obtain the
Bastard's heritage.

The same breaking of faith for advantage gives points to the second act,
where the French and English Kings turn from their pledged intention to
effect a base alliance. They arrange to marry the Dauphin to Elinor's
niece, Blanch of Castile. In the third act, before the fury of the
constant has died down upon this treachery, the French King adds another
falseness. He breaks away from the newly-made alliance at the bidding of
the Pope's legate. The newly-married Dauphin treacherously breaks with
his wife's party. In the welter of war that follows, the constant, human
and beautiful figures come to heartbreak and death. The common people of
England begin to betray their genius for obedience by preparing to rise
against the man in power.

The fourth act begins with the famous scene in which Hubert fails to
blind Prince Arthur. Even in the act of mercy he is trea