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The “Dastardly Treachery” of Prince John of Lancaster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Paul A. Jorgensen
Paul A. Jorgensen*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles 24
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Extract

One of the most disturbingly dramatic, and least admired, scenes in Shakespeare is that in which Prince John of Lancaster subdues the rebels in 2 Henry IV. His strategy, unheard of in any other general in Shakespeare's plays, is not to win in open field by plain force but by legalistic subtlety to trick the rebels into an armistice. He agrees, ostensibly, to all the provisions of redress demanded by the Archbishop, Hastings, and Mowbray; the leaders drink amicably in the sight of their armies; the rebel troops are dismissed; and then with a chilling suddenness John arrests the leaders for high treason and commands his army to “pursue the scatter'd stray.” To cap this dubious triumph, John piously rejoices, “God, and not we, hath safely fought today.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 1961 , pp. 488 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 1 in page 488 William Shakespeare (New York, 1911), pp. 114 ft.

Note 2 in page 488 The Olive and the Sword (London, 1944), p. 27.

Note 3 in page 488 (London, 1933), p. xxxix.

Note 4 in page 488 Shakespeare-characters (London, 1863), quoted in the New Variorum 2 Henry IV, ed. M. A. Shaaber (Philadelphia, 1940), p. 622.

Note 5 in page 488 The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Chicago, 1951), p. 675.

Note 6 in page 488 “The Political Problem in Shakespeare's Lancastrian Tetralogy,” SP, xlix (1952), 183.

Note 7 in page 488 Note to iv.ii.123, ed. 1765. In Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare (Augustan Reprints), ed. Arthur Sherbo (Los Angeles, 1957), ii, 52.

Note 8 in page 488 Das Buch über Shakespeare (1920), p. 244, quoted in Variorum, ed. Shaaber, pp. 622–623.

Note 9 in page 488 Shakespeare: Twenty-Three Plays and the Sonnets (New York, 1953), p. 388.

Note 10 in page 488 Whether or not there is slaughter rather than capture of the rebel army it is difficult to decide. Clifford P. Lyons has pointed out to me the significance of the following lines (iv.iii.77): Lan. Now, have you left pursuit? West. Retreat is made and execution stay'd.

These suggest “more than a frolicking pursuit.” But, as Lyons adds, “Coleville of the Dale is one of the ‘scatter'd stray.‘ The account of his capture by the invincible Falstaff considerably modulates any sense of bloody pursuit upon the fliers.”

Note 11 in page 489 Ll. 2292–95, in The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. C. F. Tucker Brooke (Oxford, 1953).

Note 12 in page 489 The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood (London, 1874), i, 17.

Note 13 in page 489 Of the Knowledge and Conduele of Warns (1578), fol. 17.

Note 14 in page 489 Allarme to England (1578), sig. K 1v .

Note 15 in page 489 The Anatomie of the Minde (1576), p. 22.

Note 16 in page 490 Discourses of Warre and Single Combat, tr. I. Eliot (1591), p. 33.

Note 17 in page 490 The Solace for the Souldier and Saylour (1592), sig. D 2.

Note 18 in page 490 The Stratagems of Jerusalem (1602), sig. A 2V .

Note 19 in page 490 The Prince, “In what manner Princes ought to keep their words.” In The Tudor Translations, ed. W. E. Henley (London, 1905), xxxix, 323.

Note 20 in page 490 The Discourses, Book iii, Ch. xl. In The Prince and The Discotirses (New York, 1950), p. 526.

Note 21 in page 490 Calendar of State Papers (Ireland), 26 Dec. 1595, p. 443.

Note 22 in page 490 De Maisse; A Journal of All That Was Accomplished by Monsieur de Maisse, Ambassador in England, ed. G. B. Harrison and R. A. Jones (London, 1931), p. 50.

Note 23 in page 490 Fragmenta Regalia, Memoirs of Elizabeth, Her Court and Favourites (London, 1825), p. 19. See also her indignation expressed through her Council on 13 Sept. 1598, in Acts of the Privy Council. New Series, ed. J. R. Dasent (London, 1890-), xxix, 164.

Note 24 in page 490 William Camden, The Historie of ? Princesse Elizabeth (1630), iv, 88.

Note 25 in page 491 Ibid., iv, 84.

Note 26 in page 491 Quoted by Cyril Falls, Elizabeth's Irish Wars (London, 1950), p. 139.

Note 27 in page 491 See W. L. Renwick in his edition of Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland (London, 1934), pp. 245–246.

Note 28 in page 491 See E. de Selincourt in The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser (Oxford, 1950), p. xxxvii.

Note 29 in page 491 Acts of the Privy Council, xxvi, 422.

Note 30 in page 491 Falls, p. 184.

Note 31 in page 491 Camden, iv, 77–78.

Note 32 in page 491 The True Reporte of the Service in Britanie Performed lately by the Honorable Knight Sir John Norreys ? before Guingand (1591), sig. A 3.