King John (Mis)Remembered by Djordjevic Igor

Author:Djordjevic, Igor.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2015-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

It is not only the members of the court who cling to a fancifully deluded understanding of their own history; Leicester’s and Gloster’s allusions to the “murmuring” of “mutinous” people about Eleanor’s imprisonment and their observation that Rosamond was “ill spoken of” while alive27 both indicate that this is a realm consumed by the topic of the king’s relationships. The two barons effectively propose a view that this is a world in which the whole realm recognizes and accepts royal sexuality as the foundation of the common weal; when it is transgressive it subverts the peace on all levels, but a return to sanctified matrimony is guaranteed to be the healer of all the nation’s woes.

A little later in the same scene Lancaster responds with a patriotic and moral assessment of Rosamond’s and Eleanor’s political agency, questioning the fundamental importance of royal sexuality implied by Leicester’s oration and Gloster’s comments:

Say Rosamond was Henries Concubine,

Had neuer King a Concubine but he?

Did Rosamond begin the fires in Fraunce?

Made the Northerne borders reeke with flames?

Vnpeopled the townes of Picardy?

Left the wiues of England husbandles?

O no: she sinn’d I graunt, so doe we all,

She fell her selfe, desiring none should fall;

But Elinor whom you so much commend,

Hath been the bellowes of seditious fire,

Eyther through Iealious rage or mad desire;

Ist not a shame to thinke that she hath arm’d

Foure Sonnes right hands, against their fathers head,

And not the children of a low priz’d wretch,

But one whom God on earth hath deified?28

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