"enfranchise Arthur." As soon as John tells them that Arthur is dead
they throw off their allegiance and insult the monarch to his face. Even
John is startled by their indignation, and brought as near remorse as is
possible for him:
"I repent;
There is no sure foundation set on blood;
No certain life achieved by others' death--"
--which reads like a reflection of Shakespeare himself. When the Bastard
asks the nobles to return to their allegiance, Salisbury finds an
astonishing phrase to express their loathing of the crime:
"The King hath dispossess'd himself of us;
We will not line his thin bestained cloak
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks."
In all literature there is no more terrible image: Shakespeare's horror
of bloodshed has more than Aeschylean intensity. When the dead body of
Arthur is found each of the nobles in turn expresses his abhorrence of
the deed, and all join in vowing instant revenge. Even the Bastard calls
it
"A damned and bloody work,
The graceless action of a heavy hand,"
and a little later the thought of the crime brings even this tough
adventurer to weakness:
"I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world."
--a phrase that suits the weakness of Richard II. or Henry VI. or
Shakespeare himself better than it suits the hardy Bastard. Even as a
young man Shakespeare hated the cruelty of ambition and the savagery of
war as much as he loved all the ceremonies of chivalry and observances
of gentle courtesy.
Very similar inferences are to be drawn from a study of Shakespeare's
"King Richard II.," which in some respects is his most important
historical creation. Coleridge says: "I know of no character drawn by
our great poet with such unequalled skill as that of Richard II." Such
praise is extravagant; but it would have been true to say that up to
1593 or 1594, when Shakespeare wrote "King Richard II.," he had given us
no character so complex and so interesting as this Richard. Coleridge
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