Richard the Bastard

King John
What is thy name?
Bastard
Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,
Philip, good old Sir Robert’s wife’s eldest son.
King John
From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest.
Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great.

Philip kneels. King John dubs him a knight,
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Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
“Good den, Sir Richard!” “God-a-mercy, fellow!”
An if his name be George, I’ll call him “Peter,”
For new-made honor doth forget men’s names;
‘Tis too respective and too sociable
For your conversion. Now your traveler,
He and his toothpick at my Worship’s mess,
And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,
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Lady Faulconbridge
Hast thou conspirèd with thy brother too,
That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honor?
What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?
Bastard
Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.
What, I am dubbed! I have it on my shoulder.
But, mother, I am not Sir Robert’s son.
I have disclaimed Sir Robert and my land.
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King John
France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
Say, shall the current of our right roam on,
Whose passage, vexed with thy impediment,
Shall leave his native channel and o’erswell
With course disturbed even thy confining shores,
Unless thou let his silver water keep
A peaceful progress to the ocean?
King Philip
England,
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By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
And stand securely on their battlements
As in a theater, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
Your royal presences, be ruled by me:
Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
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Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!
John, to stop Arthur’s title in the whole,
Hath willingly departed with a part;

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.

And France,
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Austria
Lady Constance, peace.
Constance
War, war, no peace! Peace is to me a war.
O Limoges, O Austria, thou dost shame
That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward,
Thou little valiant, great in villainy,
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side,
Thou Fortune’s champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous Ladyship is by
To teach thee safety.
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King John, to Bastard  
Cousin, away for England! Haste before,
And ere our coining see thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels
Set at liberty. The fat ribs of peace
Must by the hungry now be fed upon.
Use our commission in his utmost force.
Bastard
Bell, book,
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King John, to Bastard
Now, what says the world
To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff
My head with more ill news, for it is full.
Bastard
But if you be afeard to hear the worst,
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
King John
Bear with me,
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Pembroke
O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
The Earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
Salisbury
Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
Bigot
Or when he doomed this beauty to a grave,
Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
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