Times of King John.
King John—a base fellow every way—has a date made for him by the grant of Magna Charta, A.D. 1215, of which I have already spoken, and of its near coincidence with the writing of the Brut of Layamon. His name and memory also cling to mind in connection with two other events which have their literary associations.
First, this scoundrelly King could only keep power by making away with his little nephew Arthur, and out of this tragedy Shakespeare has woven his play of John—not very much read perhaps, and rarely acted; but in the old, school reader-books of my time there used to be excerpted a passage—a whole scene, in fact—representing the interview between Arthur and his gaoler Hubert, who is to put out the poor boy’s eyes. I quote a fragment:—
Arthur—Must you with irons burn out both mine eyes?
Hubert—Young boy, I must.
Arthur—And will you?
Hubert—And I will.
Arthur—Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows.
And again, when the ruffians come in with the irons, Hubert says—
“Give me the irons, I say, and bind him here.”
Arthur—Alas, what need you be so boisterous rough?
I will not struggle; I will stand stone still;
For Heaven’s sake, Hubert, let me not be bound.
I don’t know how young people are made up nowadays; but in the old times this used to touch us and almost set us upon the “weep” and make us rank King John with Beelzebub and—the Schoolmaster.
Second: In King John’s day Normandy was lost to England—the loss growing largely, in fact, out of the cruelty just named, and its ensuing wars. Losing Normandy had a vast influence upon the growing speech of England. Hitherto the cherished mother-land had been across the channel. Sons of the well-born had been sent over to learn French on French ground: young ladies of fashion ordered, without doubt, their best cloaks and hats from Rouen: the English ways of talk might do for the churls and low-born: but it was discredited by the more cultivated—above all by those who made pursuit of the gayeties and elegancies of life. The priest fraternity and the universities of course kept largely by Latin; and the old British speech only lived in the mountains and in the rattling war-songs of the Welsh bards. But when Norman nobles and knights found themselves cut off from their old home associations with Normandy, and brought into more intimate relations with the best of the English population, there grew up a new pride in the land and language of their adoption. Hence there comes about a gradual weaning from France. London begins to count for more than Rouen. The Norman knights and barons very likely season their talk with what they may have called English slang; and the better taught of the islanders—the sons of country franklins affected more knowledge of the Norman tongue, and came to know the French romances, which minstrels sang at their doors. So it was that slowly, and with results only observable after long lapse of years, the nation and language became compacted into one; and the new English began to be taught in the schools.