King John: You Just Can’t Trust Anybody

Having finished The Life and Death of King John, I feel confident in subtitling the play as I have above. Ought Sir Robert Faulconbridge have trusted his wife not to cavort with King Richard I whilst he himself was away on business? That’s a no. Should Lady Faulconbridge have trusted her sons not to expose her adultery after Richard’s death? Also a no. Should the young prince Arthur, arguably the heir to the English throne ahead of his “usurping” Uncle John, have trusted his uncle or even his own grandmother not to plot his death? Again, that’s a no. Should King John have trusted poor Hubert - picked for the job because John thought since he was ugly on the outside, and he just figured “well, if he's ugly on the outside . . .” – anyway, should John have trusted Hubert to stab out the young boy Arthur’s eyes with a hot poker and then kill him? Or should Hubert have trusted King John not to say “why did you kill my nephew just because I asked you to? Geez, man. You could’ve said something. I would have come to my senses if you'd just said something. But, no. You were all like, ‘Sure, King John, I’ll be happy to kill your little nephew for you’” despite the fact he hadn’t actually killed said nephew? Should Arthur, having puppy-dog-eyed his way out of having his eyes burnt out and his short life ended for him, trusted his ability to survive a jump from several stories up to escape captivity? Exactly! A no to every one of those questions.

You just can't trust anybody, I guess.

Aside from all of this double-dealing, King John seems to prefigure Henry VIII in defying the Catholic Church – though John, as he tends to, doesn’t stick to any one idea for too long. He’s back playing ball with the pope as soon as he needs a big church-sized favor. Henry VIII seemed a little more committed to his claim as Supreme Head of God’s church on earth, but it all made for some good drama in King John.

I was going to read Titus Andronicus next, it being the first tragedy in the chronological order of Shakespeare’s writing, but since I just found out that I’ll be teaching Romeo and Juliet in the next month or so, that’s now at the top of the list. Montagues and Capulets here I come.