How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line)
Quote #7
KING JOHN
Thus have I yielded up into your hand
The circle of my glory.
PANDULF, handing John the crown
Take again
From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,
Your sovereign greatness and authority. (4.3.1-5)
In Shakespeare's day, many Catholics viewed King John's submission to Pope Innocent III as a pivotal moment in English history. In their view, from that time forward, England had always legally belonged to the Pope. Thus, King Henry VIII never had the right to separate from Rome in the first place, because to do so constituted an act of rebellion.
Does this logic sound familiar? It's very similar to the argument that Cardinal Pandolf makes to King Philip in Act III about not remaining friends with King John: because he swore allegiance to the Church first, he isn't free to do as he pleases afterwards. As usual, it's very hard to figure out Shakespeare's attitude to all these matters.
Quote #8
BASTARD
O inglorious league!
Shall we upon the footing of our land
Send fair-play orders and make compromise,
Insinuation, parley, and base truce
To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,
A cockered silken wanton, brave our fields
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colors idly spread,
And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms!
Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;
Or if he do, let it at least be said
They saw we had a purpose of defense. (5.1.67-78)
These lines by the Bastard are directly relevant to Shakespeare's own day. By promoting the idea that it's extremely bad to be invaded by a foreign power, and that such an invasion must be resisted, the Bastard could be seen as speaking to the Englishmen who resisted the Spanish Armada, telling them to remain vigilant against such threats in the future.
Quote #9
SALISBURY
And is 't not pity, O my grievèd friends,
That we, the sons and children of this isle,
Was born to see so sad an hour as this,
Wherein we step after a stranger, march
Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
Her enemies' ranks? I must withdraw and weep
Upon the spot of this enforced cause,
To grace the gentry of a land remote,
And follow unacquainted colors here?
What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove,
That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself
And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,
Where these two Christian armies might combine
The blood of malice in a vein of league,
And not to spend it so unneighborly! (5.2.24-39)
Like the previous quotation from the Bastard, these words by Salisbury must have been especially relevant to Elizabethan England, surrounded as it was by hostile enemy nations. That said, if Shakespeare did want to deliver a political message through his play, Salisbury would be a strange spokesman, since he is a traitor, after all. What do you make of this fact?