King John Family Quotes

Okay. We know that Eleanor wants her son (John) to be king, even if Arthur has a better claim to the throne. After all, John is her son. But wait a minute. Arthur is Eleanor's grandson, the child of her older son, Geoffrey. So, basically, Grandma Eleanor is trying to screw her own flesh and blood right out of his right to be king. This is the point Constance makes in this passage when she uses a mocking baby voice to imitate Eleanor, who is obviously manipulating little Arthur when she speaks sweetly to him.

Yikes! This is where King John orders his nephew's execution. This is the creepiest line from the play, don't you think? And yeah, we know that it looks like 5 different lines but this exchange between John and Hubert is meant to be spoken rapidly, as one continuous sentence, which has the effect of making the whole conversation about killing little Arthur even more sinister. By the way, King John isn't the only Shakespearean uncle to order the execution of a nephew. In the play Richard III, King Richard has the Young Princes snuffed out because they could make a claim to the throne. The point? Family members can rarely be trusted, especially when political power is at stake.

Constance is pretty devastated that her son Arthur has been taken prisoner by King John. So devastated, in fact, that she just assumes he's already dead (or will be shortly). What's interesting about this passage is the way she makes a reference to Cain, Adam and Eve's firstborn son in the Book of Genesis—you know, the guy who killed his little brother Abel and then tried to deny it. Whenever Shakespeare makes a reference to Cain in a history play, you can bet he wants us to think about family violence. In this case, the shout-out to Cain reminds us of the fact that Arthur's own uncle (that would be King John) has just ordered his execution.