CONSTANCE

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!
Call not me slanderer; thou and thine usurp
The dominations, royalties and rights
Of this oppressed boy: this is thy eld'st son's son,
Infortunate in nothing but in thee:
Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
The canon of the law is laid on him,
Being but the second generation
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.

KING JOHN

Bedlam, have done.

CONSTANCE

I have but this to say,
That he is not only plagued for her sin,
But God hath made her sin and her the plague
On this removed issue, plague for her
And with her plague; her sin his injury,
Her injury the beadle to her sin,
All punish'd in the person of this child,
And all for her; a plague upon her!

QUEEN ELINOR

Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
A will that bars the title of thy son.

CONSTANCE

Ay, who doubts that? a will! a wicked will:
A woman's will; a canker'd grandam's will!

KING PHILIP

Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate:
It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
To these ill-tuned repetitions.
Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
These men of Angiers: let us hear them speak
Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

Trumpet sounds. Enter certain Citizens upon the walls

First Citizen

Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?

KING PHILIP

'Tis France, for England.

KING JOHN

England, for itself.
You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects–

KING PHILIP

You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,
Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle–

KING JOHN

For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
These flags of France, that are advanced here
Before the eye and prospect of your town,
Have hither march'd to your endamagement:
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls:
All preparation for a bloody siege
All merciless proceeding by these French
Confronts your city's eyes, your winking gates;
And but for our approach those sleeping stones,
That as a waist doth girdle you about,
By the compulsion of their ordinance
By this time from their fixed beds of lime
Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
For