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declares his love. The Bastard is againdisgusted by the turn of events but Blanche says that she is willing to do as her uncle asks: all she sees of the dauphin is “worthy love” and she can see nothing that would “merit any hate.” The young couple agree to marry and John will give her five provinces plus thirty thousand marks as her dowry.
    Lines 545–570: The French king asks Angiers to open their gates so that they can all enter and Blanche and Lewis can be married. He asks where Constance is, knowing she’ll be angry. Lewis says she is “sad and passionate” in the king’s tent. Philip asks John if there is some way in which she may be compensated. John says he’ll make Arthur Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond and give him Angiers. He hopes that Constance will be at least partially satisfied and stop complaining. All except the Bastard leave to prepare for the wedding.
    Lines 571–608: Alone on stage the Bastard reflects on events: “Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!” In order to stop Arthur’s claim to the English crown, John has willingly parted with a large part of his kingdom while the French king, who claimed to be supporting Arthur’s legitimate right and posed as “God’s own soldier,” has listened to the devil in his ear and withdrawn from “a resolved and honourable war / To a most base and vile-concluded peace.” He blames all this on “That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling commodity” (profit or self-interest) and rails against its influence in a world in which everyone seems to be out for themselves. He goes on ironically to recognize that the reason he can rail against “commodity” is that he hasn’t yet been touched by it personally, being poor he will say there’s “no sin but to be rich” but once he’s rich he will then say that “there is no vice but beggary.” Since kings “break faith” for their own advantage, he will worship “Gain” from now on.
ACT 2 SCENE 2
    Constance refuses to believe the Earl of Salisbury’s report that Blanche and Lewis are to be married. He assures her that is the case. She’s angry and blames him, recognizing that because of this match France will no longer support Arthur’s claim. Arthur begs her to “becontent” but Constance claims that she might be content if he were ugly or deformed in some way, since then she would not love him, but that he is “fair” and that at his birth “Nature and Fortune joined to make thee great.” She blames the “strumpet [whore] Fortune” and claims that France (i.e. the French king) is a “bawd [prostitute] to Fortune and King John.” She asks Salisbury whether Philip is not “forsworn” (guilty of breaking his oath) and tells him to curse the king or go. He says he cannot go without her to attend the wedding but she refuses and Salisbury departs with Arthur, leaving Constance alone with her grief.
ACT 3 SCENE 1
    Lines 1–61: Blanche and Lewis are married and King Philip declares there will be a holiday in France every year to celebrate “this blessèd day.” Constance, however, condemns it as a “wicked day, and not a holy day!” and refusing to be reconciled, calls on the heavens to set “these perjured kings” at odds once more. When Austria calls for peace, Constance immediately retorts, demanding “War, war, no peace!” and declares Austria likewise perjured and, rather than wear a lion’s skin, he should take it off for shame and “hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.” Austria is furious and says if a man said that to him he’d fight him. The Bastard immediately repeats the words as a challenge and the situation threatens to get out of hand when Cardinal Pandulph, the papal legate, enters.
    Lines 62–118: The Cardinal demands to know from John why he refuses to accept Stephen Langton, chosen by Pope Innocent III, as Archbishop of Canterbury. John responds that “no Italian priest” has authority to tell “a sacred king” what to do and argues