Abstract
While considerable attention has been paid to the theory and practice of kingship in Elizabethan dramatic and literary works, comparatively little has been devoted to the servants who supported those monarchs. However, William Shakespeare’s King John (recorded as being first performed at the Theatre 1596–1597) is a notable exception, focusing instead on Philip Faulconbridge, identified in stage directions as “the Bastard.” He is loyal, sardonic, sarcastic, and noble by turns, and is instrumental in mitigating both civil and international conflict, and in permitting the peaceful transition of power from John to Henry III. As John’s professional servant, the Bastard represents the rise of bureaucracy, an institutional development that offered hope for a similarly smooth succession in Shakespeare’s own time. But such a peaceful transition could only be possible, the play seems to suggest, because the power wielded by bureaucratic servants no longer depended on the power—or the infallibility—of the monarch.
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Notes
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© 2013 Peter Iver Kaufman
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Bezio, K.M.S. (2013). Subject, Servant, and Sovereign: Servant Leadership in Elizabethan Government and Shakespeare’s King John. In: Kaufman, P.I. (eds) Leadership and Elizabethan Culture. Jepson Studies in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340290_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340290_12
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