SOURCE: Heberle, Mark A. “‘Innocent Prate’: King John and Shakespeare's Children.” In Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature, edited by Elizabeth Goodenough, Mark A. Heberle, and Naomi Sokoloff, pp. 28-43. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Heberle illustrates that Shakespeare significantly modified his sources in order to highlight the conflict between John and the child Arthur. Heberle views the play's treatment of Arthur, and later Henry, as revealing Shakespeare's belief that nurturing and protecting children is crucial to the maintenance of political order.

The moral climax of Shakespeare's King John is a scene (act 4, scene 1) of displaced infanticide: Hubert, the king's loyal servant, has been ordered to blind Arthur, a young boy whom John has just captured in battle, after pledging to end the boy's life two scenes earlier. The child is not only Duke of Brittany (a title created for him...