Robert Davenport's King John and Matilda may be seen as sites of friction between Charles I and Parliament. Departing from his source play, Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle's The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington, Davenport shows his own critique of dominant princi-ples of puritans, as well as a central problem in the increasing intrusion of parliamentary ideas into the Stuart court. Unlike the authors of other King John plays such as John Bale's King Johan, the anonymous play, The Troublesome Raigne of King John, and Shakespeare's King John, Davenport questions the regime of King John, and hence the contemporary rule of Charles I. Because in Stuart England Puritanism became a larger movement than that in Tudor England, the question of parliamentary ideals based on the principle of Puritanism is important to both Charles I and Parliament. In the depiction of King John's struggles with the barons, Davenport reveals such topical problems. The barons in the play aim for the reformation, and repeatedly plead the king for the importance of liberties guaranteed by the Magna Carta. In explaining the rights of their own, barons refer to the importance ofcovenants, which is the core of puritans' idea of direct relationship with God. Also, the play closes with harmonious concord between reason and religious mind when King John is guided with the martyrdom of the heroine, Matilda, who is praised for her marriage to God. Displaying puritans' two important features-covenants and reason, and thereby easing pressures within the government, Davenport suggests resolutions to the troubled England. Thus, the problem of growing parliamentary authority in the reign of Charles I can be provisionally resolved in the play by displacing the king's folly and then presenting the ideal of the social order based on puritans' viewpoint.