Shakespeare’s plays were first collected together in one volume, a volume known as the First Folio – published in 1623 (Shakespeare died in 1616). The plays in the First Folio were sorted into three categories, Histories, Comedies and Tragedies. The ten History plays focus on eight English Kings (King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VIII). These kings reigned at various times between 1200 and 1547 though the main focus is on the 1399-1485 period, that is, from the closing years of the reign of Richard II to the death of Richard III at the Battle of Boswortth in 1485. Eight of the plays are seen as forming a sequence and are grouped into two four play sets known as the First and Second Tetralogies: the three Henry VI plays and Richard III are known as the ‘First Tetralogy’ and the Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V are grouped as the ‘Second Tetralogy’ – though , as you can see from the numbering of the Kings, the ‘Second Tetralogy’ deals with a period before that of the ‘First Tetralogy’. As you would expect from the category ‘History Plays’ and the names of the Kings, these plays deal with things that actually happened. However, Shakespeare was writing dramas that deal with history; he was not writing as a historian who should take pains to be accurate as to facts and the course of events. Shakespeare as dramatist gave himself a licence to be free of a strict adherence to all the details and chronology of what occurred whilst exploring the deeper currents and significance of historical events.

When it was published in the First Folio, Richard II was grouped with “The Histories”. Earlier editions of the plays were known as the Quarto edition and Richard II in its Quarto edition was categorised as a Tragedy. I think it is best to think of the play as both a History play and as a Tragedy.

Act 1

Scene 1

King Richard’s Court

From Richard’s opening speech we learn that Henry Bolingbroke, the Duke of Hereford, has recently charged Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, with an offence and that Hereford’s charge is now going to be heard and judged. Hereford (for the most part, I will refer to him as Bolingbroke) is the son of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster – the fourth son of Edward III. Thomas Mowbray is the Duke of Norfolk.

Edward III (1312-1377) had five sons. Two of them, Lionel Duke of Clarence (1338-1368) and Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376), pre-deceased him. The other three were: John of Gaunt (1340-1399), Edmund, Duke of York (1341-1402) and Thomas, Duke of Gloucester (1355-1397). When Edward III died his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, was already dead – a surviving eldest son would normally inherit the crown. However, if that deceased eldest son had a son then that son would inherit the crown. Edward the Black Prince did have a son, Richard, who, therefore, inherited the crown as Richard II.

When Bolingbroke and Mowbray come before the King, they praise him lavishly in what must have been a conventional manner. Richard says they accuse each other of high treason; however, in what follows only Bolingbroke makes an accusation of treason. Bolingbroke’s accusation calls upon heaven as witness and refers to both divine judgement and acceptable courtly behaviour whilst also threatening extreme physical violence (“stuff I thy throat”) against Mowbray.

Mowbray’s reply begins with talk of calm words and the need for verbal restraint before the King, but ends up matching Bolingbroke for contemptuous insults and threats of violence. This provokes Bolingbroke to throw down his gage (usually a gauntlet) which acts as a challenge to knightly combat. Mowbray immediately accepts.

When called upon by Richard, Bolingbroke gives substance to his charges of treason. His first charge is that Mowbray embezzled Richard by taking money for himself which was given to him to spend on Richard’s army. His second is that Mowbray has been behind all the acts of treason that have occurred over the last eighteen years. And the third is that he plotted and carried out the murder of the Duke of Gloucester – Richard II’s uncle (and Bolingbroke’s) and Edward III’s fifth son. Bolingbroke advances no evidence though he says that he “will in battle prove” Mowbray guilty. In other words, he proposes a trial by combat. The loser in such a trial was considered to have been ‘proved’ guilty.

Mowbray responds by calling Bolingbroke a liar. His says he gave the army three quarters of the money he received and the rest he kept to cover expenses he incurred in going to France to “fetch Richard’s Queen”. (Although never named in the play, Richard II’s actual Queen, his second wife, was Isabella of Valois (1389-1409) , the daughter of Charles VI of France. She married Richard when she was six years old!) Mowbray denies murdering Gloucester but adds, “to my own disgrace/Neglected my sworn duty in that case”. What does he mean by this? Does he mean that he neglected his duty by failing to kill Gloucester? Or by failing to protect him? To whom would he have sworn to carry out this “duty”? Given that he admits to feelings of disgrace for failing to carry out the duty, the person to whom he made the vow must have been a person of high authority to whom one owes obedience. The person who seems best to fit that description is the King. Yet as Mowbray stands before the King, in a form of trial with the King as judge, he does not, as a way of defending himself, directly accuse the King of ordering the murder of Gloucester. Perhaps this is an indicator of just how sacrosanct, how immune from criticism the King is. We will soon discover that both Gloucester’s wife and John of Gaunt are convinced that Richard ordered the murder of Gloucester. It seems likely that Bolingbroke, as Gaunt’s son, would be aware of his father’s certainty. If so, by publicly accusing Mowbray of Gloucester’s death, he could intend, at the very least, to make Richard feel uncomfortable given his role in that death. And like Mowbray, given the sacred, inviolable nature of kingship, he does not directly accuse the King of ordering the murder. Reading between the lines in this way, the first scene hints at a central issue in the play, namely the sacred nature of the King. Furthermore, if we allow the idea that Bolingbroke is intent on making things difficult for Richard, it shows what a subtle strategist he is.

Mowbray continues his response to Bolingbroke’s accusation by confessing that he did once plot to kill “my noble Lord of Lancaster” (John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke’s father). However, he confessed to this (both to John of Gaunt and a priest?) and was pardoned by John of Gaunt. Finally, he too throws down his gage, so challenging Bolingbroke to trial by combat.

Richard attempts to bring the quarrel to an end. He does so in language that inappropriately makes light of the deadly opposition between Bolingbroke and Mowbray. He glibly tells them to “Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed”. This glib formula is no answer to the violent emotions of the two men. This inappropriate levity is also seen in the use of rhyming couplets in lines 154-159 (Arden edition). Notice the way the four syllables of phy-sic-i-an encourage a somewhat forced four syllable pronunciation of its rhyming word in-ci-si-on. This is the kind of rhyming more suited to comic verse than a commanding resolution of this serious conflict. In particular it fails to respond to the question of who killed Gloucester, an incident that surely calls out for justice to be done. Is Richard evading the issue because of his involvement with the murder?

Richard’s and John of Gaunt’s orders to give up the quarrel are ignored. Mowbray tells the King that he can not command his shame. Mowbray insists that he must fight Bolingbroke. Mowbray qualifies his refusal when he tells Richard that if he (Richard) were “To take but my shame”, then he would “resign” his gage. As with the ambiguity in the earlier lines about neglecting his “sworn duty” in the Gloucester death, it is not clear what Mowbray means here. Though one can read the line as implying that Richard could take away Mowbray’s shame by revealing his own part in Gloucester’s death. As further justification for not giving up the quarrel with Bolingbroke, Mowbray insists on the importance of honour and appeals to the King to allow the combat.

Richard then tries to order Bolingbroke to give up the challenge — Bolingbroke having refused to do so when his father told him to. Bolingbroke refuses again. He will not wound his honour by giving up the fight.

Richard asserts that kingly authority should work by commanding his subjects, not by persuading them. In the same breath he admits that he has failed to make them back down; he then attempts to reassert authority by telling them where and when the trial by combat should take place: “We were not born to sue but to command,/Which since we cannot do to make you friends/Be ready as your lives shall answer it/At Coventry on St Lambert’s Day”. Clearly, it is a lot easier to command them to do what they already want to do!

Bolingbroke’s royal status as the grandson of Edward III is raised at various points in this scene. When Mowbray insults and defies Bolingbroke, he feels that he must set aside Bolingbroke’s “high … royalty”. Bolingbroke himself says he lays “aside my high blood’s royalty”. In both cases we see further indications of a sense of something sacrosanct, something sacred, about royalty that is not to be profaned by insults.

Richard, to reassure Mowbray, says that that he would be impartial in his judgement even if Bolingbroke was “his kingdom’s heir” and not just my “father’s brother’s son”. Looking back on this statement in the light of further developments in the play, there is a dramatic irony in that Richard speaks truer than he thought in that Bolingbroke does take the throne even if, strictly speaking, he does not inherit it. Does the very mention of him as “kingdom’s heir” indicate that Richard sees Bolingbroke as a rival since he is England’s most powerful noble of royal blood belonging to Richard’s generation?

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Act 1

Scene 2

John of Gaunt’s London house

The question of Richard’s involvement with the death of Gloucester also surfaces in this scene. At the beginning of the scene we realise that the Duchess has been urging Gaunt to avenge his brother’s death. (Incidentally, when a scene opens part of the way through a dialogue, we say that in begins in medias res which is Latin for ‘in the midst of things’.) Gaunt says that, “… since correction lieth in those hands/Which made the fault that we cannot correct.” So, according to Gaunt, the party that would correct or punish the wrongdoer and the guilty party are the same person. Furthermore, it is not in Gaunt’s power to put things right because, as he implies, the guilty party is the King. The only ‘person’ who can correct things is God. Gaunt’s thinking here is based upon the idea of the divine right of kings (which I will go onto explain). As has already been suggested, given that Gaunt and the Duchess are so convinced of Richard’s part in Gloucester’s death, it would be surprising if Gaunt’s son was not aware of his father’s certainty.

According to a widely held medieval belief, known as the divine right of kings, the King can only be corrected by God not by other human beings. The particular monarch has not been elected or chosen by any person or persons but by the will and the grace of God. For a believer in this doctrine, this sets a very high standard for the monarch: having been chosen by God, the monarch should do God’s will and divine justice could involve an eternity of punishments for those guilty of serious wrongs! Monarchical inheritance somewhat complicates the theory. If, (and this system is known as primogeniture) the eldest son of a King becomes King it seems necessary to say that God has chosen a particular family rather than an individual. One can speculate on some of the knotty questions raised by the theory, but, as readers of Richard II, we need some understanding of the idea of the divine right of kings. We should also bear in mind that a distinction was made between the office of kingship and the holder of that office. Its sacred nature belonged to the office rather than the person who held it. Once crowned and anointed in a sacramental way, the person shared in the sacred nature of the office. This person and office distinction does raise the question of what should be done if the person fails to match up to the sacred office? Richard II is a drama that explores that question. Should a King who failed to fulfil his sacred office be unseated, or ‘usurped’, by a claimant to the throne? As we see in this scene, Gaunt’s answer is that it must be left to God to resolve the question.

Another useful term is that of an ‘Absolute Monarch’. This means a monarch, usually a king, who claims the right to rule as he wishes. One could argue for a distinction between a ‘divine right’ monarch (who is answerable to God and may well heed laws and customs – of which divine right is one!) and an absolute monarch who rules as he wishes.

Gaunt advises the Duchess to leave matters to God, to “the will of heaven”. The Duchess is not satisfied. She reminds him that as one of Edward III’s seven sons he has in his veins Edward’s “sacred blood” – sacred because of the quality conferred by the divine right of kings. Using repetition and parallelism and sustained use of the image of vials and branches, she delivers an impassioned, poetic plea in her attempt to persuade Gaunt (lines 11-21). She then turns to a pragmatic argument: Richard did not just kill Gloucester the individual, he killed Edward’s blood and, since Gaunt is also of that blood, he too is under threat and could also be killed unless he acts now to deal with Richard. Gaunt, however, is not to be swayed. For Gaunt, when God’s substitute on earth, his anointed deputy, does wrong then it is up to God to see that justice is done.

Gaunt counsels her by telling her to turn to God, “the widow’s champion and defence”. She bids him farewell and, after stating that he is about to leave for Coventry, she puts a form of curse on Mowbray, wishing that Hereford (Bolingbroke) will kill him. She accepts that all she is left with is grief. Her grief and sorrow keep coming back to her even as she prepares to leave. She gives him a message from her to Edmund York, Gaunt’s brother and her brother-in-law. She wants him to visit her at Pleshy, the Duke of Gloucester’s estate. Then, overwhelmed by her grief, she changes her mind. She could not welcome York since her home will be so filled with grief. She leaves for her home and Gaunt for the trial by combat at Coventry.

Here we should note that, in this scene, the conflict in Gaunt’s conscience between family ties and loyalty is one he also faces in I (iii) over the decision to banish his son. It is also, as we shall see, a conflict faced by the Duke of York.

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Act 1

Scene 3

The lists at Coventry

The preparation for combat begins by following a ceremonial procedure as King and Lord Marshall say their set pieces before the two champions enter the lists. Bolingbroke is the appellant, the accuser, and Mowbray the accused. Mowbray says that in defending his name he will prove Bolingbroke guilty of treason. At the beginning of I (i) Richard says that Bolingbroke and Mowbray “accuse each other of high treason”. In that first scene, the nature of Mowbray’s alleged treason is made clear by Bolingbroke. However, the nature of Bolingbroke’s alleged treason is not explicitly stated.

In the play’s first scene Richard makes a number of remarks which emphasise what accuser and accused have in common: they are both “High stomached” and full of ire”; they are “Wrath-kindled gentlemen”. And, as this scene repeats, they both accuse each other of treason. This creates a sense that behind the binary opposition of accuser and accused, alleged traitor and loyal subject, there is, from the impartial observer’s viewpoint (ours as readers and audience), difficulty in distinguishing between who is treacherous and who is loyal.

After the King, the Lord Marshall and the combatants have said their scripted parts, Bolingbroke asks to kiss Richard’s hand, which is elaborately granted. He then makes a speech expressing his confidence that he will win and appealing to his father, John of Gaunt, for his blessing. Gaunt’s full-blooded ‘blessing’ calls upon God to help Bolingbroke rain down blows on Mowbray’s head. Mowbray then asserts his loyalty to Richard and his readiness for the fight.

More ceremony follows as the Lord Marshall and the heralds hand lances to the combatants. Then as the trumpets sound to signal the start of the attack, King Richard gives a signal to stop the fight, tells the combatants to step back and await his ruling.

After a brief council with his nobles, Richard gives their decision. Richard says that both men were motivated by “eagle-winged pride”, by “sky-aspiring” ambition and “rival-hating envy”. Such feelings endanger the country’s peace and could lead to civil war. “Therefore”, Richard declares, “we banish you our territories”. Bolingbroke is exiled for ten years and Mowbray for life. If Bolingbroke were to return before his period of exile, he would face a death sentence. As would Mowbray. Bolingbroke takes this sentence without a note of protest. His rhyming couplets (lines 144-147) emphasise his calm acceptance. However, behind their untroubled smoothly measured surface they also suggest that a skilled strategist is at work, one who does not reveal his true feelings, does not let Richard see how affected he is. He will calculate in his own time and space how to handle this verdict. At this point, it is worth noting that throughout the play Bolingbroke never speaks in soliloquy and so we never have access to the inner workings of his mind.

Mowbray’s response is very different. He makes a deeply emotional response in which he concentrates on his loss of the English language and his inability at his age to learn another tongue. His exile will be a form of living death. Richard’s verdicts raise a number of questions. Why does Mowbray have a life-time ban rather than for a limited period? Is he afraid that Mowbray could reveal details of Richard’s involvement in Gloucester’s death? Is Bolingbroke’s punishment a result of Richard’s sense that Bolingbroke is a rival? We recall that in I(i) Richard entertained the idea of Bolingbroke as the “kingdom’s heir”. In the next scene we will see how closely Richard has noted Bolingbroke’s popularity amongst the common people. As Richard sees it, it is the kind of popularity that a king should enjoy. However, we may need to reconsider these speculations on Richard’s motives when we discover that the sentences of exile were the agreed verdict of King and his council of nobles.

Richard makes Bolingbroke and Mowbray swear that they will never contact each other in exile nor put aside their conflict in order to conspire against Richard. They swear to this. In a final attempt to win his case against Mowbray, Bolingbroke appeals to Mowbray to confess his treason before he leaves. He refuses, insists that Bolingbroke is the traitor and warns Richard that all too soon he will find out the truth about Bolingbroke – as things turn out, this proves to be a prophetic warning! Mowbray leaves. Richard, noting Gaunt’s tears, decides to shorten Bolingbroke’s exile to six years. Gaunt thanks the King for this but adds that he is unlikely to live long enough to see his son return. Richard points put that Gaunt was one of the council of nobles who decided on the sentences of exile. His reply to this shows that he has a deep sense of duty: he spoke as a judge rather than a father when he agreed to (did he even advocate?) the sentences. Presumably, he was persuaded by Richard’s argument that the Mowbray/Bolingbroke conflict could lead to civil war. In his role as a noble in the King’s council, he was governed by a sense of duty to his country even though, as he puts it, “in the sentence my own life destroyed”. Richard takes his leave with “Cousin farewell” and with a confirmation of the six years of banishment.

Bolingbroke and Gaunt take leave of each other. Gaunt tries to console his son by saying that the six years will quickly pass. Bolingbroke finds little comfort in this and so Gaunt advises a philosophical acceptance of what must be and a determination to embrace exile as a self-imposed opportunity to travel and to think optimistically. Bolingbroke is not persuaded by these versions of the power of ‘positive thinking’. Gaunt, however, is determined to remain positive as he exhorts his son to take his leave. Bolingbroke bids farewell to England, though he vows that he will remain a “true-born Englishman”.

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Act 1

Scene 4

King Richard’s Court

In this scene Richard is with Green and Bagot and Aumerle. Bushy enters later. Bushy, Bagot and Green form Richard’s inner circle of Councillors. They are his favourites or, as others refer to them, his “flatterers”. Aumerle is the son of the Duke of York, Edward III’s fifth son. This makes him Richard’s (and Bolingbroke’s) cousin. He tells Richard how he accompanied Bolingbroke as far as the highway to the coast. As they parted from each other, Aumerle put on a show of grief though inwardly he would prefer not to see Bolingbroke again. In expressing his dislike of Bolingbroke is he saying what he knows will be pleasing to Richard and so currying favour? Richard’s response to Aumerle’s account dwells on Bolingbroke’s popularity amongst the common people. He sees Bolingbroke as a manipulative, ‘populist’ politician who ‘woos’ “poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles”. He recalls seeing him being greeted by the common people and responding to them as if he is the heir to the throne.

Green then turns the subject to the situation in Ireland where the English colonists are under attack. Richard decides to go with his army to Ireland to subdue the Irish. He admits, with shameless frankness, his exploitation of his country’s resources for his own lavish court. As a result his “coffers… are grown somewhat light” and so, to finance his Irish campaign, he will have to “farm our royal realm” (which means that he will lease land, for a price, to tenants who can then collect the revenues for their own use). Bushy then enters with the news that John of Gaunt is dying. Richard callously hopes that Gaunt will die soon and he will be able to appropriate his wealth (his heir, Bolingbroke, having been banished). The others share in this callous attitude when they all say, “Amen!”

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Lear is left with his Fool who forecasts that Regan will be just as sour as Goneril and tells him, using an analogy from nature with obvious application to Lear, that a snail has a shell “to put’s head in, not to give it away to his daughters and leave his horns without a case”. The following dialogue of questions from the Fool and answers from Lear is interspersed with Lear’s distracted thoughts as he reflects on the wrong he did to Cordelia, on the taking back of the kingdom and the ingratitude of his daughter. The fragmentary, self-communing nature of these thoughts leads Lear to express a hope, or a prayer, that he is not going mad: “O let me not be mad, sweet heaven! I would not be mad”. This is Lear’s first mention of madness. Here it is a fear that he may go mad - a fear that is realised as the action develops. With the horses ready, they leave for Regan’s. The scene ends with the Fool making a bawdy joke though it does have a ‘moral’ in the form of veiled practical advice: the girl who is a virgin will not be one for long if she laughingly engages in intercourse unless “things” , that is, penises, are “cut shorter”. As the Fool says this, he could place his marotte, a fool’s head on a stick, between his legs. One could see this as a piece of practical realistic advice: do not engage in casual sex. As the Fool says this, he is alone on the stage and can be seen as addressing the audience. Does it have any bearing on Lear’s actions? Perhaps, in that one could say that Lear has behaved without due considerations of the consequences of his abdication and has acted impulsively in banishing Cordelia.

As we will see, in 3.1 a Knight explaining to Kent where Lear is in the storm says that he is alone except for his Fool who “labours to outjest/His heart-struck injuries”. However, as the present scene has shown, the Fool’s role goes beyond that of one who tries to soothe Lear’s feelings by means of jokes. In fact, the Fool’s ‘jests’ are a mix of barbed criticisms of Lear’s mistakes and realistic reflections on his predicament.

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Act 2

Scene 1

John of Gaunt’s house

A dying Gaunt is with his brother, the Duke of York. Gaunt is hoping that his words of advice as a dying man will persuade Richard to rule more wisely. York, however, is convinced that Richard is deaf to all except for the “flattering sounds” of his favourites.

Undeterred, Gaunt feels that, breathing his last, he has found an extra ‘breath’ to speak in a prophetic manner on the condition of England. – as we will see, there are a number of prophetic speeches in the play. He begins with a series of proverbial sayings that counsel that all forms of extravagant excess soon exhaust themselves. He then switches to a lengthy sequence of adulatory definitions of England. Rich in imagery and making frequent use of repetition that builds and builds to ever greater heights of praise, it leads the set phrases (‘This something of…’ and “This something…’) towards a main verb which will bring all the praises to a conclusion. One anticipates, that the conclusion will fulfil all the country’s superlative qualities. However, the conclusion (“…is now leased out … /Like to a tenement or pelting farm.”) brings us down to earth. We now see that the cumulative build up to the heights of praise was part of a twofold rhetorical strategy. On the one hand, it unfolds as a patriot’s catalogue of praise for all of England’s exceptional achievements. On the other hand, the cumulative build up to the heights of praise works to increase the height from which one falls to earth with an England that is no more than an impoverished tenement farm. What seemed to be unfolding simply as a nationalistic boast turns out to be a nostalgic retrospective for a lost England. An England whose superlative qualities are designed to drive home its present condition as an impoverished tenement farm. He ends with something of a reprise of the theme of the grandeur of the England that was, though he now alludes to the country’s misgovernment (“…is now bond in with shame/With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds”).

Richard arrives with the Queen, Bushy, Bagot, Green; (Sir William) Ross (of Helmsley) and (Sir William) Willoughby. This party enters with a “flourish” which suggests a grand ceremonial entrance with a trumpet fanfare. Hardly appropriate when visiting a sick and dying man! Richard’s greeting (“What comfort, man? How is it with aged Gaunt?”) is too brisk and hearty given Gaunt’s terminal condition — which Richard is well aware of.

Gaunt picks up Richard’s “old Gaunt” and bitterly plays upon the word ‘gaunt’ as he relates his condition to an England that is unaware (“sleeping”) of its own decline. Richard attempts to deflect Gaunt’s critical manner which leads to some verbal sparring in which they exchange one-liners (a feature of drama known as stichomythia) that play with the notion of flattery. Gaunt then begins a speech that asserts that Richard is sick and his land is his death-bed. Gaunt’s particular focus is on the flatterers that “sit within thy crown” – a reference to Bushy, Bagot and Green, though Gaunt refers to them as “a thousand flatterers” . In keeping with his acute sense of England’s decline under Richard, Gaunt refers back to Richard’s “grandsire” his father, Edward III, the embodiment of true Kingship, and Richard’s predecessor. Gaunt claims that if Edward knew the kind of King Richard would be, he would have disinherited him.

Gaunt’s invective against Richard makes frequent use of puns, not for humorous purposes but to give extra bite to his castigation. For example, at this point, when he says that Edward would depose (disinherit) Richard, Gaunt says, “Deposing thee before thou wert possessed/Which art possessed now to depose thyself”. “Possessed” in the first line means ‘possessed of the crown’ whilst in the second line it plays upon the sense of ‘possessed’, meaning ‘mad’. Spelling out the meaning of the lines in a wordy and prosaic way would give us: ‘Edward would have deposed you of the crown before you possessed it; though now, although you have the crown (you possess it), you are ruling in a mad/possessed way (leasing out lands, being guided by ‘favourites’); a way that shows that you are owned by/possessed by, your favourites; as a result, having lost control of your leased out lands and being controlled by your flattering favourites you are, in effect, deposing yourself.’ Together with the way playing on ‘possessed’ packs meaning into these lines there is also a significant ordering of key words in the lines. So we have, in order of appearance, “Deposing … possessed/possessed .. depose” which shows an ABBA form known as ‘chiasmus’. As we can see, there is an extraordinary concentration of meaning in these lines. They may well stop you in your tracks as you read them. This, it must be said, is not an uncommon experience when reading Shakespeare! As readers, however, as opposed to playgoers, we have the chance to read slowly and, with the aid of the notes that most editions of Shakespeare provide, to unpack the meaning. Often, to appreciate the verbal artistry we have to be prepared to do this.

Gaunt charges Richard with leasing out his land in order to exchange land for money to finance his luxurious court – something that Richard has shamelessly said of himself in the previous scene. He has turned what he owned as King into something that he holds by way of a legal document –one that leases the lands for a set number of years in exchange for monetary currency (gold coins?). Having done this, Richard is now subject to the legal terms of the lease: or as Gaunt puts it, “Thy state of law is [now] bondslave to the law”.

Richard’s furious response shows that these criticisms have hit home. He says that were Gaunt not of the royal family then he would face execution for these critcisms. Gaunt counters this qualification by saying that considerations of royal blood did not stop Richard from killing Gloucester, Gaunt’s brother, one of Richard’s uncles and Edward III’s son. This is the first time that Gaunt explicitly charges Richard with Gloucester’s murder. In I (ii), in conversation with the Duchess of Gloucester, Gaunt acknowledges Richard’s commanding role in Gloucester’s death but his qualification, “if [done] wrongfully”, opens the possibility that Richard’s command might be defended. Here, there is no ‘let out clause’. In I (ii) Gaunt leaves the judgement of Richard to heaven, here he acts as judge and even as executioner as he calls on Richard’s “unkindness” to become like Father Time (with his crooked scythe) and “crop at once” Richard’s “long withered flower”. Finally, calling upon his words to be Richard’s “tormentors”, he is carried off by his servants.

York attempts to assure Richard that Gaunt does love him as does Hereford. Richard dismisses this and says, in effect, that he does not love them.

Northumberland enters to bring the news that Gaunt has died. Richard shows no emotion and casually says, in effect, ‘We grow old, we die. Such is life’. The casual flippancy of this is seen in the all too neat rhyming couplet, “The ripest fruit falls, and so doth he/His time is spent; our pilgrimage must be”. With that he briskly turns his attention to the Irish revolt. Just before leaving to visit the dying Gaunt, Richard says that he wishes Gaunt dead since “The lining of his coffers shall make coats/To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.” And with Gaunt dead, he immediately sets about taking the “plate, coin, revenues and moveables/Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed”. The immediacy with which Richard makes this decision to seize Gaunt’s estate and dispossess Bolingbroke, indicates that in addition to answering to financial needs this is a vengeful act against a man whose severe criticisms enraged Richard and who openly, before York and the Queen and other nobles, dared to accuse him of being the cause of Gloucester’s death.

This action proves too much for York. He will no longer hold back criticism and disapproval of Richard’s actions. In doing so he refers, by way of contrast, to his brother, Richard’s father, Edward the Black Prince as a model of royal behaviour. He was not guilty of killing a member of his own family – Gloucester is not named, but York is now following Gaunt in openly accusing Richard of killing his “kindred”. Continuing the contrast with Edward III, York says that, unlike the divisive Richard, Edward united England against a common enemy; he did not spend beyond his and the country’s means. York then mounts an argument to persuade Richard not to take Gaunt’s wealth. The law of hereditary succession is such that Gaunt’s wealth is , by right, now owned by “Hereford” (Bolingbroke). For Richard to ignore that law is self-defeating since Richard himself inherited the crown by that very law of succession. Richard dismisses this and continues with his plan to seize Gaunt’s (now Bolingbroke’s) assets. York sees this as a turning point in Richard’s reign in that bad consequences must inevitably follow. He takes his leave of Richard both literally and figuratively.

Richard sends for the Earl of Wiltshire, the Lord Treasurer, with orders to arrange the takeover of Gaunt’s wealth. He then declares that they will leave for Ireland tomorrow. York will be left as Lord Governor of England. Notwithstanding the sharp criticisms of royal policy that York has just made, Richard’s appointment of York as Governor shows how confident he is in York’s loyalty to the institution of the monarchy. He says of York, “He is just and always loved us well”. Richard and his party leave except for Northumberland, Willoughby and Ross.

These three quite quickly openly express their sympathy for Bolingbroke and their criticism of Richard. Northumberland says that the King is “basely led/By flatterers” who will not hesitate to persuade the King to get rid of himself as well as Willoughby and Ross. Ross adds more information on Richard’s mismanagement of the country, particularly its economy, and his increasing unpopularity amongst both the common people and the nobility. They are all convinced that they and the country are heading for a disaster. We should note that on the question of Richard being led by flatterers, Richard’s decisions such as the appropriation of Gaunt’s estate seem to be made by him rather than the “flatterers”. When he heard of Gaunt being “grievous sick” he was the first to say that “The lining of his coffers shall make coats/To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars” (I (iv) 61/62). Perhaps the point is that Richard has been corrupted by the ‘flatterers’, aka the ‘favourites’, and so the bad decisions that he does make betray their pervasive corrupting influence.

Once reassured that he can share some fresh news with Willoughby and Ross, Northumberland tells them that “Harry, Duke of Hereford” ( Bolingbroke) and other nobles have put together an invasion fleet and are now sailing to England with three thousand armed men and intend to land at “Ravenspurgh” (Ravenspur – Spurn Head on the Humber estuary) at the mouth of the Humber in East Yorkshire. There is something of a timing problem here: if Bolingbroke’s only purpose in defying his banishment and landing with a considerable force is to reclaim his inheritance – as he will claim later in the play – , how can he know of Richard’s seizure so soon after Gaunt’s death? Perhaps it is a way of suggesting that Bolingbroke’s original purpose was to take the crown. Or perhaps it is just one of those inconsistencies that we do not trouble over as we grant (in Coleridge’s famous phrase) the playwright a “willing suspension of disbelief”. Northumberland says that he intends to leave for Ravenspurgh immediately and the other two say they will join him.

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Act 2

Scene 2

Windsor Castle

In this scene Bushy tries to comfort the Queen who is missing Richard now that he has gone to Ireland. Bushy’s account of their leave taking suggests that Richard showed a sensitivity to her feelings since he wanted her to “Lay aside life-harming heaviness/And entertain a cheerful disposition”. This, taken together with the Queen’s reference to “so sweet a guest/As my sweet Richard”, is quite contrary to the marital disharmony that Bolingbroke will refer to in III (i). The Queen’s feelings are intensified by her thoughts that “Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb, /Is coming towards me, and my inward soul/At nothing trembles” (more prophetic words!).

Bushy tries to play down these feelings by giving a complex account of how seeing things through tears can have a refracting effect which turns the thing seen into a number of images; in a similar way her sorrow has multiplied her feelings and created further sorrows. The Queen is not persuaded – though her way of saying so is complex, as you will see if you (with the aid of an editor’s notes!) unpack her meaning line by line. The entry of Green and the news he brings seems to prove that the Queen’s feelings were truly prophetic. Green tells them that Bolingbroke has repealed his own exile and has landed at Ravenspur and that Northumberland and his son, together with the Lords of Ross, Beaumont and Willoughby with “their powerful friends” have joined forces with Bolingbroke. Green has “proclaimed” them all “faction-traitors” which has had little effect beyond provoking the Earl of Worcester (a leading figure in the King’s household) to go over to Bolingbroke. The Queen feels that her soul has given birth to the “unborn sorrow” she referred to in her earlier prophetic lines. Bushy’s attempts to comfort her are rejected since false hope is a “flatterer/A parasite” ( these are the terms which others use of Bushy, Green and Baggot). This rejection of comfort will be echoed by Richard in a later scene.

York enters in a state of agitation at what he regards as the national emergency created by Bolingbroke’s return and Richard’s campaigning in Ireland. Although ready to support Richard’s kingship, he is critical of Richard – he says that Richard’s “surfeit” (his extravagance, misuse of resources and general mismanagement) have led to the present ‘sickness’ and he is sharply critical of those around Richard (two of whom are standing before him!) when he says that Richard will have to rely on those “friends that flattered him” (that flattery word again) – the implication is that they are not reliable. The Duke’s responsibilities weigh even heavier upon him when a servant brings news that the Duke’s son, Aumerle, has gone to join Richard in Ireland (and so will not be able to help his father) and that the Duchess of Gloucester has died. Whilst realising that the odds are stacked against him, York tells his servant to gather what armour he can and tells Bushy, Bagot and Green to muster men. He also expresses the moral dilemma facing him. He is by “oath/And duty” bound to defend his sovereign whilst his conscience and his sense of kinship calls on him to support his nephew (Bolingbroke) whom “the King hath wronged” (in his seizure of Bolingbroke’s inheritance). “Oath and duty”, for now, make the strongest call upon his conscience since he tells Bushy, Bagot and Green to muster men and to meet him at Berkeley Castle (in Gloucestershire). When he leaves, Bushy, Bagot and Green discuss their situation. Bushy points out the wind is not favourable for Richard’s swift return from Ireland and that the odds that they face against Bolingbroke are insurmountable. They agree that they are not popular figures. In the event of a (very likely) Bolingbroke victory, Bushy anticipates that they could be “torn to pieces”. Instead of following York’s orders to muster what forces they can and offer some form of resistance, they make other arrangements. Green and Bushy decide to “seek refuge” at Bristol Castle – the Earl of Wiltshire is already there. Bagot decides to go to join Richard in Ireland. Bagot expresses his prophetic sense that they will never meet again and so they part.

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Act 2

Scene 3

Close to Berkeley Castle

Bolingbroke and Northumberland and their forces are now in Gloucestershire and heading for Berkeley Castle. Northumberland describes their arduous journey but says it has been sweetened and eased by being in Bolingbroke’s company. Bushy, Bagot and Green are often described as flatterers but that term surely applies to Northumberland in his description of their journey. He says Bolingbroke’s “fair discourse” has made “the hard way sweet and delectable”; his company has “very much beguiled” the “tediousness of my travel”. And though the other forces led by Ross and Willoughby make their way separately, the mere hope of joining up with Bolingbroke will, according to Northumberland, make “their way seem short as mine hath done/By sight of what I have: your noble company”.

Harry Percy (Northumberland’s son) enters with news. He tells them about the Earl of Worcester’s actions (see previous scene). After Harry Percy is made aware that he is standing before Bolingbroke he tells him that Berkeley Castle is nearby. Ross and Willoughby now enter and they and Bolingbroke rather lavishly praise and thank each other (more flattery? Who is exempt from it? The ‘old guard’, the likes of Gaunt and York?) In Bolingbroke’s greeting – “I wot your love pursues/A banished traitor” – his use of “banished traitor” echoes the way the Richard camp would brand him and so is a way of acknowledging the risks his followers are taking – they are staking all on helping what others would call a “banished traitor”. “Wot” as used here means ‘know’.

Berkeley enters and shortly after he is followed by the Duke of York. Berkeley addresses Bolingbroke as “My lord of Hereford”, but Bolingbroke insists that he will only respond if he is addressed as “Lancaster” – note that earlier in the scene when Harry Percy referred to Bolingbroke as the Duke of Hereford neither Northumberland nor Bolingbroke corrected him. Berkeley asks Bolingbroke why he was come with his invasive force. This question is taken up immediately when York enters. York has no time for Bolingbroke’s gracious words (“grace me no grace”), he, as ‘elder statesman’, addresses him as “foolish boy” and his challenging, fiery questioning makes a stark contrast from the fawning words of the first half of the scene. If he had the strength of his younger days he boasts that he would have quickly suppressed Bolingbroke’s forces. He charges Bolingbroke with breaking the law in that he has not kept to the terms of his banishment and is in arms against his “sovereign” – for which there can be no justification in York’s eyes. Bolingbroke counters this with the claim that he was banished as the Duke of Hereford but he is returning as the Duke of Lancaster in order to take what is rightfully his, his title and properties which have been, “Plucked from my arms perforce and given away/To upstart unthrifts” (he means Bushy, Bagot, Green and Wiltshire though it was Richard who made the immediate decision to appropriate Bolingbroke’s inheritance). He adds to this an emotive appeal to York to take his side since he is the closest that Bolingbroke now has to a father: “For methinks in you/I see old Gaunt alive”. Northumberland, Ross and Willoughby add their one-liners in support of this appeal for justice to be done.

York concedes that he has “had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs” (cousin here means kinsman rather than our limited usage), but for Bolingbroke to “Be his own carver, and cut out his way/To find out right with wrong” is, in York’s view, completely wrong. If he had forces to match Bolingbroke’s he would arrest him and his supporters. But, since he is powerless to prevent Bolingbroke, he declares himself as “neuter” (neutral). He offers Bolingbroke the hospitality of the castle for one night. Bolingbroke accepts but then, sensing that York as neutral can now be managed if not manipulated, he says he “must win” (persuade) him to go with them to Bristol Castle where they will find “Bushy, Bagot and their complices,/The caterpillars of the commonwealth”. “Must win” here seems to be a euphemism for York having little alternative. Clearly it is in Bolingbroke’s interest to have York with him since it is likely to create the impression that York has sanctioned Bolingbroke’s campaign. In York’s response, wavering from “It may be I will go with you” to, “…but yet I’ll pause”, we can, perhaps, see him wobbling from his declared stance of neutrality to a reluctant leaning towards Bolingbroke’s side.

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Act 2

Scene 4

Somewhere in Wales

A Welsh captain tells Salisbury that having waited ten days for news from the King, his forces can wait no longer and are about to disperse. Salisbury attempts to persuade him to stay for another day. The Captain replies, “’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay.” (In the penultimate line of his speech, the Captain says his “countrymen are gone and fled” – so it seems they have already gone!) He then refers to a series of omens: “bay trees in our country are all withered,/And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven/The pale faced moon looks bloody on the earth”. Prophets are whispering of “fearful change”. Rich men anticipate loss of their wealth; “ruffians dance and leap” as they expect “rage and war”. The Captain asserts that these signs “forerun the death or fall of kings”. After the Captain’s exit, Salisbury ends the scene in similarly apocalyptic prophetic mode with a falling star, a setting sun and storms to come.

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Act 3

Scene 1

Bristol Castle

At the end of II (iii), Bolingbroke said his forces were on their way to Bristol Castle which “… they say is held/By Bushy, Bagot and their complices/The caterpillars of the commonwealth”. Bolingbroke’s source of information is somewhat at fault here since we know from II (ii) 140 (“No, I will to Ireland to his majesty”) that Bagot decided to go to Ireland and it was Bushy and Green that went to Bristol.

Given that this scene begins with Bolingbroke ordering the executions of Bushy and Green, Bolingbroke must have taken Bristol Castle. He gives reasons for the executions. The first reason given is that they “misled a prince, a royal king”. We have seen that they were close to Richard and were his favourites but Bolingbroke’s case against them fails to convince when he gives more details of the particular ways they misled Richard. He says that with their “sinful hours” they made a “divorce betwixt his queen and him/Broke the possession of a royal bed/And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks”. However, we have seen no sign of a “divorce” (a separation, a breakdown of relations, not a literal divorce) between the Queen and Richard – as we have already noted, they seem to be a loving couple. Nor have we seen evidence for “sinful hours” between Bushy and Green and Richard that could have damaged marital relations between Richard and the Queen. Bolingbroke also accuses them of being responsible for his banishment but we know that it was Richard and his council (including Bolingbroke’s father) that imposed the sentence. His last particular charge is that they have exploited and abused his land, property and noble status. There may be something in this but, again, as we have seen, it was Richard who, as soon as John of Gaunt died, seized his property and wealth and so deprived Bolingbroke of his inheritance. Bolingbroke’s set of charges ends with “This and much more, much more than twice all this/Condemns you to the death.” It seems clear that Bolingbroke has manufactured a set of charges in order to justify the execution of his opponents. Politic considerations rather than justice seem to be at work. One can only speculate on his reasoning – remember that Bolingbroke is given no soliloquys which could reveal the workings of his mind. If the blame for all that has gone wrong in Richard’s reign can be placed on Bushy and Green (and Bagot? – but see IV (i) 6-19) then Bolingbroke does not have to blame Richard and decide on a punishment. For the moment at least, it seems that it serves him better to make scapegoats of these two who happen to be seen by others, York in particular (see his earlier implicit reference to them as flatterers), as corrupt influences on Richard.

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Act 3

Scene 2

Barkloughly (not a mistake for Berkeley!) Castle, Wales

This scene takes place on the coast of Wales. Richard is filled with joy on his return from Ireland to his kingdom. He compares himself to a “long-parted mother’ being reunited with her child. As King he sees his kingdom’s earth as being absolutely his; he does it “favours” with his “royal hands” – presumably by picking up a handful of earth. He orders the earth to be hostile to “thy sovereign’s foe” and to his followers. Like a sorcerer casting a spell he calls upon venomous spiders and toads, stinging nettles and adders to hinder and to poison the rebels. Having said this, he sees a sceptical response in those around him and says, “Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords”. Perhaps these lords are thinking that more practical means such as armed men and a strategy are called for rather than magical incantations. Carlisle reassures him that God is on his side but he, Richard, must play his part by attending to practical matters. Aumerle agrees. Richard has too grand an idea of his kingly self to stoop to practical matters. He says he is like the sun that exposes night’s criminals to daylight and leaves them “trembling at themselves”; in the same way, his kingly sunlight newly arisen in the day of his return will expose Bolingbroke and leave him with “His treasons blushing in his face”. Richard believes that the fact of him being King is all that is needed to deter the rebels. Nobody can “wash the balm from an anointed king”; “worldly men cannot depose/The deputy elected by the Lord”. For every armed man that Bolingbroke has Richard has “A glorious angel”.

However, this optimism is quickly dispelled when Salisbury enters and informs the king that the Welsh army has dispersed. Richard turns pale, saying that the blood of those thousands of men has rushed from his face. He now feels that “Time hath set a blot upon my pride”. Minutes after proclaiming his invulnerability with God on his side he now sees Time as punishing him for his pride! Equally quickly, he pulls himself together. He says that his very name as King is worth twenty thousand names (that is, men).

Scroop enters with more bad news. He says that as Bolingbroke marches through the country, people both old and young have been flocking to his cause and joining the rebellion. Richard believes that Bushy, Bagot and Green and the Earl of Wiltshire have failed him and are now probably gone over to Bolingbroke’s side. He compares them (Bushy, Bagot and Green, his ‘favourites’) to three Judases, “each one worse” than Judas; if they are Judases then the analogy implies that Richard is like Christ. In fact, Richard’s analogy makes him into a kind of Christ-plus in that he had three Judases against him not just one and each one of them is even worse than Judas! Scroop gradually reveals that Wiltshire, Bushy and Green have all been executed.

With this news Richard says that all is lost. He forbids anyone to talk of comfort and begins a speech developing an eloquent poetry of despair. Rather than words of comfort he says, “Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs”; “let us sit upon the ground/And tell sad stories of the death of kings’; “For within the hollow crown/That rounds the mortal temples of a king/Keeps Death his court…” The personified Death is seen as “Infusing” a king with an illusion of power. Once the king is sufficiently convinced that he is as “impregnable” as his castle walls, Death comes along and, “with a little pin/Bores through the castle wall, and farewell king!”. Richard says that he now recognises who he really is. “Tradition, form and ceremonious duty” have fostered an illusion: he is not a unique, sacred being but one who lives “with bread like you; feel want/Taste grief, need friends.”. He shares the common life of his subjects. This must be recognised as a moment of insight when Richard sees himself as he really is. However, this deeper understanding of himself and his role is expressed in a characteristically dramatic ‘extremist’ way. As King he was “impregnable”, a unique sacred being, but now he is at rock bottom, full of despair and beyond comfort. He now sees that he is no more than another subject and so cannot possibly be a king. (“Subjected/Thus how can you call me a king?” note pun on ‘subjected’). He has seen kingship as an illusion yet at the same time he continues to have an elevated idea of a king since by Richard’s definition a king can not be subject to the ordinary human needs and feelings. A more mature level of insight would surely find some position between these extremes – though perhaps a more measured, level-headed, pragmatic response would not produce such dramatic poetry!

After this lengthy speech, Carlisle tells Richard that fearing and wailing only strengthen their enemies, and that the king needs to prepare to fight. It’s much better to fight and die, he says, then simply to die afraid. Aumerle adds that his father (the Duke of York) could supply a force which could, perhaps, be increased. With another swift change, Richard is revived and decides that he will fight Bolingbroke. But almost immediately he is broken again with the news, delivered by Scroop, that York has joined with Bolingbroke, and “All your northern castles yielded up”, and all “southern gentlemen in arms”. Richard turns on Aumerle and asks him what he has to say now given the news . He curses Aumerle for leading him out of “that sweet way I was in to despair”. Despair seen as a “sweet way” shows that Richard was deriving some pleasure from being the ruined king, a condition that inspired his eloquent poetry. He will hear no more of fighting back. He will go to Flint Castle and “pine away”. What powers he has should all be discharged. Reversing an earlier image in which he was the sun, Richard ends the scene ordering his followers to “hence away/From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day”.

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Act 3

Scene 3

Flint Castle

Bolingbroke , York and Northumberland, guided by their sources of ‘intelligence’, are approaching Flint Castle in North Wales. They have heard that Richard has “lately landed” from Ireland, that Salisbury and “some few private friends” have gone to meet Richard and that Richard’s Welsh forces have dispersed. After York criticises Northumberland for referring to “Richard” rather than King Richard, Harry Percy brings them news that Richard is in Flint Castle. Bolingbroke orders his forces to be deployed within sight of the Castle so that Richard can see the power that Bolingbroke commands. He sends Northumberland to parley with the message that he has come simply to have his banishment repealed and his lands restored. Once that is done, he is at the King’s service. He likens their meeting to the meeting of the elements of fire (lightning) and water (rain) in a stormy sky. He says he will be the “yielding water”.

Richard appears on the battlements and Bolingbroke likens him to a rising sun whose glory is dimmed by “envious clouds”. Notwithstanding the image of a dimmed glory, does Bolingbroke’s use of the sun image express a (residual) degree of awe at the sight of Richard? York immediately insists that Richard still looks like a king: his eye, which is as bright as an eagle’s, “lightens [lightenings] forth/Controlling majesty”.

Richard on the walls of the castle , addressing Northumberland who is standing below, wonders why he is not kneeling before his “lawful king”. He invokes the “hand of God” which bestowed upon Richard the sacred steward ship of the crown and asks if a human hand is at work to “profane, steal or usurp” the throne. Here we notice that Richard is assuming that Bolingbroke is aiming for the crown and not just his stated aims of repeal and restoration. Richard then elevates his style into a prophetic mode (another prophetic utterance!) , beginning with, “Yet know: my Master, God omnipotent, /Is mustering … /Armies of pestilence and they shall strike/Your children, yet unborn and unbegot.” Again, we have Richard’s assumption that Bolingbroke seeks the crown when he prophesies that before the “crown he looks for” can be enjoyed in peace, “Ten thousand bloody crowns [heads] of mothers’ sons/Shall ill become the flower of England’s face”. In his reply Northumberland says Bolingbroke swears by his honourable ancestry that his only aim is to gain his hereditary rights. Richard then, with a remarkable change in tone, tells Northumberland to tell Bolingbroke that he is “right welcome here” and that his “fair demands” shall be “accomplished” and to convey to him Richard’s regards. Northumberland returns to Bolingbroke. Meanwhile Richard expresses his misgivings to Aumerle: he asks if he has ended up being too willing to agree to Bolingbroke’s “fair demands”, too conciliatory in tone. Aumerle advises him to fight with “gentle words” until such time as Richard has gathered friends and “their helpful swords”. To maintain such a calculated strategy seems to be beyond Richard’s capacity since he responds to Aumerle by launching into an emotional outburst (“O God, O God…”) regretting that he has conceded to Bolingbroke’s demands with soothing words. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke but Richard continues with his emotional outburst. By referring to the King as if he were a separate person (“What must the King do now?), and then switching to the first person (“I’ll…”). he divides himself into two actors giving a performance in a mini drama. This very division dramatizes his existential crisis, it asks, “Am I the King?” This element of public performance is heightened by the rhetoric of repetition and listing which begins in line 147 (Arden edition) and continues until line 154. With a characteristic switching from one extreme to another, he considers his position as King: he tells himself to let the name of King go; he imagines exchanging his royal life for one of poverty; he imagines being buried in an obscure grave or even “in the King’s highway”. Then, seeing that Aumerle weeps in response to this outpouring, he develops a highly fanciful play upon the idea of the possible effects of his and Aumerle’s tears. Northumberland then manages to convey his message to Richard: Bolingbroke wants to speak to him in the courtyard.

Again, with the self-dramatising theatricality that is typical of him, Richard says he is coming down like Phaeton (here, if you do not know it, you could look up his story). This simile is both self-aggrandising by linking himself to a classical myth associated with the son of the sun god, Apollo, but is, perhaps, unwittingly appropriate since Phaeton is an example of rash and disastrous action. By exploiting the two meanings of ‘base’ – the lower level of a building and the ‘worthless’ meaning – he makes verbal play with the idea of the king growing ‘base’ as he descends to the “base court” (the ground-level courtyard).

When Richard enters the courtyard, Bolingbroke orders all to kneel, which they do. Richard tells them to arise and adds that he sees their kneeling as a mere outward show of courtesy which is not sincerely felt. Bolingbroke continues to insist that he comes “but for my own” and that he offers “true service”. Richard repeats that he will give what Bolingbroke wants. Richard’s “Your own is yours, and I am yours and all” can be taken as an implicit recognition that he has little choice since Bolingbroke, by virtue of his armed power has, in effect, already taken what he wants and, in the process, has already taken Richard. Read in this way, “I am yours” is not so much Richard offering himself, as recognising that he is already taken. This is made explicit when Richard says, “do we must what force will have us do.” The idea of being forced to act is also seen when Richard asks, “Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?” “Is it so” amounts to, ‘is it ordered so?’ Bolingbroke answers, “Yea, my good Lord” and Richard ends the scene with, “Then I must not say no”.

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Act 3

Scene 4

A garden of the Queen’s house, London

This garden scene begins with the Queen and her two ladies and develops further with the entry of the three gardeners – the head gardener and his two ‘men’. In the opening dialogue the Queen’s two Ladies are unable to lift the Queen’s spirits. She wants to eavesdrop on the gardeners in order to pick up what the common people are saying about the changes taking place.

The Gardener’s language soon makes it clear that the state of the garden is being used as an image of the English State. We can see this in his use of anthropomorphic and political metaphors such as “unruly children”, “oppression”, “executioner”, “commonwealth”, “government”. The gardeners recognise both the poor state of the garden they tend and the garden that is England. As such, they are in agreement with those nobles who see England as a badly governed land. In particular we will recall John of Gaunt’s speech on England as a fallen Garden of Eden. We can also link this England as a garden analogy to the play’s many references to “land” and “earth”. Incidentally, there is an excellent Shakespeare Concordance freely available on line at opensourceshakespeare.org. A concordance will tell you how many times, and where, a word occurs in a work. In Richard II “Land” occurs twenty five times and “earth” twenty three.

The head gardener calls for radical, uncompromising solutions to restore his garden; so he talks of cutting off heads like an executioner, of rooting away “noisome weeds”. This implies that he favours an equally severe and uncompromising solution to England’s ills. However, this is qualified by his response when one of his men complains of the futility of improving their minor garden whilst the major garden that is England remains “unpruned” and “ruined”. Having told his man to hold his peace, he shows both criticism and some sympathy for Richard when he says, “He that hath suffered this disordered spring/Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf”. Some, at least, of the blame for England’s state is apportioned to the “weeds” which Richard’s “broad-spreading leaves did shelter”. And these weeds have been “plucked up” by Bolingbroke. The Gardener goes on to make explicit his pity for Richard when he says of Richard, “O what pity is it/That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land/As we this garden”. He then reveals to his man the latest news on Richard, namely, that he is about to be deposed.

Hearing this, the Queen reveals herself and, abusing the Gardener as a mere rude-tongued wretch, demands to know the source of his news – though she did overhear the Gardener refer to his source (see lines 69-71). The Gardener ruefully informs the Queen that Bolingbroke and all the nobles have taken Richard and that she should go to London where she will find “it so”. The Queen immediately decides to go to London and as she exits puts a curse on the gardener for giving her bad news. Once she has left, the Gardener, with great forbearance, expresses sympathy for the Queen and plans to plant rue, which symbolises pity, in “remembrance of a weeping queen”.

The ambiguity of the Gardener’s response to Richard is interesting. He is in no doubt that the country is like a neglected garden and that Richard has been “wasteful”. However, he emphasises the “weeds” (Richard’s favourites) who have been eating Richard up – though he also places some blame on Richard since his “broad-spreading leaves did shelter” them. Yet in his image of Richard as a noble tree with “broad-spreading leaves” and in his expressions of pity both for Richard and his Queen, we also see the Gardener’s sense of awe and respect for the monarchy.

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Act 4

Scene 1

Westminster Hall, London

This scene, the longest in the play, begins with a number of similarities to I (i). In that scene the King, Richard, presided over a form of legal hearing in which Henry, Duke of Hereford (Bolingbroke) accused Thomas Mowbray of treason. Amongst other treasonable acts, Hereford accused Mowbray of plotting the Duke of Gloucester’s death. In this scene, Bolingbroke, though not yet the King, acts in the place of Richard whilst Bagot (who, unlike the other favourites, has escaped execution) accuses another former favourite, Aumerle, the Duke of York’s son, of the murder/assassination of the Duke of Gloucester. Bagot, addressing Aumerle directly, claims that he heard him boast that he had the power to reach across the channel and take Gloucester’s life. He also claims that “at that very time” Aumerle also said that a huge sum of money would not persuade him to accept Bolingbroke’s return to England and that the country would be better off with Bolingbroke dead. There is a problem with this charge since Gloucester’s death took place before Bolingbroke’s banishment which undermines Bagot’s claim that all this was said at the same time. Is this a slip up on Shakespeare’s part or an indication that Bagot is lying? It seems that Bagot is not the most trustworthy of characters. He told Bushy and Green that he was going to join Richard in Ireland but, unlike Aumerle, he was not in the party that returned with Richard. It seems that he did not go there. Did circumstances prevent him? Did he simply change his mind or was he lying to Bushy and Green? Or perhaps he did go to Ireland but did not return with the party we encountered at the beginning of III (ii). We can only speculate, just as we can only speculate on how he came to be with Bolingbroke in London’s Westminster Hall. Are we to assume that he was ‘taken’ by Bolingbroke’s forces – he was, after all, as Bolingbroke said, one of the “caterpillars of the commonwealth” that Bolingbroke had “sworn to weed and pluck away”. What motivates him to accuse Aumerle of the murder of Gloucester? Aumerle is a man of royal blood (Bolingbroke’s cousin) and a supporter of Richard and, as such, Bolingbroke may see him as a potential enemy. Is Bagot calculating that by accusing Aumerle of being a murderer he could win some degree of favour with Bolingbroke? What we do know (by the end of this scene! ) is that Bagot’s case against Aumerle is not successful and by the end of the play we have heard no more of Bagot!

Aumerle’s response is to call Bagot a liar, to express contempt for his lowly rank and, throwing down his gage, to challenge him to trial by combat. Bolingbroke forbids Bagot from taking up the challenge – rather like Richard and Gaunt in the first scene ordering the combatants (Mowbray and Norfolk) to put down the already accepted gages. Though, unlike Richard’s order, it seems that Bolingbroke’s order is obeyed without any protest.

At this point Fitzwater throws down his gage to challenge Aumerle and tells him that he too heard Aumerle say that he was the cause of Gloucester’s death. And to repay Aumerle’s lie of denial, he will kill him in knightly combat. This provokes Aumerle to call Fitzwater a coward which provokes an angry response from Fitzwater which provokes a curse from Aumerle. Harry Percy (Northumberland’s son) joins in, calls Aumerle a liar, throws down his gage (his challenge to Aumerle) and dares him to seize it – which he does with fiery words. ‘Another Lord’ throws down his gage, also accusing Aumerle of being a liar. Undeterred by all this opposition, Aumerle takes up the latest gage and swears that he is ready to fight all comers! Which is just as well as it is now Aumerle versus three others – four if you count Bagot (though Bolingbroke had forbidden him to take up the challenge). To even things up somewhat, Surrey then joins in on Aumerle’s side and says that Fitzwater is lying. And, of course, he too throws down his gage which Fitzwater takes up and immediately throws down his gage to accept the challenge from Surrey. Fitzwater then adds, as further testimony against Aumerle, that he heard the Duke of Norfolk (the banished Mowbray) say that Aumerle had told him that he had sent two of his men to execute Gloucester at Calais. Aumerle vehemently denies this, borrows a gage and throws it down as a challenge to the banished Duke of Norfolk on the understanding that “he may be repealed to try his honour”. Aumerle now has challenges against Bagot (possibly), Fitzwater, Harry Percy, “Another Lord” and the exiled Duke of Norfolk – if he were to be allowed to return “to try his honour”. Fitzwater has it relatively easy since he only has to take on Aumerle and Surrey!

These multiple challenges seem to undermine the notion of trial by combat. If the whole point of these combats is to prove the guilt of one party and the innocence of the other, it is difficult to see any purpose being served in combats after the initial Aumerle v Fitzwater combat: if Aumerle is the winner then this proves that he was telling the truth and he is innocent of Gloucester’s death. Further fights against Aumerle must therefore, according to the trial by combat legal method, come from those who are lying or are mistaken in their views of Aumerle – since he has been proved to be innocent. If Fitzwater wins, Aumerle presumably being dead, then the fight is off for Harry Percy, Bagot (if Bolingbroke were to allow it) , Norfolk (if he returns) and “Another Lord! This leaves the Fitzwater v Surrey fight (arguably!) still on.

With all the significant nobles in this scene (minus Northumberland and Bolingbroke) committed to a combat and with the latest (potential) combatant being absent (Norfolk), the throwing down of gages has run out of challengers. At this point Bolingbroke brings matters to a conclusion when he says that the challenges will remain on hold until Norfolk is repealed and allowed back with all his lands restored. On his return the challenges can take place (Bolingbroke assumes that Norfolk will accept the challenge from Aumerle).

However, the Bishop of Carlisle tells them that Norfolk is dead. Carlisle gives a quick summary of Norfolk’s career in exile: he fought as a crusader and on retirement went to Venice where he died. Bolingbroke responds with some surprise to this news (“Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?”), and offers a prayer for him (“Sweet Peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom/Of good old Abraham”), though the prayer seems either rather glibly conventional (those two ‘sweets’) or ironical (that “good old Abraham”). Norfolk was his bitter enemy, so is this a magnanimous, conciliatory Bolingbroke playing a kingly part? Some (excessively cynical or realistic?) commentators suggest that he already knew of Norfolk’s death before the Bishop spoke. They also suggest that his repeal of Norfolk’s banishment and the restoration of his lands was designed to sound generous whilst knowing that there could be no return and no restoration – Norfolk being dead.

The scene now finds a new impetus when York arrives with a statement of abdication from Richard and his adoption of Bolingbroke as his heir. This raises the question of whether Richard as King can legally abdicate and name his successor. Bolingbroke, however, does not linger over this question and immediately says, “In God’s name I’ll ascend the throne”.

The Bishop of Carlisle objects and makes a powerful speech on the sacred nature of the monarchy. He says that no subject of a kingdom has the power to pass sentence on a king. The King as God’s “captain, stewart, deputy elect” is subject to God alone. He seeks to reduce Bolingbroke’s standing as claimant to the throne by addressing him as “My Lord of Hereford”, though he is now, at least, the Duke of Lancaster. He then risks all by denouncing Bolingbroke as a foul traitor and makes a dire prophecy. (another prophecy). If Bolingbroke is crowned then “The blood of English shall manure the ground/And future ages groan … Tumultuous wars/Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound”. In other words, there will be civil wars.

Northumberland’s immediate response is to charge the Bishop with “capital treason” which means the act of treason could be punished by execution. Northumberland orders that the Bishop be kept in custody until his trial for treason. Bolingbroke’s only response to the Bishop’s prophecy is to summon Richard so that he, Richard, can publicly declare his abdication and the election of Bolingbroke.

When Richard enters he is not as submissive and willing to yield the crown as York implied. Instead he expresses his difficulty in accepting his loss of status. He calls for time to allow “Sorrow… to tutor me/To this submission”. He draws a parallel between himself and Christ (once again), but whilst Christ was only betrayed by one of his followers (Judas), Richard, with characteristic hyperbole, can find no loyalty in twelve thousand.

York recalls him to the reason for his appearance, namely to carry out the office of abdication in public. Richard, with characteristic self-dramatisation, takes the crown from York and uses it as a form of theatrical prop to give an image of the rise and fall in fortunes of Richard and Bolingbroke.

Bolingbroke beaks into Richard’s speech with three one-liners, the last of which bluntly asks, “Are you content to resign the crown?” Richard’s answer is ambiguous but he does hand both the crown and the sceptre to Bolingbroke. However, his version of a speech of abdication is a sad litany (note the use of repetition) of sorrowful resignation whose focus is the forlorn state of the deposed king. When he addresses the new king, his tone is ironic as he wishes him, “many years of sunshine days”. “Sunshine days” reduces traditional sun images for kingship to a trite conventional wish – a wish which, as Richard’s experience (perhaps) shows, is hardly likely to be fulfilled in any monarchy.

Northumberland – again acting as Bolingbroke’s tough enforcer – calls for more from Richard: a public confession of his failings as a king. He hands him a paper with a list of the “crimes” he committed “Against the state and profit of this land” and tells him that a confession will show that he is “worthily deposed” and, as such (as Northumberland later puts it), it will satisfy the commons. Richard’s reply asks Northumberland if he would be prepared to confess to his offences, the chief of which, according to Richard, is the deposition of a King and the breaking of an oath of loyalty to the monarch which Northumberland, and others, will have sworn to in the past. Referring to those other nobles, Richard sees some of them as Pilates who have washed their hands of responsibility by virtue of a show of “an outward pity” whilst being prepared to allow Richard to be delivered to his “sour cross”. Here we note a further parallel between Richard and Christ.

Though prompted to read by Northumberland, Richard continues to dwell on the theme of Bolingbroke and others as traitors. Drawing a distinction between himself as ‘ordinary’ person and the office of kingship which he holds, he even includes himself as a traitor to that office in that he has consented to strip away kingship from himself. Once again with a sense of the theatrical, Richard calls for a mirror to consider his face, “Since it is bankrupt of … majesty”. When urged again by Northumberland to read the confession, Bolingbroke, once again acting as a conciliatory voice, tells Northumberland to urge Richard no more (it was Bolingbroke who ordered attendants to bring the looking glass). Richard agrees to satisfy the need to declare publicly his sins but he intends to do it by ‘reading’ the image of his face in the mirror for his sins are written in the ‘book’ that is his body. However, what he sees, ‘reads’, in the “flattering glass” is still the face of the once prosperous King. That leads him, through a series of rhetorical questions, to recall the regal power that this face could once command. Now “outfaced by Bolingbroke” he sees his former glory as “brittle” and, in a dramatic gesture, he symbolises regal brittleness by smashing the glass’, declaring that his “sorrow hath destroyed my face”.

Bolingbroke tries to deflate Richard’s dramatic performance when he responds with, “The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed/The shadow of your face”. By this he means that the shadow of his sorrow is the act of sorrow that Richard has just performed, it is not a substantial thing, it is an act; the shadow of his face is the reflection of his face in the mirror. Richard, who is never verbally outdone by Bolingbroke, immediately makes use of the shadow image. He begins by agreeing with Bolingbroke that what was seen was the shadow of his sorrow but then turns that image to his advantage: it was merely the shadow of his sorrow because the substance of his sorrow is inexpressible: “It swells with silence in the tortured soul”. Richard sarcastically thanks Bolingbroke for providing him with the shadow image since it helps him to point towards his inexpressible inner sorrow. The dialogue with Bolingbroke ends with Richard asking for “one boon” (favour). This turns out to be the modest request to leave the present company (not to go away into complete freedom). A modest request that he knows will be granted, and, as such, it is a minor way of mocking Bolingbroke’s power. Instead of asking for a lot which might have made Richard beholden to Bolingbroke’s magnanimous display of power, he simply asks, as it were, to leave the room. However, the state of his present condition is brought home to us when Bolingbroke orders Richard to be ‘conveyed’ to the Tower – in effect, to prison. Richard manages to have the last word with a neat rhyming couplet which makes play with Bolingbroke’s use of the word ‘convey’ - this could, in Elizabethan usage, be a euphemism for ‘to steal’: “O, good – ‘Convey’! Conveyers are you all/That rise but nimbly by a true king’s fall” .Once Richard has gone, Bolingbroke brusquely declares that his coronation will be on Wednesday next.

With the exit of Bolingbroke and his nobles, the Abbot of Westminster, the Bishop of Carlisle and Aumerle are left on the stage. The Abbot and the Bishop complain of the terrible turn of events. Aumerle asks if there is no plot to “rid the realm of this pernicious blot”. The Abbot wants them to swear to secrecy before he reveals to them a “plot” which will “show us all a Merry day”.

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Act 5

Scene 1

A public street near the Tower of London

This is the only scene in which Richard and his Queen speak to each other. The Queen and her Ladies are on their way to the Tower when they come across Richard being led by a “Guard” (probably a collection of guards). The Queen describes his appearance and plight. She sees him in terms of his former heroic stature and beauty, qualities that are now mere images of what they once were. Richard hears this and appeals to her not to grieve as it intensifies his sorrow. He counsels her to think of the life that have lost as a happy dream that they have awakened from. (To repeat a point made earlier: no trace here of the division between them that Bolingbroke refers to in III (i)). He is resigned to his fate and he advises her to return to France and to join a convent. The Queen urges him to fight back: just as a dying lion will paw the earth with fury so the king, the metaphorical king of beasts in his kingdom, should retaliate. Richard, however, feels that he is a lion (not the lion) who has been overcome by his kingdom’s “beasts”, Bolingbroke and his supporters. Again he advises her to go to France and to take her leave of him as if he has died. He imagines a role for the Queen “In winter’s tedious nights” sitting by the fire with “Good old folks” who are telling “tales/Of woeful ages long betid.” The Queen is to outdo their tales with “the lamentable tale of me” which will “send the hearers weeping to their beds”. In this way Richard will ‘enjoy’ a form of posthumous existence as the saddest tale of all.

Northumberland enters with orders from Bolingbroke: Richard is to be taken to “Pomfret” (Pontefract Castle) not to the Tower. The Queen must return to France.

Richard’s response is to ignore what has been said and to make a dire prophecy: Bolingbroke as King will not trust a man like Northumberland since he “knowest the way/To plant unrightful kings”. Fear, hate and suspicion will govern his relations with the new King and will lead the way to death. This prophecy is to be fulfilled in the Henry IV plays. It reminds us of the other ‘dark’ prophecies in Richard II. For example, Thomas Mowbray’s in I (iii), John of Gaunt’s in II (i), Richard’s III (ii) and the Bishop of Carlisle’s prophecy (“The blood of English shall manure the ground”) in IV (i).

Before brusquely repeating Bolingbroke’s orders, Northumberland says, “My guilt be upon my head, and there an end.” In saying this he (unwittingly?) casts himself in the role of those Jews who, referring to Christ, answered Pilate with “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27.25). This New Testament allusion also suggests a likeness between Richard and Christ – a likeness which is suggested at various points in the play.

Richard calls on Northumberland to part them: he, Richard, is to go to “the north/Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime” and she to France. The Queen appeals to Northumberland to exile them both; this is turned down by Northumberland (“That were some love, but little policy”) . She then asks to go north with Richard. Richard rejects this: he says they are better off being widely separated rather than physically near but (given the constraints of his anticipated imprisonment) not truly near. With further shared thoughts on the sorrow of their parting, they kiss and take leave of each other.

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Act 5

Scene 2

Duke of York’s house, London

This scene begins with the Duke of York in the middle of (in medias res) describing to the Duchess the arrival into London of Bolingbroke and Richard. People leaning out of windows throw rubbish on Richard’s head whilst Bolingbroke rides in greeted by cries of “God save thee Bolingbroke”. Although York has accepted that Bolingbroke will be King, he is still attached to the sacred nature of Kingship: when describing Richard’s entry he speaks of dust thrown upon his “sacred head”. And furthering the Christ comparison that “sacred” and jeering mockery can suggest, York describes Richard’s visible responses in terms of “grief and patience” that make Richard resemble Christ as a long-suffering ‘man of sorrows’.

When Aumerle enters, the Duke immediately refers to his son’s loss of aristocratic status (from Duke to Earl) as a result of having been “Richard’s friend”. He warns him of the need to adapt to the new regime lest he be, using a plant analogy, “cropped” before he comes to prime. He then spots a “seal” that is visible in Aumerle’s clothing. A seal would have a parchment attached to it. York, alert to Aumerle’s link to Richard, is suspicious. He demands to see it and despite Aumerle’s unwillingness and the Duchess’s dismissal of its significance, the Duke takes it from him. It is a document drawn up by the conspirators who plan to assassinate Bolingbroke. Determined to stop an act of treachery, even when that involves his son and a King that he does not especially favour (since he is a usurper), the Duke leaves to ride as quickly as possible to Bolingbroke and warn him. The Duchess, desperate to protect her son, urges him to outpace his father and get to Bolingbroke first to confess his treachery and to beg pardon before his father can get there to accuse him. She will not be far behind!

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Act 5

Scene 3

King Henry IV’s Court, Windsor Castle, London

Bolingbroke is now King Henry IV. He is discussing with Harry Percy, Northumberland’s son, the whereabouts and behaviour of King Henry’s son, Prince Hal. Hal has been associating with “unrestrained loose companions” in an area of London known for its criminals and brothels. Aumerle suddenly bursts in and asks to be alone with the King. Once this is granted , Aumerle goes on his knees and begs to be pardoned. The King says he will pardon him if the “fault’ be intended but not yet committed.. Aumerle, knowing that his father is on his way, asks that they be locked in until he has confessed his “fault”. No sooner are they locked in, but the Duke of York is knocking at the door and calling out to the King that he has a traitor within. The King opens the door and York shows the King the manuscript with the conspirators’ sworn and signed pledges. Aumerle appeals to the King’s promised pardon. York urges the King to “Forget to pity him, lest pity prove/A serpent that will sting thee to the heart”. The King is so struck by York’s loyalty, by the strength of his abhorrence of treachery, even to the point that he will condemn his son, that he says that York’s goodness serves to excuse his son’s “deadly blot”. York could, of course, be trying to ensure that he is not tainted by his son’s actions. His reply to the King’s pardon reveals that personal and family honour does drive him to condemn his son. He goes so far as to say that his loss of honour will be so extreme that he will ‘die’ if his son is not executed. With that, the Duchess, from the other side of the closed door, is heard begging for entry. Once allowed in, she goes on her knees appealing for a pardon for her “transgressing son”. York goes on his knees and continues to appeal for ‘no mercy’. This battle of opposing requests takes an extraordinary turn, given the stakes, when York plays with the word ‘pardon’. The Duchess has just called on the King to say, “Pardon”. York calls for it to be said in French as “Pardonne-moi”. Here he is playing on a convention in which pardonnez-moi would be a courteous way of saying ‘No’ to a request. In effect, one would be saying, “Forgive me for refusing”. The Duchess responds immediately with further word play: she complains that he is using the word ‘pardon’ in order to destroy pardon; he is setting the “word itself against the word”. She calls for English usage only, not “The chopping French we do not understand”. Finally, the King grants the pardon – he had referred to the Duchess several times as “Good aunt” which suggests a fondness for her. Once the King has spoken, York remains silent. He accepts the King’s authority.

The King makes it clear that the other conspirators will be shown no mercy. The scene ends with the Duchess’s, “Come, my old son, I pray God make thee new.”

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Act 5

Scene 4

Windsor Castle, London

Sir Piers Exton (a courtier, though he is not named until the next scene) is confirming with his servants that the King did actually say, “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?”. Furthermore, he takes it that when the King looked at him, he was wishing that Sir Piers were the man that would “divorce this terror from my heart”. Exton takes the “living fear” to refer to the “King at Pomfret” . He tells his servants that they will go there and rid King Henry of his foe.

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Act 5

Scene 5

Pomfret (Pontefract) Castle, Pontefract, Yorkshire

This scene begins with Richard’s lengthy soliloquy in which he offers a philosophical reflection on his own condition. He begins by considering the limitations of a prison-as-world metaphor; the world is populous and his prison only contains himself. He then ‘solves’ this problem by populating this “little world” with his thoughts. To do so his brain is likened to a female and his soul to a potent male begetting his thoughts in his fertile brain. His thoughts are initially of “things divine”: here he is thinking of apparently contradictory sayings of Jesus. One of which seems to make radical innocence a sure way to enter the kingdom of heaven and the other one which emphasises how difficult it is to enter. Thoughts of things divine then give way to thoughts of ambition that “do plot unlikely wonders”. Such thoughts of impossible feats “die in their own pride”. From vainly ambitious thoughts he turns to thoughts of being content with one’s lot by reflecting that things could be even worse. Finally, he uses a theatrical metaphor in which he as one person plays the part of many people – none of whom (notwithstanding his previous thoughts on acceptance) are contented. This leads to consideration of the part he played as King; a part that made him wish himself a lowly beggar. Such a thought begets the further thought that poverty is such a hardship that he would be a king again. However, the thought of Bolingbroke ‘unkings’ him and makes him “nothing”. But nobody can be content with being nothing until, he bitterly concludes, he has become the nothing that comes with death.

The sound of music from elsewhere in or around the castle begins the second ‘movement’ of his soliloquy , a movement in which the key motifs are music and musical time. The thought of time in music leads to thoughts of time in general. The music he hears is not keeping time, it is not true to the number of beats per bar. As a result, what should be “sweet” is made “sour”. Richard immediately relates this to “the music of men’s lives” and in particular, his own. Although he has a fine enough musical ear to hear a fault in music he did not have the political ‘ear’ to ‘hear’ the disharmony of his life and reign. He now thinks that, “I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me.” As his next line of thinking has it, Time has made him its instrument, its “numb’ring clock”. His thoughts become minutes and their sighs “jar” the clockwork movement as it marks the minutes. Just as a clock reveals the passage of time on its face so does the expression in Richard’s eyes. The Richard as clock parallel becomes even more extended when he sees his fingers, (they are wiping tears from his eyes) as pointers on the clock’s dial. At this point Richard addresses an imaginary person with “Now, sir”. This suggests an awareness that his speech is something of a performance. He has an audience whether that be a part of himself that he us addressing or an imagined listener – an actor playing Richard might well turn to and address the actual audience at this point. Although “Now, sir” brings a form of change of gear, he stays with the clock parallel. The groans that strike his heart are now the clock’s bell that chimes the hour. His final clock parallel comes when he sees himself as the little clockwork figure with a hammer who strikes the bell on the hour and quarter-hours. While Bolingbroke’s time goes smoothly and joyfully, Richard is reduced to this subservient figure who seems to be no more than Bolingbroke’s “jack o’the clock”.

Richard now exclaims, “This music mads me! Let it sound no more” and, as if in response to him, it ceases. The “sour” nature of the music put him in mind of his own bitter experiences and so rather than soothe and console him the music has aggravated him. Yet he blesses whoever was making the music and takes it that it was deliberately played to soothe him and was a sign of love.

That sentiment acts as a cue for the entry of a groom, one who was a groom in the King’s stable. He is full of sympathy for Richard (so at least one ‘commoner’ respects Richard) and he explains that while travelling towards York he has stopped at Pomfret and has been given leave to see Richard. He has a tale to tell of Richard’s horse, Barbary. This horse was used by King Henry IV on his coronation day and the groom relates how the horse went proudly with Bolingbroke as its rider. Richard momentarily feels betrayed by Barbary and then forgives his horse. Thinking of the horse leads to him think of himself as having become like an ass “spurred and galled and tired by jauncing Bolingbroke”.

The Groom’ visit is cut short by the jail’s Keeper – Richard had referred to him as “that sad dog”. He abruptly dismisses the groom with a contemptuous, “Fellow, give place”. Richard’s kindly parting words to the groom, “If thou love me, ‘tis time thou went away”, shows an appreciation of the groom’s loyalty.

This loyalty has perhaps boosted Richard’s sense of his kingly status. When the Keeper offers food, he orders the Keeper to “Taste it first”; instead of obeyimg the Keeper refers to a command from Sir Piers (“who lately/Came from the King”). Richard, recognising that Sir Piers has probably arrived to kill him, becomes (as the Queen urged him) the dying lion that “thrusteth forth its paw with rage”. Abandoning patient acceptance, he attacks the Keeper which brings in Sir Piers and four servants. Richard, immediately seeing that they are here to kill him, showing, perhaps, an unexpected ferocity and fighting spirit, disarms one of the servants and kills him with his weapon and uses that weapon to kill another servant. Sir Piers then strikes him down. With his dying words , “Exton, thy fierce hand/Hath with the King’s own blood stained the King’s own land.” Richard reasserts his kingly status and predicts that such sacrilege of a sacred being means that Exton will “burn in the never-quenching fire of hell”.

This prediction has a deep impact on Exton. He now feels he was prompted by the devil rather than the King and that his action, far from being good, is “chronicled in hell”. Notwithstanding these misgivings, he must finish the work and prove that Richard is dead, by taking the corpse to King Henry.

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Act 5

Scene 6

Windsor Castle, London

The scene begins with King Henry IV telling York of the latest news of the rebellion. Henry’s summary indicates the seriousness of the rebellion – Ci’cester (Cirencester) has been consumed by fire. We are not told the exact nature of the rebels’ cause. Is it anti-Bolingbroke and his seizure of the crown? Is it chiefly motivated by the traditional idea of the sanctity of the monarch? Presumably, it is a mixture of both. Northumberland brings fresh news: leading rebels have been beheaded. Fitzwater then enters with news of further beheadings of rebels. Enter Harry Percy with news of the sudden death (from natural causes) of the Abbot of Westminster. He is also brings the Bishop of Carlisle before Henry for judgement. Henry ‘condemns’ him to live a cloistered life apart from all social and political strife. Although he has been Henry’s enemy, Henry praises him for his “High sparks of honour” and so spares him his life.

Exton’s entry brings further news of the death of an enemy: this time it is Richard – described by Exton as Henry’s “buried fear”. This ‘news’ is confirmed by Exton bringing Richard’s coffin before Henry. Although he wished Richard dead, he can not thank Exton. Instead he puts a Cain-like curse on him: he must live apart from the court; he must “wander through shades of night” and never show his “head by day nor night”. Henry himself is “full of woe/That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow”. He resolves to atone for his blood-guilt by going on crusade to the Holy Land (an intention that is never fulfilled).

This final scene with its talk of rebellions, executions and deaths and Henry’s talk of being sprinkled with blood suggests that so much is unresolved and bodes ill for the future. The scene seems to recall the Bishop of Carlisle’s prophecy, “The blood of English shall manure the ground/And future ages groan for this foul act”. Richard’s tragedy seems set become the national tragedy later known as the Wars of the Roses and explored by Shakespeare in the subsequent history plays.

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Richard II

Act 1

King Richard’s Court

Act 1

John of Gaunt’s London house

Act 1

The lists at Coventry

Act 1

King Richard’s Court

Act 2

John of Gaunt’s house

Act 2

Windsor Castle

Act 2

Close to Berkeley Castle

Act 2

Somewhere in Wales

Act 3

Bristol Castle

Act 3

Barkloughly (not a mistake for Berkeley!) Castle, Wales

Act 3

Flint Castle

Act 3

A garden of the Queen’s house, London

Act 4

Westminster Hall, London

Act 5

A public street near the Tower of London

Act 5

Duke of York’s house, London

Act 5

King Henry IV’s Court, Windsor Castle, London

Act 5

Windsor Castle, London

Act 5

Pomfret (Pontefract) Castle, Pontefract, Yorkshire

Act 5

Windsor Castle, London

Exploring A-level English Literature