Richard II
Richard II, chronicle play in five acts by William Shakespeare, written in 1595–96 and published in a quarto edition in 1597 and in the First Folio of 1623. The play is the first in a sequence of four history plays (the other three being Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V). Known collectively as the “second tetralogy,” the plays depict major events in English history of the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The tetralogy is often referred to as “the Henriad,” as Prince Hal (later King Henry V) is a central figure in the group of plays. The story of Richard II was taken mainly from Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577). While much of the play is true to the facts of Richard’s life, Shakespeare’s account of his murder rests on no reliable authority.
Plot
Bolingbroke and Mowbray exiled; the death of John of Gaunt
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was the third surviving son of English king Edward III and the uncle of Richard II. Shakespeare’s play popularized the toponymic surname of Gaunt (a corruption of his birthplace, Ghent) as part of his name. Immensely rich and powerful, he was married thrice: to Blanche of Lancaster, Constance of Castile, and Katherine Swynford. He was the immediate ancestor of three English monarchs: Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI.
Richard begins the play as an extravagant, self-indulgent king. He exiles two feuding noblemen, Thomas Mowbray and Henry Bolingbroke, seemingly because Mowbray has been implicated along with Richard himself in the murder of Richard’s uncle Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, while Bolingbroke, Richard’s first cousin, is a threat to the king because he is intent on avenging the death of Gloucester.
Richard is called to the deathbed of Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, who delivers one of the most famous speeches in Shakespeare’s works (Act II, scene 1):
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this
England
Civil war in “This other Eden”
When John of Gaunt dies, Richard seizes his properties to finance a war against the Irish. The seizure gives Bolingbroke an excuse to invade England with his own armies; he insists that his return in arms is solely to regain his illegally seized dukedom. Powerful nobles, especially the earl of Northumberland and his family, support Bolingbroke because of their intense disapproval of Richard’s invasion of baronial rights. Richard’s last surviving uncle, Edmund of Langley, duke of York, serves as regent while the king is fighting in Ireland. York, however, recognizes that change is inevitable and swears allegiance to Bolingbroke. York’s son, the duke of Aumerle, remains loyal to Richard despite his father’s defection.
Richard’s abdication
Unable to defeat Bolingbroke militarily, Richard reluctantly agrees to surrender and abdicate the throne. He deposes himself and transfers power to Bolingbroke by handing him the crown. The first three quarto editions omit the deposition scene (Act IV, scene 1), almost certainly as a result of censorship. The depiction of usurpation would have been considered inflammatory by authorities, particularly in light of the earl of Essex’s failed insurrection against Queen Elizabeth I in 1601.
In the full text of the play, printed in 1608, Richard gives Bolingbroke the crown with these words:
Here, cousin, seize the crown.
Here, cousin.
On this side my hand, on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
The assassination of Richard
Murder in Pomfret Castle
In Act V, scene 4, a nobleman named Sir Piers Exton interprets a line spoken by the newly crowned Bolingbroke—“Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?”—as a command to assassinate the imprisoned Richard. He accordingly does so. A similar quote is attributed to the English king Henry II (reigned 1154–89): “Will no one rid me of this turbulent [alternatively “troublesome” or “meddlesome”] priest?” His words were interpreted by four knights as a desire for the death of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury (1162–70), who was murdered in a dispute between the church and the crown.
In prison—lonely, miserable, and forgotten—Richard soliloquizes on the meaning of his suffering. From this moment of truth, he rediscovers pride, trust, and courage, so that, when he is murdered, he dies with strength and an ascending spirit. Bolingbroke, now King Henry IV, performs his first royal act (and displays his pragmatic approach to governing) by acquiescing to the duchess of York’s pleas for Aumerle’s life while the zealous York demands his “disloyal” son’s execution. The play ends with Henry inquiring about his own wastrel son, Prince Hal, and swearing to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to atone for his part in Richard’s murder.
For a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems.