Richard II
The most lyrical of Shakespeare’s history plays, Richard II marks an enormous change from its predecessor in the genre, Richard III. It is written entirely in verse, as are 1 Henry VI, Richard Duke of York (3 Henry VI), and King John, but neither these plays nor the three histories which continue the story of Bolingbroke’s usurpation and its consequences (1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V) match Richard II’s tragic plangency. In its heavy use of rhyme it is recognizably akin to Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), and an invitation from Sir Edward Hoby to Sir Robert *Cecil dated 7 December 1595 to come to supper and see ‘King Richard present himself to your view’ has usually been identified as alluding to a private performance of Richard II, presumably then new. The dating of the play to 1595 is confirmed by its indebtedness to Samuel *Daniel’s epic poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, entered in the *Stationers’ Register in October 1594 but apparently only published in 1595.
Text: The play was entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1597 and appeared in a quarto apparently set from Shakespeare’s *foul papers in the same year. This text was reprinted twice in 1598, and a fourth quarto followed in 1608, this one, however, with ‘new additions of the Parliament Scene, and the deposing of King Richard’, passages omitted from the earlier editions. This fuller text was reprinted in 1615, and, annotated by reference to a promptbook, provided the basis for the text reproduced in the Folio in 1623. The Folio’s text was itself reprinted as a quarto in 1634. Although deprived of oaths in compliance with the *Act to Restrain the Abuses of Players (1606), the Folio text is at some points superior to the quarto, particularly in its stage directions.
Sources: The large number of early editions, and the omission of the deposition scene, suggest a play, or at least a subject, of considerable topical interest: depicting the feasibility of dethroning a childless English monarch was clearly felt to be controversial during Elizabeth I’s later years, and the episode depicting Richard’s abdication was evidently a victim of political *censorship, probably removed in performance as well as in print until after the Queen’s death. Sensitive as the play proved, however, Shakespeare’s modifications to his historical material suggest, if anything, a toning-down of its potential for seditious application, though this did not deter the Earl of *Essex from having it revived as part of the preparations for his abortive attempted coup in 1601, any more than it mitigated Queen *Elizabeth’s wrath, reported by *Lambarde, at the parallel this implied between her and King Richard. In particular, Shakespeare suppresses some of the justifications for Bolingbroke’s usurpation: according to *Holinshed’s Chronicles, the play’s chief source, although Mowbray had not himself killed the Duke of Gloucester (but had merely allowed his murderers access to him), he had been directly ordered to do so by Richard. Shakespeare had read widely around his subject, not only in Daniel and Holinshed but in *The Mirror for Magistrates, and his depiction of John of Gaunt (the character most altered from Holinshed’s version) owes something to an anonymous chronicle play about the earlier part of Richard’s reign, Thomas of Woodstock (c.1592?), which may conceivably have had a now-lost sequel dramatizing the same events as Shakespeare’s play. The most important dramatic precedent for Richard II, however, is *Marlowe’s Edward II (c.1592), structurally similar in its depiction of an at once tyrannous and ineffectual English king who, achieving tragic pathos in defeat, is deposed, imprisoned, and murdered.
Synopsis: 1.1 Before King Richard II, Bolingbroke, the Duke of Hereford, accuses Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, of killing the Duke of Gloucester, which he denies: the two challenge one another, and Richard, unable to command them to peace, concedes that they must fight a judicial combat.
1.2 Gloucester’s widow rebukes her brother John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, for tamely accepting her husband’s murder, praying that his son Bolingbroke may kill Mowbray, and bidding what she fears will be a last farewell.
1.3 After formal preliminaries, the judicial combat is stopped by Richard, who briefly consults his nobles before decreeing that both would-be combatants must be banished, Bolingbroke for ten years and Mowbray forever. After Mowbray’s departure, however, the King shortens Bolingbroke’s sentence to six years in exile, though Gaunt laments that he will certainly be dead before his son returns. Bolingbroke refuses Gaunt’s attempts to console him.
Ian Richardson (left) and Richard Pasco in John Barton’s celebrated RSC Richard II, 1973: presented in the deposition scene as mirror-images of each other, the two actors exchanged the roles of Richard and Bolingbroke throughout the production
1.4 Lord Aumerle brings Richard a mocking account of Bolingbroke’s tearful departure: the King speaks scornfully of Bolingbroke’s cultivation of popular opinion. One of his favourites, Green, urges Richard to put down a rebellion in Ireland, to which the King agrees. Another, Bushy, brings news that Gaunt is sick, and they leave to visit him, Richard hoping Gaunt will soon die so that his confiscated possessions may fund their Irish expedition.
2.1 With his brother the Duke of York, the dying Gaunt laments the King’s extravagance and the fallen state of the country. When the King arrives with his followers Gaunt rebukes him with this and with the death of Gloucester before being carried off. Northumberland brings the news of Gaunt’s death, upon which Richard, despite York’s protests on behalf of Gaunt’s heir Bolingbroke, seizes his entire estate. Left with Willoughby and Ross, Northumberland laments Richard’s degeneracy, and announces that Bolingbroke is only awaiting Richard’s departure for Ireland to land in the north with an army: all three hasten to join him.
2.2 The Queen is dismayed to hear of Bolingbroke’s landing and of the nobles who have sided with him, as is York, regent in Richard’s absence, whose loyalties are divided between Richard and Bolingbroke and who is further distressed by news of the Duchess of Gloucester’s death. The King’s favourites disperse to seek safety.
2.3 Near Berkeley Castle, Bolingbroke and Northumberland are joined by Northumberland’s son Harry Percy, who brings news that Worcester has joined their cause, and by Ross and Willoughby. York accuses Bolingbroke of treasonously defying his sentence of banishment, but admits he has not sufficient force to arrest him: mollified by Bolingbroke’s claim that he seeks only the due inheritance of his father’s estate and title and to rid the court of parasites, he allows Bolingbroke’s party to enter the castle.
2.4 To the dismay of Salisbury, the King’s Welsh forces disperse, convinced Richard is dead.
3.1 Bolingbroke sends Bushy and Green to execution for denying him his inheritance and misleading the King.
3.2 Richard, back from Ireland, greets his native soil, urging it to repel Bolingbroke. Dismayed by Salisbury’s news, he is rallied by Aumerle, but when Scrope brings word that Wiltshire, Bushy, and Green are all dead Richard sits on the ground and laments the mortality of kings. The Bishop of Carlisle urges him to fight, and Aumerle reminds him that York still has an army, but when Scrope reveals that York too has joined with Bolingbroke Richard despairs.
3.3 Bolingbroke and his supporters are outside Flint Castle: Richard appears on the walls, and Northumberland assures him that Bolingbroke wants only Gaunt’s title and lands. Richard agrees to this demand, but in his lament at being forced to concede admits that he is utterly powerless and can himself ask only for a grave. Descending, he meets Bolingbroke, whose kneeling does not convince Richard of his fealty, and who at Richard’s prompting agrees that they should leave for London.
3.4 The Queen learns that Richard’s deposition is inevitable when she overhears a conversation between her gardeners.
4.1 In Parliament, Bolingbroke questions Bagot about the murder of Gloucester: Bagot accuses Aumerle, who denies the charge and challenges him. Fitzwalter and Harry Percy take Bagot’s part, Surrey Aumerle’s: Bolingbroke hopes to settle these arguments by recalling and trying Mowbray, but learns he has died. York arrives and announces that Richard has yielded his royal title to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke is about to ascend the throne when the Bishop of Carlisle warns him that this usurpation can only lead to civil war: Northumberland arrests the Bishop for treason. Bolingbroke summons Richard so that he may abdicate in public: Richard does so, but in a performance that is both mocking and intended to excite pity, and he refuses to recite a list of the crimes which have justified his deposition. He accuses the assembled lords of treason and demands a mirror which, studying his reflection, he smashes, saying he has given away even his identity. After Bolingbroke sends Richard to the Tower and leaves, giving orders for his own coronation, Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and Aumerle conspire together against him.
5.1 The Queen meets Richard on his way to the Tower: he bids her fly to France. Northumberland brings word that Richard is instead to be sent to Pomfret: Richard prophesies that in time Northumberland will turn against Bolingbroke. Richard and the Queen part.
5.2 York tells his Duchess of Bolingbroke’s eager reception from the London crowds and their jeering at Richard. York finds that his son Aumerle is carrying a letter which reveals that he has plotted to assassinate Bolingbroke: despite his wife’s pleas he hurries to betray this conspiracy to Bolingbroke, pursued by Aumerle and the Duchess.
5.3 Bolingbroke, now crowned as King Henry, longs for news of his dissolute son Harry. Aumerle arrives and, insisting on a private conference with the King, implores pardon. York arrives to warn of his son’s treason, followed by his wife, who kneels with Aumerle to implore mercy: York in turn kneels to implore Bolingbroke not to spare his treacherous son, but Bolingbroke pardons Aumerle.
5.4 Sir Piers Exton is sure Bolingbroke wants him to kill Richard, and leaves for Pomfret.
5.5 Alone in his cell, Richard reflects on his past follies. A former groom has obtained permission to visit him, and tells how Bolingbroke rode Richard’s favourite horse at his coronation. A keeper dismisses the groom: he has brought Richard’s food but for once will not taste it before Richard eats. Exton arrives to kill Richard: Richard kills two of his helpers before dying, cursing Exton for killing a true king. Exton, preparing to carry the body to Bolingbroke, already regrets his deed.
5.6 King Henry hears of the defeat of various rebels against him, and pardons the Bishop of Carlisle. When Exton brings Richard’s body he banishes him, vowing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to expiate the crime of Richard’s murder.
Artistic features: The play is remarkable among the histories for the carefully planned symmetry of its structure (by which, in effect, Richard and Bolingbroke exchange places) and for the formality, rhetorical and ceremonial, by which it evokes a lost medieval world. Many of its set-piece speeches, much anthologized, have become classics in their own right, most famously Gaunt’s ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle…’ (2.1.40–68), and Richard’s ‘Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs…’ (3.2.141–73).
Critical history: The play was little valued by Enlightenment critics, who found it merely laboured and archaic, but the Romantics, particularly *Coleridge, were more in sympathy with its depiction of the eloquently helpless Richard. It appealed even more strongly to their 19th-century successors among the nostalgic *Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the aesthetic movement, such as Walter *Pater, and in a famous essay (‘At Stratford upon Avon’, 1901) *Yeats wrote of his conviction that as a true poet Shakespeare of course preferred Richard II to the merely efficient Henry V. Modern criticism has explored the many analogies the play draws between royal power and the theatre, as its self-dramatizing King upstages his usurper, and has analysed the sacramental and ultimately sacrificial notion of kingship Richard espouses, often in relation to the late medieval doctrine of ‘the king’s two bodies’. Many commentators have also found in the play the first movement of a pattern of fall and redemption played out across the whole of Shakespeare’s second tetralogy of histories.
Stage history: Richard II remained current after its notorious revival at the request of *Essex in 1601 (Augustine *Phillips’s description of it under interrogation as ‘an old play’ thereafter may have been disingenuous): it was performed on board Captain *Keeling’s ship HMS Dragon in 1607 and at the *Globe as late as 1631. Though archaic by the later 17th century, it was still controversial: when it was next revived, in Nahum *Tate’s adaptation (1680), it was banned by the Crown after only two performances. Tate’s attempt to avoid this prohibition by giving all the characters Italian names and retitling the play The Sicilian Usurper failed: he was especially chagrined by the ban, as his adaptation had been designed to turn Bolingbroke into a caricature of Charles II’s populist political enemies and to make Richard a blameless martyr. The play was again rewritten in 1719, this time by Lewis *Theobald, who tried to make it fit contemporary tastes in pathos by supplying a love plot between Aumerle and Northumberland’s daughter (both of whom die) and by developing the relationship between Richard and his Queen, who witnesses her husband’s murder and remains onstage to speak an epilogue. This version at least avoided a ban, but soon disappeared from the repertory. Shakespeare’s original was revived at Covent Garden in 1738, but after that had to wait until the 19th century before achieving anything like popularity. Edmund *Kean played Richard in 1815 (in a text adapted by Richard Wroughton), and the role was occasionally taken by *Macready, but the most successful production for many years was Charles *Kean’s in 1857, staged with much medieval pomp which included an onstage presentation of Bolingbroke’s procession into London with Richard in his wake, complete with large crowds of extras and real horses. After that, though William *Poel produced an experimental revival in 1899 (with Harley *Granville-Barker as Richard) and the play was taken up by Frank *Benson and Herbert Beerbohm *Tree in the years preceding the First World War, the play had to wait until the 1920s to achieve real prominence. George Hayes played Richard at the *Old Vic in 1924 (and again at Stratford thereafter), but the performance that really established the play was that of John *Gielgud, first at the Old Vic in 1929–30 (joined by Ralph *Richardson as Bolingbroke), then in the West End in 1937 (with Michael *Redgrave), and subsequently on international tours and on radio. The role was widely regarded as one of Gielgud’s finest, and his lyrical delivery of the great speeches, preserved on sound *recordings, has influenced all the many Richards who have followed since the Second World War, among them Alec *Guinness, Michael Redgrave, Ian *McKellen, Alan *Howard, and, alternating the roles of Richard and Bolingbroke in John *Barton’s celebrated RSC production of 1973, Richard *Pasco and Ian *Richardson. The play was also much revived, often with considerable supplementary spectacle, in post-war festivals in Italy, France, and Germany, including *Vilar’s performance in the title role for the inaugural production of the Avignon Festival (1947). Two notable revivals since have further extended the play’s possibilities. Deborah *Warner directed Fiona Shaw in the title role at the National Theatre in 1995, claiming this showy role for actresses, while Stephen Pimlott made a rare departure from the play’s pageantry-dominated performance tradition by directing it in modern dress, with hints of both *Brecht and *Beckett, for the RSC in 2000, with Samuel West as Richard. Gregory *Doran’s lavish period piece of 2013 starred a conspicuously bewigged, effete David *Tennant as Richard, a performance of genuine power, albeit at the centre of a more traditionally conservative, star-vehicle production.
Michael Dobson, rev. Will Sharpe
On the screen: The post-war popularity of the play was reflected by television versions screened by the BBC in 1950 and in the USA in 1954, but it was more substantially treated as two parts of the BBC series An Age of Kings (1960). A later BBC production (1970) starred Ian McKellen and Timothy West, and the BBC transmitted the play again in 1978, this time with Derek *Jacobi as King Richard and his great predecessor in the role, John Gielgud, as Gaunt. Deborah Warner’s impressive National Theatre production was videotaped for television in 1996. More recently, Ben *Whishaw took the title role in the opening chapter of the BBC’s grand retelling of the *Second Tetralogy, *The Hollow Crown (2012).
Anthony Davies, rev. Will Sharpe