WWHEN HALLE wrote his chronicle of the long struggle that preceded The Union of the Two Noble and lllustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, he opened it with a section which he entered as “An introduccion into the devision of the two houses of Lancastre and Yorke.” The section began with the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke in the presence of Richard II, which to Halle seemed the inception of the struggle that later devastated England as the Wars of the Roses. Late in Elizabeth's reign, Sir John Hayward wrote a book about The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII. in which he devoted one hundred and thirty-six pages out of a total of one hundred and forty-nine to Richard II. He later justified his extensive treatment of the deposition and murder of Richard II in a supposed life of Henry IV by explaining that he had to write of Richard II in so far as his follies were “either causes or furtherances of the fortunes of the other,” and claimed that he followed Halle in commencing his story where he did.1 Shakespeare's play of Richard II will be better understood if we remember that he began the action of his play exactly where Halle began his “introduccion,” with the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke before the king. And like Hayward he wrote of Richard II's follies in so far as they were “either causes or furtherances” of the fortunes of Henry IV—but no further.
The main concern of Shakespeare's play is with the deposition of Richard II and his subsequent murder. The long-continued follies of Richard are discussed in the dialogue—his favoritism, his alienation of his subjects by heavy financial burdens imposed upon them, his farming out of crown lands, his connection with his uncle's murder—but they are not presented on the stage. The play which we know as Richard II: or Thomas of Woodstock made them part of the action, but Shakespeare in his play about Richard II merely summed them up in the accusations against Richard as contributing causes to his downfall. If we consider Richard II, then, as one of a cycle of plays teaching the lessons of political crime and political punishment, from the unlawful seizing of the crown to its loss by the third heir, we shall do well to think of it as the introduction to the cycle which is concerned with the rise and fall of the house of Lancaster. But each play in the cycle must also be considered as an individual and distinct unit, and thus Richard II comes to be also a play dealing with the problem of the deposition of a king.
It should be said at the outset that Shakespeare's play about Richard II has none of the extreme departures from historical fact and none of the false orientation of fact which marked his play about King John, and which furnished clues to his intention. As the editor of the English Arden text says: “In no other historical play does Shakespeare keep so closely to the Chronicle.”2 Only in telescoping times and places, in changing occasionally the order of events, and in altering minor details does he depart from the accounts of the historical Richard. Yet the latest editor of the play, Professor Dover Wilson, acknowledges that “the traditional notion of Shakespeare's dependence upon Holinshed seems to be evaporating,” and adds further evidence to strengthen the earlier claims of various scholars for the influence of works other than Holinshed.3 Both of these editors, however, favor the idea of a play behind the play of Richard II, as The Troublesome Raigne was behind King John. I have no intention of trying to navigate the troubled waters of source and ur-play discussion in this book, as I have said before, but if another author wrote a play from which Shakespeare derived his Richard II, the evidence of the traditional treatment would only be strengthened.
It was continually remembered in Elizabethan England that three English kings had been deposed: Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI. But the conditions of Henry VFs twice yielding his crown were complex and his rightful claim confused, so that it was regularly Edward II and Richard II who became the accepted mirrors in which one could see reflected the problems that were connected with the deposing of a king. Indeed, the way in which Richard II has become the permanent pattern of the deposed king was shown in 1936 and 1937, when his picture and his life appeared in the pages of newspapers and magazines, and when Shakespeare's play was revived on the stage and quoted everywhere.
For many years of Elizabeth's reign there was certainly talk of the lessons to be learned from the time of Richard II. Perhaps it will be well to consider the genesis of that talk before considering the main problem of the play. John Stow went back to Gower for a basic account of Richard:
When this King first began to raigne, the Lawes neglected were,
Wherefore good fortune him forsooke, and th'earth did quake for feare,
The people also whom he pollde, against him did rebell.
The time doth yet bewaile the woes, that Chronicles doe tell.
The foolish counsell of the lewde, and yong he did receive,
And grave advise of aged heads, he did reject and leave.
And then for greedy thirst of Coyne, some subjects he accused,
To gaine their goods into his hands, thus he the realme abused.4
Halle recorded that
unprofitable counsailers wer his confusion and finall perdicion. Suche another ruler was kyng Edwarde the seconde, whiche two before named kynges fell from the high glory of fortunes whele into extreme misery and miserable calamitee.5
The Mirror for Magistrates has Richard explain to the interlocutor of the ghosts, William Baldwin:
I am a Kyng that ruled all by lust,
That forced not of vertue, ryght, or lawe,
But alway put false Flatterers most in trust,
Ensuing such as could my vices claw:
By faythful counsayle passing not a strawe.…
For mayntenaunce whereof, my realme I polde
Through Subsidies, sore fines, loanes, many a prest,
Blanke charters, othes, and shiftes not knowen of olde,
For whych my Subjectes did me sore detest.6
Holinshed at the conclusion of the chronicle of the events of his reign comments:
Thus was king Richard deprived of all kinglie honour and princelie dignitie, by reason he was so given to follow evill counsell, and used such inconvenient waies and meanes, through insolent misgovernance, and youthfull outrage, though otherwise a right noble and woorthie prince.
Holinshed moralizes that “it is an heavie case when God thundereth out his reall arguments either upon prince or people,” but he adds that it is his own opinion that Richard was the “most unthankfullie used of his subjects, of any one of whom ye shall lightlie read.”7
Such was the commonly accepted account of Richard's follies as they contributed to the rise of Henry IV. Now, early in her reign Elizabeth commenced to be accused of the same follies. Indeed, almost as soon as she came to the throne, gossip began to circulate concerning the role which Robert Dudley (the son of the Duke of Northumberland executed five years earlier for his part in the plot to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne) was playing in her affairs. On April 18, 1559, the Count de Feria wrote to King Philip of Spain:
During the last few days Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they go so far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts and the Queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert.8
By July we find the Bishop of Aquila9 reporting to the Spanish king that the Bishop of Ely, being deprived, “had words with Bacon and told him that if the Queen continued as she had begun to be ruled by those about her, both she and her kingdom would be ruined.”10
In September, 1560, the Spanish ambassador wrote to the Duchess of Parma that Cecil had confided in him his thought of retiring, since “he clearly foresaw the ruin of the realm through Robert's intimacy with the Queen, who surrendered all affairs to him and meant to marry him.” Cecil, according to this writer, earnestly wished Leicester in Paradise, but “ended by saying that Robert was thinking of killing his wife, who was publicly announced to be ill, although she was quite well…” Bishop Quadra thereupon related that the very next day he met the queen, who told him that Leicester's wife was dead or nearly so, and the good bishop added that, whatever happened, nothing could be worse from his point of view than to have Cecil at the head of affairs, “but the outcome of it all might be the imprisonment of the Queen and the proclamation of the earl of Huntingdon as King.”11 In January, 1561, the same ambassador reported that Henry Sidney had seen him concerning the possible use of King Philip's good offices in urging the marriage of Leicester to the queen, in which case he promised that Robert would become vassal to the king of Spain, and he commented on the state of public opinion concerning the death of Robert's wife, noting that even preachers in their pulpits were preaching about it in a way that was prejudicial to the honor of the queen.12
In January, 1578, Sir Francis Knollys, Elizabeth's kinsman, was applying the lessons of Richard's reign, prophesying that Elizabeth would be utterly overthrown if she did not suppress and subject her will and affections to good counsel, for “who woll not rather shrynkingly … play the partes of King Richard the Second's men then to enter into the odious office of crossing of her Majestie's wylle?” He lists the problems that need settlement and warns of the dangers inherent in the uncertain state of affairs, “And then King Richard the Second's men woll flock into courte apace, and woll show themselves in theyr colors.”13
So violent had the scandalous rumors concerning the queen become by 1580–81 that Parliament was moved to enact new and stricter statutes, with graduated penalties of extreme severity for those who spoke ill of her. Finally, in 1584, the scandal-mongering concerning the queen and Leicester came to a head in The Copie of a Leter, wryten by a Master of Arte of Cambridge to his friend in London concerning some talke past of late between two worshipful and grave men about the present state, and some procedings of the Erle of Leycester and his friends in England. The work, attributed to the Jesuit Parsons, was apparently published on the Continent but was eagerly read on both sides of the channel. Manuscript copies in numbers seem to have been passed about everywhere, and in 1585 a French translation with additions was causing the British ambassador uneasiness.14 The Leter (often referred to as Greencoat because of its appearance, and in its seventeenth-century edition entitled Leicester's Commonwealth) summed up the dissatisfactions and contentious arguments of all the malcontents of the time and is worth studying. The charge that Elizabeth was dominated by her favorites rather than guided by her trusty advisers was a focal point of the attack. Kings and princes have often been shipwrecked upon the rock of “their too much affection towards some unworthy particular persons,” the Leter said, and it pointed to history and particularly English history:
For wheras, since the conquest, we number principalie, thre just and lawful kinges, to have come to confusion, by alienation of their subjectes: that is, Edward the second, Richard the second, and Henry the sixt, this onlie point of to much favour towardes wicked persons, was the chiefest cause of destruction, in al thre. As in the first, the excessive favour towardes Peter Gavesten and two of the Spencers. In the second, the like extraordinarie, and indiscrete affection towardes Robert Vere Earle of Oxeford, and Marques of Dub-line, and Thomas Mowbray, two moste turbulent and wicked men, that set the kinge against his owne uncles and the nobilitie.15
Any grudge, or grief, or misliking, or repining, or complaint, or murmur against Elizabeth's government on the part of those who wished amendment of affairs and not the overthrow of all, the author contends, is due to “this man.” And he adds that Leicester afflicts the people “as never did before him, either Gaveston, or Spencer, or Vere, or Mowbray, or anie other mischievous Tyraunt, that abused moste his Princes favour within our Realm of England.”16
Sir Philip Sidney answered the attack by arguing that those who do not consider the time ripe for showing their hate against the prince “vomit it out against his counsellors.” And as for Gaveston and Vere and “Delapool,” he asks pointedly whether those who destroyed these favorites were content, and whether they did not rather pass on to destroy also the kings themselves, Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI.17
In 1585, as Adlard pointed out, “letters signed by Burghley and the rest of the Council were sent to the justices of the peace for the suppression of the libels in circulation against Leicester, and a letter with the Queen's sign manual was sent to the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Alderman of London to the same effect.”18 This letter offers ample proof of the popularity and dangerous efficacy of the attacks upon Leicester, particularly that of the book under consideration.
But the charge that the queen was ruled by favorites and gave them undue power over her kingdom was repeated in regard to almost everyone about her. Sir Christopher Hatton, for instance, was said to have won the queen's favor when, aged twenty-one, he appeared before her in a masque presented by one of the inns of court. He was first made a gentleman-pensioner, then advanced to power and riches, finally being appointed to the office of lord chamberlain, though he was not a lawyer. Gossip inevitably resulted.19
In 1592 Parsons published A Declaration of the True Causes of the Great Troubles, Presupposed to be Intended against the Realme of England, attacking Walsingham and Cecil as well as the then deceased Leicester. Lord Burghley, whose charms at this distance appear to have been something less than seductive, was accused of being “farr more noysome and pernitious to the realme, than ever were the Spencers, Peeter of Gaverstone, or any other that ever abused either Prince or people.”20
Sir Robert Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia bore the significant subtitle of “Observations on the late queen Elizabeth, her times and favorites.” But he defended the queen, contending that her ministers and instruments of state “were onely Favorites, not Minions; such as acted more by her own Princely rules and judgements, then by their own wills and appetites,” and he added specifically that “we find no Gaveston, Vere, or Spencer, to have swayed alone, during forty four years.” He also registered his disagreement with the commonly accepted opinion “that my Lord of Leicester, was absolute and above all in her Grace.”21
However, Richard II was not reserved as a mirror for Elizabeth alone. In 1592 Robert Bowes wrote to Burghley about King James of Scotland:
The Council and ministers are persuaded that something will be attempted against some favourites about the King, and fear that this may open the way to the practices intended by the Papists and Spain, … By a libel lately set upon the door of the King's outer chamber the King was warned to beware that he be not used as King Richard the second was in England.22
While there were other lessons which Richard was used to mirror, it was as a king who was dominated by favorites and who allowed favorites to rule and ruin his kingdom that he was generally thought of during the first thirty years or so of Elizabeth's reign. Of course, the fact that his follies had led to his deposition gave point to the warnings. But as Elizabeth grew older and the matter of succession was still undecided, Richard was used to mirror new problems as well as old, and the most favored favorite of the aging queen was deeply involved in the discussions.
In 1594 Robert Parsons (under the pseudonym of Doleman) dedicated to the Earl of Essex A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland, in which the author seemed to advance the title of the Infanta of Spain. The dedication to Essex was made conspicuous by being announced on the title page, and the terms of the author's address to the earl made the recipient suspect, for Parsons claimed to be personally indebted to the earl and to his forbears. Even more incriminating was his statement:
But for the second pointe of publique utilitie, I thought no man more fit then your honour to dedicate these two books unto, which treate of the succession to the crowne of Ingland, for that no man is in more high and eminent place or dignitie at this day in our realme, then your selfe, whether we respect your nobilitie, or calling, or favour with your prince, or high liking of the people, and consequently no man like to have a greater part or sway in deciding of this great affaire (when tyme shall come for that determination) then your honour, and those that will assist you and are likest to follow your fame and fortune.
This was bad enough, but Parsons added fuel to the flames when he said that he had decided to publish the work, “for that it is not convenient for your honour to be unskillful in a matter which concerneth your person and the whole realme.”
The book represented a meeting of certain persons as taking place in Antwerp during April and May, 1593, at which time the question of the English succession was discussed. When it was reported to the group that Parliament had not acted in the matter, and that one or two “had bin checked or committed for speaking in the same,” two lawyers (one of the common law and the other of the civil law) proceeded to justify the queen, because it was not good for her, nor for the realm, nor yet for the successor that her successor should be declared during her lifetime. Then ensued the conference concerning the succession, during the first session of which three main points were considered:
1. That succession by blood is not determined either by the law of nature or by divine law but by specific and particular laws of each commonwealth, and that such laws are subject to alteration.
2. That monarchy is probably the best of the three forms of government, but that in England the authority of the king is limited by counsellors (as in an aristocracy) and by the voice of the commons (as in a democracy). It should always be remembered that the people must accept their king.
3. That princes may for good cause be deposed.
This last point was emphasized by the argument that “lawful Princes have oftentymes by their common wealthes bin lawfully deposed, for misgovernment, and that God hath allowed and assisted the same, with good success to the weale publique.” The examples of English history were again reviewed: the evil John was followed by the good Henry III; the evil Edward II by the good Edward III; the evil Richard II by the good Henry IV; the weak Henry VI by the not bad Edward IV; and the notorious Richard III by Henry VII.23
The second part of the conference was devoted to a discussion of the respective claims of the various would-be successors to the English throne. Inevitably the author retold the difficulties between the houses of Lancaster and York and repeated the history of the inception of the trouble between Richard II and Henry IV. The problem was restated:
the question is first, whether Richard the second were justly deposed or no, and secondly whether after his deposition the house of Yorke or house of Lancaster should have entred, and thirdly if the house of Lancaster did commit any wronge or injustice at their first entrance to the crowne, yet whether the continuance of so many years in possession, with so many approbations and confirmations thereof by the commonwealth were not sufficient to legitimate their right.24
Now, both reason and authority testify to the right of the commonwealth to deliver itself from the government of “a tyrant, a Tigar, a fearse Lion, a ravening wolfe, a publique enimy, and a bloody murtherer,”25 Parsons said, and he quoted as authority the civil lawyer:
By examples in like manner of al realmes christian he declared, how that often-tymes they have deposed their princes for just causes, and that God hath concurred and assisted wonderfully the-same, sending them commonly very good kings after those that were deprived, and in no country more than in Ingland it selfe, yea in the very lyne and familye of this king Richard, whose noble grandfather king Edward the third was exalted to the crowne by a most solemne deposition of his predecessor king Edward the second, wher-fore in this point their can be little controversie …26
As to the manner of Richard's deposition, Parsons asserted that adherents of the House of Lancaster affirmed that it could not have been better done:
First for that it was done by the choise and invitation of al the realme or greater and better parte therof as hath bin said. Secondly for that it was done without slaughter, and thirdly for that the king was deposed by act of parlament, and himselfe convinced of his unworthy goverment, and brought to confesse that he was worthely deprived, and that he willingly and freely resigned the same: nether can their be any more circumstances required (saye these men) for any lawful deposition of a Prince.27
It is not surprising that Essex should be out of favor at court for being in favor with the author of this most disquieting treatise, and evidence is not lacking that the disfavor with which he was regarded was very marked. A letter from Robert Beale to Sir Robert Sidney, dated September 25, 1595, asked Sidney to procure him one of the books:
I heare that of late a verye vile Booke hathe ben printed in Englishe, in Antwerp, touchinge the Succession of this Crowne, diffaminge her Majestie, and dishablinge all the Tytles of suche, that herafter maye pretende anye Interest therunto, and derivinge a strange Pretence from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, uppon the Kinge of Spaine, which he mindethe shortlye to challenge: I trust the Lorde will never suffer him to prevayle in so wicked and unjust a Cause. … I heare also, that it is dedicated to the Erle of Essex, of an Intent surlie to bringe him in Jalousye and Disgrace here.28
On November 5, 1595, Rowland Whyte also reported to Sir Robert Sidney:
UPON Monday last, 1500 [Queen Eliz.] shewed 1000 [Earl of Essex] a printed Booke of t—t, Title to a—a: In yt their is, as I here, daungerous Praises of 1000 of his Valour and Worthines, which doth hym harme here. At his comming from Court he was observed to looke wan and pale, being exceedinglie troubled at this great Piece of Villanie donne unto hym: he is Sick, and continewes very ill …
To this letter the writer appended a postscript which identified the mischievous book:
The Book I spake of is dedicated to my Lord Essex, and printed beyond Sea, and tis thought to be Treason to have it. To wryte of these Things are dangerous in so perillous a Tyme; but I hope yt wilbe no Offence to impart unto you Thactions of this Place.29
A week later Whyte reported to Sidney that the earl had now put off “the Melancholy he fell into, by a printed Booke delivered to the Queen,” and the harm had been averted.30 On November 22 Essex presented to the queen a device which symbolized his persevering loyalty.31
The book on the succession was, however, not easily forgotten. Among the State Papers are “Notes [by Lord Burghley] out of a seditious book, touching the succession to the Crown of England; showing that the author justifies alteration in the succession of Kings, and argues against the King of Scots, and in favour of an Infanta of Spain, or the King of Spain and his son.”32
And it is interesting to note that, also from 1595, Burghley left a six-page manuscript of notes upon the reign of Edward II, marking those who were friends or enemies of the king.33
Camden wrote that when the Catholics grew hopeless of James's religion and could find no English Catholic of proper antecedents for the crown,
they cast their eyes upon the Earle of Essex, (who never approved the putting of men to death in the cause of Religion,) feigning a Title from Thomas of Woodstock, King Edward the third's sonne, from whom hee derived his Pedigree.
Camden also seems to have accepted Essex's innocence, for he added:
But the Fugitives favoured the Infanta of Spaine, although they feared lest the Queene and the Estates would by Act of Parliament prevent it by offering an oath to every one, and they held it sufficient if they could set the King and the Earle of Essex at enmity. And indeed to this purpose there was a booke set forth and dedicated to Essex, under the counterfeit name of Dolman, not without the remarkeable malice of Parsons the Jesuit against Dolman a Priest of a quiet spirit, (if we may give credite to the Priests,) for the Authors of the booke were Parsons a most deadly adversary of Dolmans, Cardinall Allen, and Sir Francis Inglefield.34
The answers to Parsons were numerous. Peter Wentworth wrote A Pithie Exhortation to Her Majestie for Establishing Her Successor to the Crowne, which was not published until 1598, after the author's death, but which was evidently well known before its publication. For this study the significant part of his argument in favor of establishing the succession is the contention that princes have not generally been deposed and murdered by their declared successors. Inevitably he reviewed the cases of Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI. Of Richard he said:
And king Richard the sec. was deposed, not by one whome he had made his knowne successor, but by Henry the fourth: no successor to him by right, but an usurper, and that for his great misgovernment, as it doth appeare in the storie by 28. articles objected against him at his deposing: wherein his nobility and commons shewed, that they liked rather to have an usurper to raigne over them, that would preserve the crowne and them, then a rightfull king, that would perill the crowne and state also.35
Sir John Harington (Elizabeth's godson) wrote in defense of King James's right to succeed a Tract on the Succession to the Crown, answering the work of Parsons from Greencoat to the Conference. He made it quite plain that he regarded the historical parallels collected by Parsons as eminently dangerous and thereby acknowledged their truth. He accused Parsons of harping on
a seditious string of deposing of Princes for disabilitie and weakenes, and that in such a tyme, when malecontentes so abound in citie and countrye, when in the Court the common phrase of old servantes is that their is no commiseracion of any man's distressed estate, that a few favourites gett all, that the nobilitie is depressed, the Clergy pilled and contemned, forraine invasions expected, the treasure at home exhausted, the coyne in Ireland imbased, the gold of England transported, exactions doubled and trebled, and all honest heartes so troubled that save the immovable resolucion of justice and fidelity in that worthy King of Scotts is so knowen, that no man dare make such a motion to him: It were more doubte by the reading of your booke, that the Nobility should call him in before his tyme then exclude him after his tyme, …36
In 1599, before the Earl of Essex sailed on his Irish expedition, a new book came forth to call attention to the story of the deposing of Richard II and the accession of Henry IV. This book was The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII. and was dedicated by its author, Sir John Hayward, to the Earl of Essex, the dedication reading in part:
Magnus si quidem es, et presenti judicio, et futuri temporis expectatione: in quo, veluti recuperasse nunc oculos, caeca prius fortuna videri potest; Dum cumulare honoribus eum gestit, qui omnibus virtutibus est insignitus. Hunc igitur si laeta fronte excipere digneris, sub nominis tui umbra (tanquam sub Ajacis clipio Teucer ille Homericus) tutissime latebit.
This was dangerous praise, but a preface to the reader (by “A.P.”), in making the usual apology for history, whether of governments or of men, explained that
by describing the order and passages of these two, and what events hath followed what counsailes, they have set foorth unto us, not onely precepts, but lively patterns, both for private directions and for affayres of state: …
Here was a book of 149 pages, supposedly dealing with the first part of the reign of Henry IV: yet, as I have said, the first 136 pages of the 149 were devoted to reciting the history of Richard II and the reasons which led to his deposition by Henry IV, “so farre forth as the follies of the one, were either causes or furtherances of the fortunes of the other.”
At the very beginning of Richard's reign, Hayward reported, “flatterie brake in, and private respects did pass under publike pretences,”37 and he adorned the tale with a moral, noting that “it is oftentimes as daungerous to a Prince, to have evil and odious adherents, as to be evill and odious himselfe.” Accordingly, after Scrope had been deposed from the chancellorship, Richard named Michael de la Pole Chancellor of England and Robert Vere Marquess of Dublin, and Michael de la Pole “made open sale of his princes honour.”38 The Duke of Hereford in conversation with Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, charged that the king had no regard for the princes and peers but cared only for new-found favorites, and that as a result (1) the honor of the king's person was blemished, (2) the safety of the state was endangered, and (3) the dignity of the realm was impaired.39
The king, Hayward recorded, let out his revenues to farm, extracted great sums from his people, made new impositions, and borrowed from everyone, so that affairs were in sad contrast with affairs at the death of Henry II, who through good management had left £900,000, besides jewels and plate, at his death. And as for Ireland:
If any thing were happily atchieved by some of the nobility, it was by the Kings base hearted parasites, to whom millitary vertue was altogether unpleasant, so extinuated, or depraved, or envied, that it was seldome rewarded, so much as with countenance and thankes: yea sometimes it procured suspicion and danger; …
Those about the king told him
it was a perillous poynt, to have the name of a man of private estate, famous for the same in every mans mouth. Hereupon, few sought to rise by vertue and valure, the readier way was, to please the pleasant humour of the Prince. Likewise matters of peace, were managed by men of weakest sufficiency, by whose counsell either ignorant or corrupt, the destruction of the best harted nobility, was many times attempted, and at the last wrought.40
The people inevitably turned for help to someone, and they sought Henry, Duke of Herford,
not at his own motion or desire, but because he was generally esteemed meet: as being of the royall bloud, and next by descent from males to the succession of the crowne: one that had made honourable proofe of his vertues and valure: the onely man of note that remained alive, of those that before had stood in armes against the King, for the behoofe of the Common-wealth:…41
The messengers sent to the exiled duke included the Archbishop of Canterbury, then also in exile in France, and he it was who most eloquently pleaded the example of foreign and English precedents to convince the duke of the righteousness as well as the necessity of deposing the king. It was promised that no bodily harm should come to the king, but that the rebels would proceed only against his counsellors. The duke accepted the plea of necessity, and went about his affairs, Hayward records. When the duke returned to London, the people met him with great acclaim, casting slurs upon King Richard. Hayward adds:
Againe, the Duke for his part was not negligent to uncover the head to bowe the body, to stretch forth the hand to every meane person, and to use all other complements of popular behaviour wherewith the mindes of the common multitude are much delighted and drawen; taking that to bee courtesie, which the severer sort accompt abasement.42
When Richard tardily returned from Ireland on hearing the news of this threat to his throne, he landed at Milford Haven in Wales but, uncertain and unresolved, found himself exposed to various counsels. Among the arguments advanced that he should yield his crown without a struggle certain ones stand out: he had no children and hence would not by yielding his throne disinherit the rightful heir; a private life would be sweeter to him than that of a ruler, since the “crown and sceptar are things most weighty to weld,” and indeed, when he lost “the credit and the countenance of a King,” he would also lose its cares and sorrows, as philosophers and kings before him had perceived. The king might even gain fame for having relinquished his crown when it was best for his people that he do so, and no infamy could come to him when he relinquished it willingly. This was the line of argument to which Richard responded, deciding finally to yield his crown to his cousin. Thirty-one articles reciting the king's crimes are recorded by Hayward. The assent of the people being received, the deposition was formally voted by both houses of Parliament, and the resigning of the crown took place with the symbolically meaningful ceremony here recorded.
The Bishop of Carlisle alone dared to voice his opposition, and Hayward gives an entirely disproportionate account of his speech (nine pages of text). If it is remembered that Parsons in his Conference asked
first, whether Richard the second were justly deposed or no, and secondly whether after his deposition the house of Yorke or house of Lancaster should have entred,
it will be understood why Hayward makes Carlisle pose the questions,
First, whether King Richard be sufficiently deposed or no:
Secondly, whether King Henrie be with good judgment, or justice chosen in his place.
Hayward is answering Parsons also, it would seem, when Carlisle states that he is not speaking of a popular or of a consular state but of a state like the ancient empires or modern kingdoms, such as England, where the king is the source of whatever authority nobles and people may have, and is not elected by them (Parsons had said accepted). In answer to the first question he states what Hayward's readers must have recognized as the orthodox Tudor position, that even though the king do evil, God will not permit the people to rebel. If subjects may judge their prince, there will be cries of oppression every time taxes are levied; it will be called cruelty when any are put to death for traitorous attempts at regicide; anything against the lust and liking of the people will be called tyranny.
In answer to the second question, he said that if Henry sought the crown as heir, then he must wait for the death of the present king. If he claimed it by conquest, whoever heard of an insurrection by a subject called conquest by war? Nor can the king legally give away his throne, since he cannot legally give away even his jewels. History shows, the bishop continued, what terrible woes follow upon such wrongs as are proposed, for God surely punishes them. But the bishop was seized and imprisoned for his speech. Hayward proceeds with the story of the end of Richard II and the first troubled year of the reign of Henry IV with the authority of the chronicles.
Before I touch upon the fate of this book, it must be noted that in 1603 Hayward published An Answer to the First Part of a Certaine Conference, Concerning Succession, published not long since under the name of R. Dolman, and that in his dedication to King James he says:
I here present unto your Majestie this defence, both of the present authoritie of Princes, and of succession according to the proximitie of bloud: wherein is maintained, that the people have no lawfull power, to remove the one, or repell the other: In which two points I have heretofore also declared my opinion, by publishing the tragicall events which ensued the deposition of King Richard, and usurpation of King Henrie the fourth. Both these labours were undertaken with particular respect, to your Majesties just title of succession in this realme: …
In this defense of his earlier interest it would seem that Hayward was associating his account of the fall of Richard II and the rise of Henry IV with his somewhat belated answer to Parsons (or Doleman). In the prefatory address to Parsons in the later book he pours contempt on him for having in his Conference fed the humors of “such discontented persons, as wante or disgrace hath kept lower than they had set their swelling thoughts,” but acknowledges that he has kept silence partly because of “the nimble eare which lately was borne to the touche of this string.” Whether or not Hayward—or even Essex—in reality stood for the succession of King James by right of blood is not here in point, though I believe a good defense of this view can be made. And whether Hayward intended, through Henry IV, to teach the dangers of rebellion to Essex as he here implies, or to teach the reasons for rebellion to an erring queen, it is equally true that he used the recognized pattern in dealing with the problem of the deposition of a king.
Parsons’ dedication of the Conference to the Earl of Essex had brought that unhappy young man temporary alienation from the queen, but Hayward's dedication of his book on Henry IV was to have much more serious consequences. It will be remembered that when Essex made his tempestuous return from Ireland, against the queen's orders, in September of 1599, he was suspected and remitted to custody. On November 29, censure was pronounced on him in Star Chamber. In March he was allowed to return to his own house in charge of Sir Richard Berkeley. In June of 1600 he was tried before special commissioners, censured, and ordered to remain a prisoner in his house and not to execute any of his offices. Great stress was laid on Hayward's book during these proceedings as evidence of Essex's ambitions and intentions, and in July Hayward was summoned to court and examined. Two days later he was sent to the Tower of London. The printer Wolfe was also questioned and revealed that three weeks after the first printing of Hayward's book, the Archbishop of Canterbury had ordered the dedicatory epistle to Essex cut out. All later editions were burnt in the Bishop of London's house—to the financial grief of the printer, he complained. Hayward was again examined.
On August 26, Essex was released from custody at the queen's desire. He commenced to woo her favor once more, but when she found that his ultimate purpose in the wooing was to have restored to him the farm of sweet wines upon which his wealth depended, she seems to have been bitterly disillusioned. Essex's debts were large and pressing, and the renewal of the grant could save him, but Elizabeth gave her final refusal in October. It is pertinent to recall the advice which Bacon said he gave the queen when she was expressing her dissatisfaction with Essex's conduct in Ireland: “to discontent him as you do, and yet to put armes and power into his hands, may be a kind of temptation to make him prove cumbersome and unruly.”43 But Elizabeth continued to discontent him even while she gave him liberty to get into mischief. And he was a desperate man.
On Febuary 3, 1601, the leaders among the Essex malcontents met and planned an uprising. On February 6 several of those most involved, among them Sir Charles Percy and Sir Gilly Merrick, went to the Globe to arrange with Augustine Phillips for the Lord Chamberlain's company—Shakespeare's company—“to play the deposing and killing of Richard II.” The actors protested that this play was “so old and long out of use” that it would attract but a small audience, but the young lords insisted, and the play was presented on the afternoon of December 7, with the Essex faction in attendance. On February 8, Essex plunged into the rebellion for which he and his arch supporter, the Earl of Southampton, were brought to trial together on February 19. On February 25 Essex was executed. Only Mary of Scotland had played so theatrically a tragic role.
Ironically Essex, the favored of favorites, insisted that his purpose had been to get the ear of the queen and save her from the unworthy advisers who surrounded her—Cecil, Raleigh, Cobham, Howard, and Gray especially. He even accused Cecil of favoring the Spanish succession, though he later acknowledged his error, and Cecil swore his comment on the matter had been relative to Parsons’ Conference. To the last Essex insisted that he would not have shed the queen's blood.
The facts that Hayward's account of the deposing of Richard II and the usurpation of Henry IV was made a matter of prime consideration in determining Essex's fate, and that a play “of King Henry the Fourth, and of the killing of Richard the Second” was used by Essex's friends as a curtain-raiser to his rebellion have provided us with a clearly authenticated account of the Elizabethan recognition of history as a political mirror potentially dangerous. In the State Papers are to be found two and a half pages of notes and interrogatories by Attorney General Coke, dating from the time when Hayward was first questioned
in proof that the Doctor selected a story 200 years old, and published it last year, intending the application of it to this time, the plot being that of a King who is taxed for misgovernment, and his council for corrupt and covetous dealings for private ends; the King is censured for conferring benefits on hated favorites, the nobles become discontented, and the commons groan under continual taxation, whereupon the King is deposed, and in the end murdered.44
Bacon said that Queen Elizabeth was “mightily incensed” with the book, “thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the peoples heades boldnesse and faction.”45
Hayward was questioned on specific statements. To the query as to why he wrote in the preface that history affords “not onely precepts, but lively patternes, both for private directions and for affayres of state,” he replied that he was speaking of histories in general and not his book in particular. As to why he inserted the comment that Henry II left £900,000 in the treasury, he said a historiographer could insert any history of former times. The speech saying that the subject was bound to the state rather than the person of the king, he found in Bodius and inserted as spoken by the Earl of Derby and the Duke of Hereford, for “it is a liberty used by all good writers of history to invent reasons and speeches,” but he added that Bodius admitted that in a monarchy the subject was bound to the king.46 Oftentimes Hayward claimed older authority for suspected statements, but he admitted that he had never heard of benevolences in the time of Richard II, that the archbishop's oration with its eight instances proving that “deposers of kings and princes have had good success,” was without authority, though he insisted the introduction of such a speech was the prerogative of a historian. And besides, he added, the Bishop of Carlisle answered it. As to his description of the duke as “not negligent to uncover the head, bow the body,” etc., he was within his rights as historian in particularizing a general statement for which he had authority. His examination is interesting because the questions reveal the points that were barbed, and Hayward's answers show a canny defensive use of the accepted theory of historiography.47
In the 1601 trial of Essex these matters were again threshed out. Cecil accused the earl of having for five or six years plotted to become king and affirmed that the proof of his intentions was in “the book written on Henry IV., making this time like that of Richard II., to be reframed by him as by Henry IV.” The trial also elicited evidence concerning the playing of the play about Richard II on the eve of the rebellion. In this connection, it should be noted that there is one curious and unexplained reference in the testimony offered in the 1600 trial to Essex's having been often present “at the playing of” Hayward's book, and “with great applause giving countenance to it.” The relation of Hayward's book and “the playing thereof,” to Shakespeare's Richard II is not settled, but Chambers, like Miss Albright and others, would identify the play chosen by Essex's followers as Shakespeare's. At any rate, members of the Chamberlain's company were arraigned and questioned, though Shakespeare was apparently not involved and none of the actors was punished.48
There are several glancing references to Richard II and Henry IV in the records of the time to show that both before and after the Essex incident the history of that time was made to furnish allusions for the gentlemen of Elizabeth's court, but the crowning recognition of the historical parallel came from Elizabeth herself. On August 4, 1601, William Lambarde “presented her Majestie with his Pandecta of all her rolls, bundells, membranes, and parcells that be reposed in her Majestie's Tower at London,” so goes the story, and as she turned over the pages, “her Majestie fell upon the reign of King Richard II, saying, ‘I am Richard II, know ye not that?’” And when Lambarde replied with a reference to Essex, the queen added, “He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors; this tragedy was played 40 times in open streets and houses.”49
It is surely not necessary to go on proving that through the greater part of Elizabeth's reign she was being compared to Richard II, that malcontents were using the reign of Richard to point the moral, and that the problem of the deposition of a king was regularly discussed in terms of Richard II. The queen's own statement, the controversial literature of the period, and the interrogatories and depositions at the Essex trials make these conclusions unimpeachable. But there were also several dramas dealing with the times of Richard II concerning the significance of which we have only the internal evidence offered in their texts.
Three of these plays have survived. The first is The Life and Death of Jacke Straw, first published in 1593, which deals with the problem of rebellion. The second is a play, called by its Malone Society editors Richard II: Or Thomas of Woodstock,50 which has come down to us only in Egerton MS 1994, where the title page is missing. It is generally assigned to a year between 1590 and 1595. It is a witty play in spite of its tragic close, portraying the struggle for power between Richard II's giddy favorites and his three good uncles, the dukes of York, Lancaster, and Gloucester—Richard's true counsellors. The favorites win, and the king leases them the lands and revenues of his kingdom, so that he becomes landlord rather than king of England. Fearing that the commons in their resentment will appeal to Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the favorites plot his capture and death. The king even goes with them when as maskers they seize the duke. They take him to Calais, and too late the king tries to revoke the order for his death. At the urging of the Duchess of Gloucester his brothers seek revenge. Of the favorites Greene is killed, Bagot is forced to flee, and Bushy, Scrope, and Lapoole are taken prisoners with the king.51 The third of the surviving plays is Shakespeare's Richard II.
Besides these plays there is a play to be inferred from the reference to Essex's having been present at the playing of Hayward's book. There is the play presented on the eve of the Essex uprising. There is the play which Queen Elizabeth said had been “played 40 times in open streets and houses.” And Dr. Simon Forman recorded one at the Globe April 30, 1611. Any or all of these may have been Shakespeare's, but opinion on the subject can be only arbitrary.
Now three quartos of Shakespeare's Richard II appeared in 1597 (1) and 1598 (2) without the scene in which Richard yields his sceptre and his crown to Bolingbroke. In 1608 the scene was restored to the play, and in some of the surviving copies there is a cancel title page which points out this fact, for it reads:
The Tragedie of King Richard the Second: With new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard, As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Majesties servantes, at the Globe.
Chambers and others have argued conclusively that this scene must have been cut out of the original play, rather than added in the 1608 edition, because the Abbot's subsequent comment, “A woeful Pageant have we here beheld,” is without meaning when the scene and its woeful pageant are deleted. Miss Albright listed many likenesses between Hayward's book and Shakespeare's play and between the character and actions of Henry IV in the play and the Earl of Essex in real life. Even Chambers, as great a skeptic as scholar, suggested that
the interest taken by Essex in the play led to some popular application of the theme to current politics, and this in turn to the intervention of the censor, perhaps at the theatre, but more probably when the play came to be printed.52
But, as I have shown, “popular application of the theme to current politics” was far from depending on Essex's interest in the play; it had been habitual for many years.
One thing seems to me certain, that a play about Richard II published in 1597 and probably, according to Chambers, written in 1595 or earlier, could not have been written apropos of Essex's actions between 1599 and 1601. Even though the earl was plotting to become king as early as was asserted at the time of the trial, it is hard to see how Shakespeare could have anticipated his claims, his arguments, and his actions in detail. Furthermore, just as Elizabeth was not the only ruler who was warned about favoritism by reference to Richard II, Essex was not the only aspirant for the English throne who might be taught the dangers of usurpation. He was not the outstanding claimant at all; that was James of Scotland. Moreover, James at intervals was laying claim to the English lands of the Earl and Countess of Lennox, his father's parents. No alien could inherit English land; if James could possess himself of this inheritance, it might help in claiming the crown. His insistence on gaining his inheritance might well have been compared to the demand of Bolingbroke. Also he seems to have wanted, and after the death of his mother to have been offered the title of Duke of Lancastdr, Bolingbroke's title. Finally, his desire to be declared heir and his willingness to anticipate his inheritance are amply documented. Miss Stafford has published the arguments he drew up in 1592 for and against invading England.53 Until Elizabeth's death he never stopped demanding recognition and playing with the idea of using force. There was certainly some sort of connection between Essex and James, and James was invited to co-operate after Essex's first trial. He had a strong force on the border when Essex was planning his rebellion. As Neale says, “possibly an accident, possibly not.” Essex pretended to be loyal to James. Perhaps he was. It is possible that he planned to be, like Northumberland, the ladder whereby James should mount the throne. It is a matter that is not likely to be decided. But that James's waiting was impatient no one has cared to deny. If, therefore, Shakespeare was writing about any single individual, which I do not think he was, it might better have been James than Essex, James who was not Elizabeth's heir but only her father's sister's grandson—to misquote Richard II.
However, Shakespeare's intentions can only be discussed after consideration of his play, which, as I have said earlier, opens exactly where Halle began his introduction into the troubles of the houses of Lancaster and York, with the quarrel between Boling-broke and Mowbray. It is a proper scene to introduce a play of kingship, for, to the sixteenth century, above all else a king was an administrator of justice, acting as God's deputy. And it is as God's justicer that Richard first appears. Shakespeare has given us the measuring rod of Richard's own conception of his office by which to judge how far short he falls of his ideals. The charges and counter-charges which are hurled between the two dukes are very like those heard more than once at Elizabeth's court, but they derived from Holinshed. And Richard has opportunity to proclaim his justice as he assures Mowbray of his right to defend himself against the slanders of the king's cousin:
Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
As he is but my father's brother's son,
Now, by my sceptre's awe, I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
When each has thrown down his gage and taken up that of the other, Richard, unable to reconcile them, speaks to them both:
We were not born to sue, but to command;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Since we can not atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor's chivalry.
But before justice speaks again, a scene intervenes which poses the problem fundamental in the deposing of a king: May a subject give sentence on his king? Must he suffer under an unjust king without recourse? The second scene of the play intrudes this question with the pleading of the Duchess of Gloucester to John of Gaunt to seek vengeance for the death of her husband and his brother. To her Gaunt lays down the accepted Tudor philosophy of kingship, which his son is later to deny in becoming Henry IV:
But since correction lieth in those hands
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.
The duchess pleads the shedding of the sacred royal blood, taunts him with cowardice and despair, warns him of the threat to his own life, but Gaunt persists:
God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
His deputy anointed in His sight,
Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against His minister.
To the duchess's impassioned query, “Where then, alas, may I complain myself?” he replies again, “To God, the widow's champion and defence.”
Yet in the first scene of the second act Gaunt does not fail to chide the king for having spilled the royal blood:
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain, well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befal in heaven ’mongst happy souls!
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:…
Thus in spite of his hatred for Richard's sin, Gaunt refuses to yield to the pleas of the duchess. That “God's is the quarrel” when God's deputy sins, and that to him alone belongs vengeance was the orthodox Tudor position, but it was not that taken by the historical Gaunt. Holinshed says only that after various proposals for revenging their brother's death the dukes of York and Lancaster “(after their displeasure was somewhat asswaged) determined to cover the stings of their griefs for a time, and, if the king would amend his maners, to forget also the injuries past.” The other play of Richard II: Or Thomas of Woodstock presented the uncles of the king actually taking their vengeance. This interpretation is a Shakespeare addition.
In the minds of many Elizabethans the blood of Mary Stuart cried from the ground against Elizabeth as did that of Thomas of Woodstock against Richard II, and Samuel Daniel took occasion to moralize in general terms upon Gloucester's death:
And this is sure though his offence be such,
Yet doth calamine attract commorse,
And men repine at Princes bloudshed much
How just-soever judging tis by force:
I know not how their death gives such a tuch
In those that reach not to a true discourse:
That so shall you observing formall right
Be still thought as unjust and win more spight.54
But to any who would avenge the royal blood spilled by the king, Shakespeare has Gaunt give the answer that every loyal subject of Elizabeth gave to those who would avenge the death of Alary, “God's is the quarrel.”
After this scene, which does not further the action, and which can have been introduced only to restate the Tudor theory of kingship, we return to Richard as the agent of justice in the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray. After the pageantry is over and each combatant has proclaimed himself and his cause, just as the marshal commands the trumpets to sound and the combat to begin, Richard throws his warder down and orders the dukes to their chairs. Then he pronounces sentence of banishment on both, lest their quarrel
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;…
Mowbray's exile is unlimited, but even the ten years’ term fixed for Bolingbroke is abated to six for his father's sake. And when that father, nearing death, is not grateful, Richard returns to his role of defender of justice as he addresses him:
Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?
But however well he has played his role in meting out justice and mercy, Richard soon demonstrates that he cannot play it long, for the fourth scene shows him gloating in most injudicious fashion as, surrounded by his parasites, he confides to his cousin Aumerle:
He is our cousin, cousin; but ‘tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
And then he reveals his hidden reason for Bolingbroke's banishment:
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green
Observed his courtship to the common people;
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.
It is a passage even more imaginatively detailed than that which elicited special questioning in Hayward's book, and as Miss Albright has shown, it is a description that might well have applied to the Earl of Essex, famous for his courtesy and in love with the power which popularity brought. There is no one whom it seems to fit so well, and it would have fitted the earl in the earlier nineties as well as in the later years. But whatever the current application of the description, in Richard's mouth it reveals jealousy masking as justice, and trickery as mercy.
Before he goes to his Irish wars Richard must finance them, and he does so by planning to “farm our royal realm,” to issue blank charters for the rich, and finally to seize the possessions of old Gaunt, who is reported as dying opportunely.
In a remarkable theatrical victory over time Bolingbroke seems to have gone to France, arranged a marriage, been thwarted through the intervention of Richard, and gathered forces to return to England to demand his rights during the brief period in which Richard goes to Ely House to visit his uncle. From his death-bed there we hear Gaunt make his great poetical oration upon “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,” which he now sees leased out and shamed:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
It is the most eloquent of the patriotic speeches in the history plays and familiar now to many who know nothing else in them, but Richard does not hear it. When he enters Gaunt's presence, he is met with a punning speech on Gaunt's name and then with a bitter denunciation of his sins. He has let flattery rule, he has spilled the royal blood, he has leased out his land, and he is deposing himself:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess’d,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Landlord of England art thou now, not King: …
These are the sins that, throughout the play, are balanced against Richard's right as king to be accountable only to God.
Peter Wentworth in his famous speech of 1576, which he was not allowed to conclude to the House of Commons, and which brought him to residence in the Tower of London, offered a prayer on Elizabeth's behalf which is in point here:
And I beseech the same God to endue her majesty with his wisdom, whereby she may discern faithful advice from traitorous sugared speeches, and to send her majesty a melting, yielding heart unto sound counsel, that will may not stand for a reason: and then her majesty will stand when her enemies are fallen, for no estate can stand where the prince will not be governed by advice.55
From the beginning of her reign the charge most often brought against Elizabeth, as we have seen, was that she was swayed by favorites. But like Gaunt and York and Gloucester, “plain, well-meaning soul,” who thought themselves true advisers and branded any whom the king preferred as favorites, all those to whom Elizabeth would not listen denounced those to whom they thought she was listening too much. Leicester, the accused of all accusers, thought himself in danger from the false reports that were whispered in the queen's ear by those whom she unjustly favored. Essex, the most spoiled young man at court, directed his rebellion, he said, only to rescuing the queen from such men as Raleigh and Cobham whom she was favoring.
As to the second charge, Elizabeth too was censured for spilling the royal blood in permitting Mary Stuart to die, and there were many who thought she pointed the way to her own destruction thereby, as I have shown in the discussion of King John. Daniel had dared to make the application of the lesson to be learned from Gloucester's death general and pointed.
The third charge as well was made against Elizabeth, that she leased out her kingdom. Such favorites as Leicester and Essex became rich through her grants of lands and special privileges, the farm of sweet wines to Essex, for instance. Aiding the French and the Dutch, fighting in Ireland, arming against the Spaniards cost Elizabeth much treasure. Neale says:
In the four years from 1589–93 she spent about £300,000 in aid of Henry IV. Adding the cost of her forces in the Netherlands for the same time, this meant an expenditure on warfare of at least £800,000, apart from the Irish wars and naval expenditures. In a single one of these years she was compelled to sell crown lands to the value of over £120,000.56
It will be remembered that Coke's summing up of charges directed at Elizabeth's reign by Hayward when he was concerned with that of Richard II, noted:
the King is censured for conferring benefits on hated favourites, the nobles become discontented, and the commons groan under continual taxation whereupon the King is deposed, and in the end murdered.
These are the three sins which represent the antecedent action of the play of Richard II; they are the sins which posed the question repeatedly asked, whether Richard II were justly deposed or no. But they are also the sins which were brought up time after time when the fate of Richard II was pointed out to Elizabeth as a warning. The question as to whether Richard II deserved to be deposed might have remained an academic question, however, had he not in his folly committed a new sin, which brought about his destruction. Gaunt's admonitions stilled by death, the brash young king thinks of his Irish wars:
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
The action precipitates the wrath of the mild Duke of York, and he prophesies:
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
Ironically Richard creates York lord governor while he is at the wars but disdains his advice.
Then we see the gathering of the forces who are to oppose the king, Northumberland first among them. And we hear the charges reiterated. From Northumberland:
The king is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; …
From Ross:
The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.
From Willoughby:
And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what: …
So speaking, Willoughby introduces the word benevolences, which in the trial of Essex was taken to indicate that the times of Elizabeth rather than those of Richard II were in question. But all these charges have been called forth anew by word that Bolingbroke has been “Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.” In his fate they see the fate of all. Then Northumberland has news, news of the approach of the banished duke “with eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,” and many supporters. Thus we hear the first word of the rebellion, which, as always, seems undertaken for righteousness’ sake:
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; …
The news of the rebellion is brought to the queen and Bushy; York enters with word that the nobles have fled, and that the commons are cold and may revolt to Bolingbroke; a servant reports the death of the Duchess of Gloucester: “a tide of woes” York says. Then he faces his problem:
Both are my kinsmen:
Th’ one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
And duty bids defend; th’ other again
Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wrong'd,
Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
But it is a problem which he never solves except by scolding his recalcitrant nephew in the next scene as he comes to the assembly of Bolingbroke's supporters, who are greeting him as he lands. His nephew pleads:
I am a subject,
And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
And York replies with sound doctrine:
To find out right with wrong, it may not be;
And you that do abet him in this kind
Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.
Against the defiance of all those gathered about the new Duke of Lancaster, he cannot or will not fight, and he offers them refuge for the night. To Bolingbroke's invitation to go to settle matters with Richard's favorites, “The caterpillars of the commonwealth,” he makes uncertain reply, for
Things past redress are now with me past care.
Act III of the play depicts the progress of the rebellion to victory over the king. It begins with Bolingbroke's passing sentence of death upon Bushy and Green because they have “misled a prince, a royal king,” separating him from his queen, making him misinterpret his cousin, and taking as their own the possessions of the banished man. It should be noted that Henry is already in this scene assuming the role of God's deputy in administering justice.
Henry's strong determination in executing his judgments is, however, made the background for the appearance of Richard as he greets his kingdom once more, saluting its soil with his royal hand, sure that the very earth will repel rebellion. The French Acadeime said of a king:
For as God hath placed the Sun in the heavens as an image of his divine nature, which lightneth, heateth, quickneth, and nourisheth al things created for mans use, either in heaven or earth: so the soveraign magistrate is the like representation and light in a city or kingdom, especially so long as the feare of God, and observation of justice are imprinted in his heart.57
This is the image which Richard sees as he describes the rebellion of Bolingbroke while he was away at the Irish wars:
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
He continues to the most important pronouncement of the divine right of kingship:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord: …
But he fails to heed the admonition of the Bishop of Carlisle:
Fear not, my lord: that Power that made you king
Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
The means that heaven yields must be embraced,
And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
The proffer'd means of succour and redress.
At times he rouses himself to remind himself that a king goes forth like a lion, strong in his right and in his might:
I had forgot myself: am I not king?
Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
Is not the king's name twenty thousand names?
York sorrows over him:
Yet looks he like a king: behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
Controlling majesty; alack, alack, for woe,
That any harm should stain so fair a show!
It is Richard, however, who first mentions deposition, seeming to wish to taste to the full his cup of woe:
What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? a’ God's name, let it go:
and later, as Henry protests he comes but for his own, it is Richard who says:
What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;
For do we must what force will have us do.
The short fourth act portrays the deposition of Richard. Briefly we glimpse Bolingbroke enacting the part of God's deputy again as he adjudicates the quarrel between his cousin Aumerle and Bagot over responsibility for the death of Thomas of Woodstock in a scene clearly intended to act as a foil to the first scene of the play, in which Richard presides over the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray. Henry too serves justice by permitting Bagot to speak freely in accusing the king's cousin, Aumerle, but he determines to postpone his decision
Till Norfolk he repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be,
And, though mine enemy, restored again
To all his lands and signories: …
The news of Norfolk's death makes such a test of his justice unnecessary, but he has made the gesture which sets him in contrast with Richard.
The deposition scene which follows recalls all the arguments which have been recited in the preceding pages. At the outset of the play Richard gave Mowbray liberty to speak of Bolingbroke
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
As he is but my father's brother's son,
but now York reports to Bolingbroke that Richard
Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
To the possession of thy royal hand: …
Hayward has the Bishop of Carlisle argue that an heir must wait for the death of his predecessor before he can assume the crown, and also that the king cannot legally give away his crown.58 Shakespeare omits the first of these arguments, seeming to assume that Bolingbroke has become Henry IV by conquest, though as I have said, Bolingbroke nowhere in the play has demanded the crown or refused to bow the knee to his king. But now before the king has been deposed he cries,
In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne,
only to be roughly told by the Bishop of Carlisle that if he ascends the regal throne it cannot be in God's name. Then “Stirr'd up by God,” the bishop speaks on the old questions: first, whether Richard was justly deposed, and second, whether Henry should have succeeded him. To the first question Carlisle answers
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
Thieves are not judged but they are by to hear,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And shall the figure of God's majesty,
His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present?
It is the answer which was first enunciated by Gaunt:
God's is the quarrel;. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . for I may never lift
An angry arm against His minister.
It is the answer implicit in Richard's exclamation:
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God as well as us:
it is the answer best given by Richard in the statement already quoted:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord: …
In Holinshed, Carlisle is reported as concerned only with the injustice of passing judgment on a king in his absence. Shakespeare adds the all-important question as it was shaped in Tudor times:
What subject can give sentence on his king?
And it is answered repeatedly in his play in passages which are not authorized in the chronicle.
The answer to the second question, as to whether Henry should succeed the deposed Richard, follows inevitably, and Carlisle says:
My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king:
he then proceeds to pronounce the warning which is to find its fulfillment in the long years ahead, until the wheel has come full circle and Henry's son's son meets the fate his grandfather imposed upon Richard. It is to the rebels chiefly that Carlisle speaks:
And if you crown him, let me prophesy;
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act;
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O, if you raise this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
Lest child, child's children, cry against you “Woe!”
But again Carlisle was repeating what Richard had already proclaimed:
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And he too had prophesied:
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence: and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head,
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke—for yond methinks he stands—
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason: he is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation, and bedew
Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.
Yet at the crucial moment Richard yields his crown, his sceptre, his possessions, the allegiance of his subjects, and hails his successor:
Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!
God save King Harry, unking'd Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days.
It is only after the deposition that Shakespeare has Northumberland demand that Richard read a confession of his sins that will justify that deposition. (Holinshed had him acknowledge his sins and resign his throne before Henry proclaimed himself and was crowned.) When that demand is made, Richard turns upon the earl, suggesting that were the lord to read over his own sins, he would find the deposing of a king “Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.” And to all the Pilates standing by washing their hands of him he warns that water cannot wash away their sin. But he sees himself a traitor with the rest, untrue to the king. Even the king cannot unmake an anointed king, he seems to say.
With Richard calling for a looking-glass, he repeats the theme of his disillusion:
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity,
Thou dost beguile me!
At the close of Act IV what Halle calls “the unquiet time of Henry IV” has commenced. The introduction is over, and the wheel is beginning to turn.
Act V portrays the end of Richard's tragedy with his murder, but it also shows us the inception of all the ills that are to beset Henry IV and make his time the pattern of an unquiet reign. We first see Richard saying farewell to his queen. So dispirited is he that she chides him:
hath Bolingbroke deposed
Thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpowr’d; …
But as Northumberland comes to take him to Pomfret and to order the queen to France, Richard turns upon him:
Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;
And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er so little urged, another way
To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
What Richard here prophesies is, of course, the subject of Shakespeare's Henry IV, and is the first foreshadowing of the punishment that God will bestow upon the usurper.
We find that the unquietness of the reign has already begun as Aumerle is revealed a participant in the plot of the maskers against the new king. Henry's way with the rest of the dissenters is extremely short, but he here seizes his chance to show mercy to his cousin for the mother's sake. Next we hear of his worry over his “unthrifty son,” the “young wanton and effeminate boy,” whose precocious sins foretell the second of Henry's troubles to come. Finally we discover that the kingdom of his mind is as unquiet as is the kingdom about him. Richard alive is the threat that gnaws his mind with fear. “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?” he asks and is answered by Sir Pierce of Exton, a friend like those who served Richard, a flattering friend who desires to please the king rather than to advise him unacceptably.
As Shakespeare presents the murder of Richard, we are reminded of the words of his queen,
The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpowr’d; …
Kingly in his last desperate struggle, he compels his murderer to admiration and to swift regret. Exton is at once aware of his mortal sin:
As full of valour as of royal blood:
Both have I spill'd; O would the deed were good!
For now the devil, that told me I did well,
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
In the midst of another session of justice, when the king is receiving news of the executions of rebels and evil doers which he has commanded, and is mingling mercy with justice in his sentence upon Carlisle, Exton enters with bearers carrying the coffin of the murdered Richard. What follows his offering of his buried fear to Henry IV is a repetition of the scene between King John and Hubert after the supposed death of Arthur. Exton's reward is the harsh speech of the king:
They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
and then:
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand: …
Beset by rebellion, worried over the deeds of his son and heir, conscience-stricken so that he must needs expiate his sin, Henry IV may rule with justice and mercy, but he is unable to exult in the throne he has usurped. He has taken upon himself the quarrel that was God's, as his father would not do. Neither he nor his heirs is ever able to wash away the blood of Richard that sprinkled him to make him grow.
In his play of Richard II Shakespeare thus offered the follies of Richard II only as a background for the presentation of the problem that was so often discussed during Elizabeth's reign, the problem of the deposition of a king. That problem received its most disturbing treatment in Parsons’ Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowone of Ingland, published in 1594, and Parsons was concerned to justify the deposition of Richard II and the accession of Henry IV. It seemed dangerous to Elizabeth's friends and the supporters of her government because it was sent forth in a time of discontent, when charges were being bandied about that were reminiscent of those presented as charges against Richard II. About this time Shakespeare wrote a play of Richard II which showed the deposition and murder of the king. It seems to me most natural that he should do so, for the question was uppermost in men's minds. In the play Shakespeare reiterated the charges against Richard that had been so often laid at Queen Elizabeth's door. He adjudged Richard guilty of sinful folly, but Gaunt and Richard himself and Carlisle, all the sympathetic characters, insist that “God's is the quarrel,” that a subject may not give sentence on his king. Furthermore, the picture of Henry IV at the end of the play as a king whose soul is full of woe is scarcely conducive to the encouragement of would-be usurpers.
Yet the fact remains that a play on the same subject, probably Shakespeare's, was played on the eve of Essex's rebellion at the request of the conspirators. Perhaps the young Percies and their friends only recognized that there was a deposition in it, proving that such things could be. But it is also true that a book of Hay-ward's which told the same story was under suspicion at the same time, though the author later said he wrote it always with the interest of the true heir, King James, in mind. I do not know the answer to the riddle, though it is quite clear that Elizabeth's enemies compared her to Richard II, and that Essex's enemies compared him to Henry IV.
What seems to me more important than personalities that mayor may not be involved is that Shakespeare here set forth a political problem that was engaging the interest of the nation, and that he set it forth fairly. He did not ask whether a good king might be deposed, but whether a king might be deposed for any cause. He used Richard II as the accepted pattern of a deposed king, but he used his pattern to set forth the political ethics of the Tudors in regard to the rights and duties of a king. It might equally well have served as a warning to Elizabeth and to any who desired to usurp her throne. The way of the transgressing king was shown to be hard, but no happiness was promised to the one who tried to execute God's vengeance or to depose the deputy elected by the Lord.