Richard II is a five-act history play by the English dramatist William Shakespeare. Its full title is The Life and Death of King Richard II. It was probably written in 1595 and belongs to the second period of Shakespeare’s development as a playwright. It was first published in 1597.
Richard II is one of a series of plays Shakespeare wrote that deal with English history. One of its scenes, left out of its first versions but included later, contains a controversial discussion about the deposing of a monarch. The day before the Earl of Essex led a revolt against Queen Elizabeth I in 1601, his supporters paid for a performance of a play about Richard II, and many scholars believe that the play in question was Shakespeare’s. It draws mostly on the Chronicles (1577, revised 1587) of the English historian Raphael Holinshed. It is set in England during the late 1300’s.
As the play begins, King Richard II settles a dispute between his cousin Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, by exiling them both from England. After the death of Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Richard seizes the old duke’s property. Bolingbroke returns to England while Richard is away. Richard returns to find that Bolingbroke is leading a force of nobles who are discontented with Richard’s rule. Instead of preparing the royal army to fight Bolingbroke, Richard wastes his time in outbursts of self-pity. He finally gives up his crown to Bolingbroke without a fight. The first part of the play ends with a discussion of the possibility that the monarch will be deposed.
Loading the player...Richard II by William Shakespeare
Brought back to London, a humiliated Richard yields his crown to Bolingbroke, who then orders that Richard be put in prison. After Bolingbroke is crowned Henry IV, the play deals with an unsuccessful plot to assassinate him. The imprisoned Richard is murdered by Sir Pierce of Exton, one of Henry’s knights, who mistakenly believed that the new king wanted Richard assassinated. At the end of the play, Henry vows to make a journey to the Holy Land to pay for Richard’s death.
In Richard II, Shakespeare seriously explored for the first time the idea that a person’s character determines his fate. Richard, a weak, self-centered man, becomes so out of touch with reality that his only defense of his kingdom is the hope that his
“master, God omnipotent, Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf Armies of pestilence.”
When he faces the certain loss of his crown, Richard can only compare himself to Christ, who
“in twelve, Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand none.”
Richard II, like King John and Henry VI, Part I, is written entirely in verse. It contains some of Shakespeare’s finest poetry. Outstanding is John of Gaunt’s great patriotic speech describing England as:
This royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars This other Eden, demi-paradise…
