Richard II

Summary

Richard II dramatizes the last two years of the reign of Richard of Bordeaux (1398–1400): a lawful, anointed king who governs badly loses his crown to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, and in losing it finds a voice of extraordinary inward eloquence. The play is written entirely in verse, and much of its action is ceremony: a formal accusation, a tournament stopped at the moment of combat, a deathbed counsel, a surrender on the walls of a castle, an abdication staged before Parliament. The opening quarrel already hides a crime. Bolingbroke accuses Thomas Mowbray of plotting the death of the Duke of Gloucester, the king's uncle, but the audience soon learns from the widowed Duchess of Gloucester and from John of Gaunt that Richard himself was behind the murder. At Coventry Richard halts the trial by combat and banishes both men, Mowbray for life and Bolingbroke for six years. He then farms out the realm's revenues to pay for war in Ireland, and when old Gaunt dies after rebuking him for wasting England, Richard seizes the Lancastrian estates that should pass to the banished Bolingbroke. The Duke of York warns him that by breaking the law of inheritance he cuts away the ground of his own title. While Richard is in Ireland, Bolingbroke lands at Ravenspurgh claiming only his inheritance. Nobles led by Northumberland join him, York declares himself neutral, and the king's favourites Bushy and Green are executed. Returning to Wales, Richard swings between confidence that heaven will defend its anointed and despair, sitting on the ground to tell sad stories of the death of kings. At Flint Castle he yields before he is asked. In a garden at Langley a gardener explains to his servants, and to the overhearing Queen, that the king failed to prune his commonwealth. In Westminster Hall the Bishop of Carlisle protests that no subject may judge his king and prophesies civil war; Richard hands over the crown, calls for a mirror and shatters it. He is parted from his Queen and sent to Pomfret Castle. A conspiracy against the new king is uncovered when York discovers his son Aumerle's involvement and demands his punishment, while the Duchess of York begs for pardon and receives it. In prison Richard reasons through his own unkinging, hears music, and is murdered by Sir Pierce of Exton, who believes he is fulfilling Henry's wish. The new king disowns the deed and vows a voyage to the Holy Land to wash away the blood. Read historically, the play stages a hard Elizabethan question without settling it: whether a bad but lawful king may be removed, and what the removal costs.

Plot or Argument

• Act 1: Accusation, the lists at Coventry, and two banishments

  Bolingbroke and Mowbray accuse each other of treason before Richard; Mowbray's charge concerns the murder of Gloucester, which Gaunt privately tells the Duchess of Gloucester was the king's doing and must be left to God (1.2). At Coventry Richard throws down his warder as the combat begins, banishes Mowbray for life and Bolingbroke for ten years, reduced to six at Gaunt's grief (1.3). Among his favourites Richard mocks Bolingbroke's courting of the common people and hears that Gaunt is dying (1.4).

• Act 2: Gaunt's death, the seizure, and Bolingbroke's return

  Gaunt praises England and condemns its leasing-out; Richard seizes his goods after his death, over York's protest, and leaves for Ireland with York as governor (2.1). The Queen feels a grief she cannot name; news comes that Bolingbroke has landed (2.2). Bolingbroke gathers Northumberland and Percy and tells York he comes only for Lancaster; York, unable to resist, remains neutral (2.3). A Welsh captain disperses his troops, believing the king dead (2.4).

• Act 3: Landing in Wales, Flint Castle, and the garden

  Bolingbroke condemns Bushy and Green (3.1). Richard lands, invokes the sacred balm, and collapses under successive reports of desertion (3.2). At Flint he descends to the base court and submits (3.3). At Langley the Gardener reads the realm as a neglected garden while the Queen listens and curses his news (3.4).

• Act 4: Westminster Hall and the abdication

  Bagot's charges against Aumerle produce a storm of thrown gages. Carlisle protests that subjects cannot judge the Lord's anointed and prophesies that English blood will manure the ground; he is arrested for treason. Richard enters, resigns the crown in a ritual of undoing, refuses to read the list of his crimes, breaks the looking-glass, and is conveyed to the Tower. The Abbot of Westminster, Carlisle and Aumerle plan a plot (4.1).

• Act 5: Parting, pardon, Pomfret, and the new king's guilt

  Richard and his Queen part in the street; Northumberland orders him to Pomfret (5.1). York describes Bolingbroke's triumphal entry and Richard's humiliation, then discovers Aumerle's part in the conspiracy (5.2). York demands his son's punishment while the Duchess wins Henry's pardon (5.3). Exton takes Henry's words as a commission (5.4). Richard's prison soliloquy, the visit of a groom, and his murder (5.5). Henry receives the coffin, banishes Exton, and vows a pilgrimage (5.6).

Characters

• King Richard II, King of England

  Lawful, anointed and gifted with words; extravagant, swayed by favourites, and implicated in Gloucester's death. Loss of power drives him into searching self-examination, though readers disagree whether it ends in self-knowledge or refined self-pity.

• Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, later King Henry IV

  Gaunt's son, banished and disinherited. Spare in speech, patient and popular; he claims only his inheritance and ends with the crown and a murdered predecessor on his conscience.

• John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Richard's uncle

  Refuses to take revenge against God's deputy, yet uses his deathbed to tell Richard the truth about his misrule; speaker of the play's famous praise of England.

• Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, Richard's uncle, Lord Governor in his absence

  Loyal to order rather than to persons; warns Richard against breaking inheritance, stands neutral when Bolingbroke comes, then serves the new king so strictly that he would see his own son condemned.

• Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk

  Accused of Gloucester's death; banished for life. His lament for losing his English tongue anticipates Richard's own losses.

• The Queen, Richard's wife

  Isabel of Valois, historically a child at the time, is made an adult wife whose premonitory grief and garden lament give the fall its private cost.

• Duchess of Gloucester, widow of Thomas of Woodstock

  Urges Gaunt to avenge her husband and so states the case for resistance that Gaunt refuses.

• Duke of Aumerle, York's son, Richard's supporter

  Stays with Richard through the Welsh landing, joins the conspiracy against Henry, and is pardoned at his mother's plea.

• Duchess of York, Aumerle's mother

  Kneels against her husband's demand for justice and wins mercy for her son in a scene that mixes urgency with near-comedy.

• Earl of Northumberland, Bolingbroke's chief ally

  Brusque agent of the transfer of power; Richard predicts that the ladder by which Bolingbroke climbed will one day be turned against him.

• Bishop of Carlisle, churchman loyal to Richard

  Speaks against judging the anointed king and prophesies civil war; spared by Henry for his evident honour.

• Bushy, Bagot and Green, the king's favourites

  Called the caterpillars of the commonwealth; Bushy and Green are executed at Bristol, while Bagot later accuses Aumerle.

• The Gardener, servant at Langley

  A commoner who analyses the kingdom's ruin through the work of pruning and weeding, and who plants rue where the Queen wept.

• Sir Pierce of Exton, Richard's murderer

  Acts on Henry's overheard wish, kills Richard at Pomfret, and is disowned and banished.

Lessons

• The anointed king and the limits of obedience

  Gaunt and Carlisle hold that God's deputy may be judged only by God, while the play shows Richard plainly guilty of murder, extortion and the theft of an inheritance. York adds a third view: by violating Bolingbroke's right of succession, Richard undermines the very principle that makes him king. Shakespeare gives each argument its full weight and lets consequences, not a narrator, test them.

  • Gaunt refuses to avenge Gloucester and leaves the quarrel to heaven. Is that patience, piety or a failure of justice?
  • York warns Richard that seizing Hereford's rights takes away the basis of his own title. Why is this the strongest argument against Richard in the play?
  • Carlisle's prophecy points ahead to the Wars of the Roses. Does the play suggest the deposition was wrong, necessary, or both?

• Eloquence is not the same as rule

  Richard speaks the play's most beautiful poetry, while Bolingbroke says little and acts steadily. Richard's images of sun, balm and angels tend to replace action rather than direct it, and his finest lines come when there is nothing left to do. The play asks students to admire his language and also to notice what it costs a kingdom when a ruler prefers performance to governance.

  • Compare Richard's speech on landing in Wales with his response to the news of each desertion. Where does his language outrun reality?
  • Why might Bolingbroke's silence in the deposition scene be more powerful than any speech he could make?
  • Is Richard's gift for words a virtue misused or a weakness in itself?

• Learning to grieve in the mirror and the cell

  Stripped of office, Richard turns inward. In the mirror scene he discovers that grief lies within, beyond outward show; at Pomfret he concedes that he wasted time and is now wasted by it. Whether this is repentance, self-knowledge or exquisite self-pity is a fair question for seminar, and the text supports more than one answer.

  • What does Richard learn when he breaks the glass, and what does Bolingbroke's correction about shadows add?
  • In the prison soliloquy Richard plays many people and none is contented. Is he closer to wisdom here than at any point as king?
  • Does Richard ever admit responsibility for Gloucester's death or for the seizure of Gaunt's estate? What follows from your answer?

• The Gardener's commonwealth

  In Act 3, Scene 4 a servant and his master speak more clearly about policy than any lord. Their trade teaches pruning of overgrown branches, weeding of what chokes the good plants, and timely restraint of excess, and they apply it to a king who let caterpillars flourish. The scene invites reflection on stewardship as a duty owed by those who hold any authority, and on the dignity of practical wisdom in humble people.

  • Why does Shakespeare give this analysis to gardeners rather than to nobles?
  • The Queen calls the Gardener old Adam's likeness. How does the garden imagery connect England with Eden and with the Fall?
  • What would good pruning have looked like in Richard's reign?

• York's house divided: justice and mercy for Aumerle

  Act 5 turns the national question into a family one. York, now loyal to Henry, demands that his own son be punished for treason; the Duchess kneels for mercy and Henry grants it. The scene tests what loyalty means when allegiance changes, and shows the new king choosing pardon at the very moment his own legitimacy is weakest.

  • Is York's insistence on his son's punishment admirable integrity or a disordered loyalty?
  • Why does Henry pardon Aumerle while the other conspirators are executed?
  • How does the pardon scene prepare for Henry's response to Exton in the final scene?

Context

The historical Richard II reigned from 1377 to 1399. The quarrel between Hereford and Norfolk and the aborted combat at Coventry took place in 1398; Gaunt died in February 1399; Bolingbroke landed while Richard was in Ireland that summer; Richard resigned and was deposed in September 1399 and died at Pontefract early in 1400, by means the chronicles report differently. Shakespeare wrote about two centuries later, under an aging, childless Elizabeth I, when succession, the duty of subjects to an anointed ruler, and the influence of favourites were live and dangerous topics. The official Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570) taught that rebellion against even a wicked prince was sin, and the play's language of balm, deputy and anointing draws on that doctrine. The deposition also opens what later readers call the second tetralogy, continued in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, though Shakespeare had already dramatized the later Wars of the Roses in the Henry VI plays and Richard III.

Composition

Usually dated c. 1595. Shakespeare drew chiefly on the second edition (1587) of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, and probably on Samuel Daniel's poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1595), from which the adult Queen may derive; the anonymous play now called Thomas of Woodstock may also lie behind it. The first quarto (1597) and its reprints in 1598 omitted the abdication episode of Act 4, roughly 160 lines; it first appeared in print in the fourth quarto of 1608, and the play was included in the 1623 Folio as The Life and Death of King Richard the Second. The omission is generally attributed to censorship or caution, though the mechanism is not documented.

Reception

On 7 February 1601, the eve of the Earl of Essex's rising, supporters of Essex paid the Lord Chamberlain's Men to perform a play of the deposition and killing of Richard II at the Globe; the actor Augustine Phillips was examined about it afterwards. Most scholars take this to have been Shakespeare's play, though the record does not name the author. A later-recorded conversation with the antiquary William Lambarde reports Elizabeth identifying herself with Richard. Nahum Tate's adaptation was suppressed in 1680 for its political sensitivity. In the twentieth century E. M. W. Tillyard read the play within a providential order of history, and Ernst Kantorowicz used it to illustrate the medieval idea of the king's two bodies; the deposition scene and the prison soliloquy remain central to discussions of kingship and selfhood on stage.

Comparisons

• Henry IV, Part 1

  The sequel opens with Henry IV still planning the crusade he vowed over Richard's coffin, and with the Percys who put him on the throne turning against him. In 3.2 Henry warns Hal not to imitate the skipping king Richard, who cheapened himself by over-familiarity, which shows how Bolingbroke had studied his rival's failures.

• Henry IV, Part 2

  Henry recalls Richard's prophecy that Northumberland, the ladder of his ascent, would turn on him, and on his deathbed admits the indirect ways by which he gained the crown. The guilt planted at the end of Richard II becomes the dying king's burden.

• Henry V

  Before Agincourt, Henry V prays that God will not remember his father's fault in compassing the crown and lists his penances, including the reburial of Richard's body. The cycle's most successful king still lives in the shadow of the deposition.

• Richard III

  Written earlier but set at the far end of the civil wars Carlisle foresees, Richard III presents a usurper who is plainly a villain. Setting the lawful but negligent Richard II beside the murderous Richard III sharpens the question of what makes a king legitimate.

• Edward the Second

  Marlowe's tragedy of a king ruined by favourites, forced to resign his crown and murdered in prison almost certainly shaped Shakespeare's design. Edward's abdication is raw and physical where Richard's is ceremonial and self-dramatizing, and the comparison shows how differently the two dramatists treat royal weakness.

Quotes

Medical Lens

The play has no physician on stage, but its political language is saturated with Galenic medicine: choler to be purged, a season unfit for bleeding, a sick realm entrusted to physicians who wounded it, a garden whose overfull sap must be let. These figures make the play a useful teaching text on how humoral theory shaped Elizabethan thinking about the body politic. Its psychological interest is greater. The Queen's grief without a known cause, and Bushy's account of how sorrow multiplies its objects like a trick perspective, give an early modern description of anticipatory melancholy and anxious foreboding. Richard's swings between exaltation and despair in Act 3 have tempted modern readers to retrospective labels; these should be offered as readings, not diagnoses, since Shakespeare frames them in terms of providence, flattery and fortune. The mirror scene and the Pomfret soliloquy explore the distinction between outward signs and inward grief, and the soliloquy touches the old belief that music could restore the distracted mind. Gaunt's punning on his gaunt, fasting, sleepless body links old age, grief and wasting.

• Act 1, Scene 1

  Richard frames reconciliation as humoral treatment: purging choler without bloodletting, and his doctors' advice that the month is wrong for bleeding.

  Humoral Medicine Bloodletting Physicians Doctors
• Act 1, Scene 4

  Richard learns that Gaunt is grievously sick and prays that his physician will hasten his death, so that the estate can fund the Irish war.

  Physicians Doctors Death Dying
• Act 2, Scene 1

  Gaunt, dying, puns on his name as a wasted body worn by watching, fasting and grief, and casts England as a patient on a deathbed tended by flattering physicians.

  Death Dying Aging Senescence Starvation Nutrition Physicians Doctors
• Act 2, Scene 2

  The Queen's causeless heaviness and Bushy's explanation of grief through the image of perspective pictures that distort when viewed straight on.

  Melancholia Depression Neurosis Anxiety Psychology Unconscious
• Act 3, Scene 2

  Richard alternates between confidence and despair as each messenger arrives, ending in a meditation on death and the hollow crown.

  Melancholia Depression Death Dying
• Act 3, Scene 4

  The Gardener describes wounding the bark of fruit trees to check excess sap and blood, an arboreal analogue of therapeutic bleeding applied to statecraft.

  Bloodletting Humoral Medicine
• Act 4, Scene 1

  The mirror episode: Richard studies his face for the marks of sorrow, breaks the glass, and concludes that grief lies within beyond its outward signs.

  Grief Psychology Unconscious
• Act 5, Scene 5

  Richard's prison soliloquy peoples his solitude with competing thoughts and humours, then reflects on music as a remedy for madness that instead disturbs him.

  Madness Psychosis Psychology Unconscious Philosophy AS Therapy
• Act 5, Scene 6

  Percy reports that the Abbot of Westminster has died under the weight of conscience and melancholy.

  Melancholia Depression Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write the scene at Pomfret from the point of view of the groom of the stable who visits Richard, including what he saw of Bolingbroke riding roan Barbary through London.

• Dialogue

  Stage a debate between John of Gaunt and the Duchess of Gloucester ten years later, after the deposition: was Gaunt right to leave the quarrel to God, and did events vindicate him or her?

• Essay

  Write an essay on whether Richard's suffering in Acts 4 and 5 amounts to repentance. Use the mirror scene and the prison soliloquy as evidence, and distinguish what Richard confesses from what he never mentions.

• Classroom

  Perform Act 3, Scene 4 twice, once with the Gardener as a plain-spoken labourer and once as a quietly authoritative teacher, then discuss how the staging changes the scene's argument about government.

• Poetry

  Write a sonnet in the voice of the Queen in the garden at Langley, using the play's images of rue, weeds, caterpillars and fruit trees.

Further Reading

• Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, Raphael Holinshed

  Shakespeare's principal source, used in the 1587 edition.

• The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, Samuel Daniel

  Daniel's 1595 verse history of the same events, a probable source.

• Shakespeare's History Plays, E. M. W. Tillyard

  The influential 1944 reading of the histories as a providential cycle.

• The King's Two Bodies, Ernst H. Kantorowicz

  Study of medieval political theology with a chapter on Richard II.

• Richard II, Nigel Saul

  Modern scholarly biography of the historical king.