ABOUT THE PLAY

Shakespeare’s history plays ask us to follow the often byzantine power struggles of medieval English nobles who are the descendants of various dynastic bloodlines. Why should we care about all these Yorks, Gloucesters, and Lancasters? And why did Shakespeare care to tell their story in the first place?  

​

Shakespeare wrote the history plays during the 1590s, the last full decade of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a monarch without an heir. Through the safety of historical distance, he was able to explore in these plays the politics of monarchical succession and the boundaries of monarchical power, issues very much on the minds of his contemporaries. But, of course, Shakespeare was writing plays, not history. Through imaginative reconstruction of these distant events, Shakespeare was able to generate theatrical spectacles of extraordinary subtlety and passion that continue to engage our fascination with the human drama of power—how one acquires it, how one maintains it, how one loses it.

​

Richard II places this drama of power squarely on the shoulders of two very different men: the reigning king, Richard II, and his rival, Harry Bolingbroke, whom Richard strategically banishes early in the play. As the direct descendent of the previous king, Richard derives his sovereignty from deeply ingrained notions of royal blood and divine right. Richard is undoubtedly the legitimate king; however, his excessive taxes and expenditures, arbitrary appropriation of Harry’s titles and possessions, and reliance on flattering courtiers for counsel have fatally tarnished his reputation and alienated commons and nobility alike. When an armed Harry returns to England to reclaim the “rights and royalties” unjustly seized by Richard, he treads a fine line between seeking justice and committing treason. His baffled aunt cannot determine if Harry and his followers are “friends or foes” to England. Although Harry does not have a legitimate claim to the throne, his charisma, humility, and performative flair generate a groundswell of popular support for his opposition to a despised monarch. As Richard belatedly understands, the divine right principle that subjects must always obey their king collapses when that subject is a powerful lord backed by commons, nobility, and military force: “They well deserve to have / That know the strong’st and surest way to get,” Richard bitterly observes to Harry before resigning his crown to him.

​

Although Richard suffers humiliation and defeat, the play also gives him a highly ornate poetic language in which to express the pain and confusion of losing not only his power but his very identity. Whereas Harry tends to be terse and business-like, Richard is eloquent and emotional. Richard’s futile and excessive elaboration of his anger and grief can make him seem indulgent and even petty. At the same time, his ability to speak so gorgeously and introspectively under these tragic circumstances humanizes him (despite his claims to divine authorization), and foreshadows the horrible suffering the English will experience in the civil wars that follow in the wake of Harry’s usurpation. As the Bishop of Carlisle predicts, “The blood of English shall manure the ground, / And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars / Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.” Cast into the shadow of Harry’s brilliant ascension, Richard mourns not just for himself, but for an entire nation.

​

- MARIO DIGANGI | Professor of English, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY