Richard II is the first in a series
of plays scholars call the second tetralogy. The first tetralogy consists of four
plays—Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III—all dealing with the Wars of the Roses, the
fifteenth-century struggle for the English throne between the two noble houses of
York and Lancaster. These plays were highly successful entertainments, so much so
that Shakespeare decided to write more histories to satisfy popular demand. This
second tetralogy—Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V—deals
with historical events which took place prior to those chronicled in the first
tetralogy. Set in an earlier period, the second tetralogy explores and interrogates
the underlying causes of a conflict that was to result in more than a half century
of political turmoil and bloodshed.
Beginning with Richard II,
the second tetralogy explores the question of what constitutes a legitimate
ruler. Central to this question is a tension between, on the one hand, the
doctrine of the divine right of kings, and, on the other, the ruler’s obligation
to govern both justly and effectively—to exercise the political art of
statecraft.
During the period in which Richard II is set, the divine right of kings had long been a central
feature of English feudal society. Feudalism is the social and economic
extension of an ideology that rationalizes social organization as a natural
hierarchy created and governed by God. It works something like this: the king is
served by his nobles, usually in a military capacity, in exchange for land and
titles of social distinction (earl, duke, marquis, etc.). These nobles are
served in turn by their social inferiors in exchange for certain rights and
privileges (e.g., the right to live on and farm the noble’s land). The system
formed something of a pyramid at the apex of which stood the king, his authority
second only to that of God.
The idea of iure divino
(“divine right”) reinforced this system by insisting that the king
is more than just a man (or woman in the case of Shakespeare’s first sovereign,
Queen Elizabeth I). Kingship according to divine right has a sacred and mystical
dimension, best articulated as what historian Ernst Kantorowicz has called the
“doctrine of the king’s two bodies” according to which the king’s body is both
his own and that of the body politic. That is, the king’s body is a
quasi-sacramental representation of the country and its people. It is important
to note that this is not merely a symbolic notion. Rather, the connection
between the king and the collective body politic is what we would call magical
or occult. The health of the king, physically and spiritually, has a direct
impact on the health of the realm over which he rules.
The king, then, was not merely a powerful individual; rather, he held a powerful office, and there lies an important difference. The king fulfilled a certain function, played a role. In feudal societies such as Richard’s, kings had nothing like carte blanche. Divine right does not mean that they could do whatever they pleased without consequence. Powerful baronial lords, the landowning nobles of the realm who served their king in exchange for certain privileges, were the other (and equally important) side of a reciprocal relationship. Were the king to abuse his authority or neglect to nurture his relationships with these noblemen, he would be violating the social pact on which his authority is based. In the extreme, such a violation would be an abdication of the sacred office he is charged with upholding.
When this happens, there is a political crisis: for the health of the society depends on a delicate relationship among its powerful nobles and their divinely appointed ruler. An incompetent monarch in effect abandons his sworn duty, leaving a gap that must be filled. Why? Because when the central figure in the hierarchy ceases to perform his role, the entire social edifice—with its network of reciprocal duties and obligations, rights and privileges—is in danger of collapsing.
Both Elizabeth and her successor, James I, like all European princes asserted their authority as God’s anointed. Elizabeth was especially skilled in the discourse and symbolism of divine-right ideology, cultivating a mystique around her person to which members of her court and the people of England responded with a kind of religious fervor. They worshipped her. But Elizabeth and her cousin James were also highly effective politicians. They understood that their authority depended not merely on asserting their sacred status, but on dealing with their subjects in an apparently just and equitable manner.
What happens when a king abuses his authority, neglects to fulfill his office—deliberately or unintentionally disturbs the delicate balance between power and justice that is essential to any legitimate rule? And who, after all, has the authority to judge whether and when the king has crossed this line? Indeed, how is it possible that a monarch, invested with authority by God himself, can be stripped of that same authority by anyone other than God? Moreover, if we allow that the outcome of a struggle over royal succession coincides with God’s will, what is the point of invoking God at all? Why not simply recognize that real power belongs to those who can wrest and keep it rather than to those who fancy themselves God’s deputies? As Richard dryly observes when he realizes that Bolingbroke will replace him, “They well deserve to have/ That know the strong’st and surest way to get” (3.3.198-99).
Richard II explores these
and related questions. The result of Richard’s poor judgment and misdeeds is
nothing less than the deposition of a living monarch, an event in the play so
disturbing as to be censored on the Elizabethan stage. (The Queen herself is
rumored to have objected that in Richard II her enemies saw her!)
Below is a genealogy highlighting some of the key
characters in and persons relevant to Richard
II—all descendents of King Edward III—followed by a brief discussion of the
relationships among these characters. Kings are in bold type. Death dates in
parentheses indicate persons already deceased when the play begins (shortly
following the death of Gloucester in 1397). The sons of Edward III are listed
according to birth order from left to right in the second row. This means that
Richard, Bolingbroke, and Aumerle are first cousins; that Lancaster and York are
uncles to Richard; that Lancaster is uncle to Aumerle and father to Bolingbroke;
and that York is uncle to Bolingbroke and father to Aumerle.
There are several points to note here. As the first-born son of Edward III, Edward Prince of Wales would have become king had he not died before his father did. According to the English rules of succession, the crown falls not to the second-born son but rather to the first-born son of the first-born son. Thus Richard and not his uncle, John of Gaunt, became king when Edward III died. (Lionel had died a decade earlier.) If Richard had died of natural causes, the crown would have passed to Bolingbroke without controversy. (His father, John of Gaunt, would have been crowned king had he still been living when Richard died.) But Richard does not die of natural causes. More significantly, Bolingbroke becomes King Henry IV while Richard is still alive. How this unprecedented event comes about, as well as the question of its legality, is the subject of the play.
Though never actually appearing in the play (he is dead before the action begins), Gloucester is of central importance. The dispute between Bolingbroke and Mowbray in the play’s opening scene concerns in large part the question of who is responsible for Gloucester’s murder. We soon learn from Gloucester’s brother and widow (in 1.2) that Richard himself may have been involved. The reasons for this are not made clear in the play, but what really matters is the implication that the king was involved in the murder of his uncle. It is at least possible that Bolingbroke’s true motive in accusing Mowbray of the deed is to draw attention to Richard himself. As Mowbray somewhat ambiguously states regarding Gloucester’s death, “I slew him not, but to my own disgrace / Neglected my sworn duty in that case” (1.1.132-33). This could mean either that he failed to protect Gloucester, or that he failed to kill him, implying perhaps that Richard had ordered him to do so. These hints and allegations contribute to the general confusion and unease that characterize the play’s opening scenes. One thing is clear: the murder of Gloucester sets in motion a series of events that will span some nine decades chronicled in eight Shakespearean history plays. It is thus highly appropriate that this murder is invested with a mythical significance by being associated with the first murder—that of Abel by his brother Cain. Bolingbroke declares that Gloucester’s blood, “like sacrificing Abel’s, cries / Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth/ To me for justice and rough chastisement” (1.1.104-105). Bolingbroke not only tears the scab from this fresh wound; he styles himself the “arm” (108) that will make it right. It is not insignificant that Bolingbroke’s line, the House of Lancaster, leads to that of Shakespeare’s queen, Elizabeth Tudor.
Though treating at length an important moment in
English monarchical history, Richard II is also,
according to the play’s full title, a tragedy. The impersonal saga of the
history play gives way in Acts 3-5 to an intimate examination of Richard’s
personal dilemma and anguish as a failed monarch. His tragedy is rooted in an
inconsistency between his outsized belief in the doctrine of divine right and
his lack of political skill. Richard aims high but misses the mark: to strike an
effective balance between the imperatives of an ideology and practical
necessity. In this, Bolingbroke succeeds where his cousin fails.
The product of this collision between ideology and political reality is Shakespeare’s second great tragic poet (Juliet arguably being the first). Paradoxically, even as Richard’s political fortunes wane, he rises in eminence as the play’s tragic protagonist. Deeply flawed, he nonetheless acquires an aesthetic power at once unsettling, provocative, and very beautiful. Coinciding with this poetic largesse, Richard’s language in the play’s latter half is an incisive, if cynical and despairing, commentary on the nature of monarchy. Perishing as a result of his own poor judgment and yet doing so with tremendous dignity, Richard is heroic in the best tragic sense. If he were merely immoral, he would be no more than a bad man. If he were a king without fault, he would not be human. As a tragic hero, his decline becomes the occasion for a regeneration of spirit that would not have been possible had he not fallen in the first place.