MAI PAPER III: ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM RENAISSANCE TO AUGUSTANWILLIAM SHAKESPEARES RICHARD IILikely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a successful middle-class glove-maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625); he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare's company the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king's players. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of Shakespeare's death, such luminaries as Ben Jonson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre.Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet ever to write in English was well established. The unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare's life; but the paucity of surviving biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare's personal history shrouded in mystery. Some people have concluded from this fact that Shakespeare's plays in reality were written by someone else--Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford are the two most popular candidates--but the evidence for this claim is overwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars.In the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The legacy of this body of work is immense. A number of Shakespeare's plays seem to have transcended even the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture ever after.Richard II is one of Shakespeare's so-called "history" plays: It is the first part of a tetralogy, or four-part series, which deals with the historical rise of the English royal House of Lancaster. (The plays that round out the series are Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, and Henry V.) The play was probably composed around 1595, and certainly no later than 1597. It was used by the Earl of Essex to try make a point shortly before his unsuccessful rebellion in 1601; Queen Elizabeth, no dummy, commented "I am Richard II, know ye not that?" In this case, however, the historical precedent did not hold--Elizabeth, unlike Richard, retained her crown. For details on the life of Queen Elizabeth, see the SparkNote Biography. The play has fascinated critics down through the centuries, although it has long been considered inferior to Shakespeare's other history plays. King Richard's deeply poetic and "metaphysical" musings on the nature of kingship and identity mark a new direction for Shakespeare; indeed, much of Richard II reads like a run-up to the more fully developed intellectualizing of Hamlet. The play's formal qualities are also interesting: it is often highly stylized and, in sharp contrast to the "Henry" plays that follow it, contains virtually no prose. Shakespeare makes good use of grand metaphors--such as the famous comparisons of England to a garden, and of its reigning king to a lion or to the sun--and opens up rich, complex themes such as the nature of kingship and of identity.SummaryRichard II, written around 1595, is the first play in Shakespeare's second "history tetralogy," a series of four plays that chronicles the rise of the house of Lancaster to the British throne. (Its sequel plays are Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, and Henry V.) Richard II, set around the year 1398, traces the fall from power of the last king of the house of Plantagenet, Richard II, and his replacement by the first Lancaster king, Henry IV (Henry Bolingbroke). Richard II, who ascended to the throne as a young man, is a regal and stately figure, but he is wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choice of counselors, and detached from his country and its common people. He spends too much of his time pursuing the latest Italian fashions, spending money on his close friends, and raising taxes to fund his pet wars in Ireland and elsewhere. When he begins to "rent out" parcels of English land to certain wealthy noblemen in order to raise funds for one of his wars, and seizes the lands and money of a recently deceased and much respected uncle to help fill his coffers, both the commoners and the king's noblemen decide that Richard has gone too far.Richard has a cousin, named Henry Bolingbroke, who is a great favorite among the English commoners. Early in the play, Richard exiles him from England for six years due to an unresolved dispute over an earlier political murder. The dead uncle whose lands Richard seizes was the father of Bolingbroke; when Bolingbroke learns that Richard has stolen what should have been his inheritance, it is the straw that breaks the camel's back. When Richard unwisely departs to pursue a war in Ireland, Bolingbroke assembles an army and invades the north coast of England in his absence. The commoners, fond of Bolingbroke and angry at Richard's mismanagement of the country, welcome his invasion and join his forces. One by one, Richard's allies in the nobility desert him and defect to Bolingbroke's side as Bolingbroke marches through England. By the time Richard returns from Ireland, he has already lost his grasp on his country.There is never an actual battle; instead, Bolingbroke peacefully takes Richard prisoner in Wales and brings him back to London, where Bolingbroke is crowned King Henry IV. Richard is imprisoned in the remote castle of Pomfret in the north of England, where he is left to ruminate upon his downfall. There, an assassin, who both is and is not acting upon King Henry's ambivalent wishes for Richard's expedient death, murders the former king. King Henry hypocritically repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death. As the play concludes, we see that the reign of the new King Henry IV has started off inauspiciously.CharactersKing Richard II - The King of England when the play begins, Richard is a young man who has not matured much since his adolescence. Stately and poetic, he enjoys the trappings of kingship and has an extraordinary flair for poetic language. However, he is disconnected from his land and its people. He is overthrown by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, and eventually assassinated in the remote castle of Pomfret. Henry Bolingbroke Duke of Herford - In some texts, thanks to the vagaries of Renaissance spelling, Bolingbroke is called "Bullingbrook," and Herford is "Hereford." He is also occasionally referred to by his nickname, "Harry." Bolingbroke is King Richard's cousin and the son of Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt. He is less poetic but far more pragmatic and capable than his cousin. He returns from his banishment abroad, sways the loyalties of both the English nobility and the common people to his side, and stages a revolution against Richard II. He is eventually crowned King Henry IV. John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster - Called either "Gaunt" or "Lancaster." An important nobleman, John of Gaunt is Richard's uncle and the father of Richard's banished cousin Bolingbroke, who eventually usurps the throne. Gaunt is very old when this play begins, and he dies in Act II, scene i, after his son's banishment--but not before delivering a withering curse on Richard. Edmund of Langley Duke of York - Called "York." Richard's uncle, and a brother of John of Gaunt and of the late Thomas of Gloucester. He is made Lord Governor of England by King Richard while he is away at war, but is eventually convinced by Bolingbroke to defect and join his rebel army. A traditionalist who is loyally devoted to the crown, he is deeply upset by any kind of treason against the crown. The Duke of Aumerle - Also called "Rutland" late in the play, since he is the Earl of Rutland. He is the son of Edmund, Duke of York, and thus a cousin to both King Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke. He remains loyal to Richard throughout the war and, after Richard's deposition, is involved in a failed scheme against the life of the newly crowned King Henry IV. Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk - Mowbray, sometimes called "Norfolk," is a nobleman whom Henry Bolingbroke accuses, early in the play, of treason against the state and of complicity in the earlier death of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester (the uncle of the current King). Mowbray is banished at the same time as Bolingbroke and dies in exile.

Act I, scene iSummaryAs the play opens, the young King Richard II has just arrived at Windsor Castle, a royal headquarters near London. There he is to arbitrate a dispute between two noble courtiers, one of whom has accused the other of treachery. The accuser is the king's cousin, a proud young nobleman named Henry Bolingbroke, also called the Duke of Herford; he is the son of John of Gaunt, the king's aged and distinguished uncle. Bolingbroke is accusing Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, of several heinous crimes against his king and country. These crimes include embezzlement, general participation in conspiracy against the king for the past eighteen years, and--by far the most serious--Mowbray's participation in the successful conspiracy to murder another of the king's uncles (the late Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester) a short time before.Mowbray denies all these charges, although he does so in rather ambivalent terms: for instance, he acknowledges that he was aware of the scheme to kill Gloucester--and that he once laid an unsuccessful plot to kill the king's uncle, John of Gaunt--but he denies actual responsibility for Gloucester's death, and says he has repented all his bad intentions. Mowbray and Bolingbroke insult each other in increasingly angry, heated and creative terms: as Richard says of them, "High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire, / In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire" (ll. 18-19)--that is, both men are rash, hot-tempered, and unwilling to listen to reason.Mowbray and Bolingbroke call each other liars and traitors, and evetually throw down their "gages" (that is, their hoods or hats) at each other's feet, challenging one another to a traditional chivalric duel in order to settle the accusations. King Richard, with the help of Bolingbroke's father John of Gaunt, tries to convince the two to reconcile, but they both refuse as a point of honor. So Richard sets a date--St. Lambert's Day--for the two to have a formal, traditional duel, in order to settle the challenge.CommentaryThis crowded, busy, and confusing scene has two main functions: it both throws us into the action in medias res--that is, in the middle of things--and provides us with some background information about the meaning of the events that are occurring. We can tell from the very start that this play will be full of characters who are nursing old grudges, and who carry contradictory interpretations of past and current events. We also see instantly that the play will be very heavily influenced by events which have occurred in the past: these two young noblemen, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, are accusing each other of committing crimes which have happened before the play even began.It is important to bear in mind that this play and its events are part of a larger context: that is, they are part of the long continuum of English history, and belong to a tradition of documents and literature that chronicle the wars and the dynasties of English royal houses. In Shakespeare's history plays, nothing happens in a vacuum; all the action is informed by earlier events, which Shakespeare's audiences would have been familiar with in the form of folklore or history books.Bolingbroke and Mowbray's mutual accusations are complicated for various reasons. On the surface, what Bolingbroke says is simple enough: he accuses Mowbray of having embezzled the money which the King gave him to raise and supply his armies; he claims that Mowbray has been instigating plots against the King for eighteen years (the historical reference is to Wat Tyler's rebellion in 1381); and he charges Mowbray with having conspired in the murder of the king's uncle, Thomas of Gloucester. Mowbray's rebuttals are framed in ambiguous language, especially in regard to the death of Gloucester: "I slew him not, but to my own disgrace / Neglected my sworn duty in that case" (133-134). This scene is confusing, in part, because it actually centers around an unspoken truth that no one dares speak aloud: everyone is aware that King Richard II himself was, in fact, involved in his uncle's death. We will learn this fact explicitly from John of Gaunt in the scene which follows, but the lack of clarity surrounding Bolingbroke's accusation and Mowbray's rebuttal introduces the atmosphere of official hypocrisy, the morass of dark court secrets, and the looming shadow of the past which will affect events at court and in the kingdom throughout the play.The poetic rhetoric of this scene also set the stage for the remainder of the play. Richard II is noted for its lyricism, its richness of metaphor and symbolism, and the "formality"--or carefully structured rhymes and parallel constructions--found in its language. There is hardly any prose in the play, and characters often begin to speak in rhymed couplets for no apparent reason; the dramatic purpose is usually to mark a moment of great importance or emotional intensity. This occurs often in Act I, scene i. For instance, when Richard tries to reconcile the quarrelers near the end of the scene, nearly everyone begins to speak in rhyme. Mowbray says, for instance: "Mine honour is my life, both grown in one, / Take honour from me, and my life is done. / Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; / In that I live, and for that will I die" (181-185).Act I, scene iiSummaryWhile the court is waiting for Bolingbroke and Mowbray to settle their mutual accusations of treason in the lists (that is, the place in which knights duel on horseback), John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke's father, has a visit from his sister-in-law, the old Duchess of Gloucester. The Duchess is the widow of Gaunt's murdered brother Thomas of Gloucester, and she has an ax to grind about Gloucester's death. She urges Gaunt to take revenge for his brother's death, out of family loyalty and a sense of justice. He also ought to act, she says, because if Gaunt lets the murder go unavenged, he will be indicating that he himself is an easy target for political assassination--showing murderers "the naked pathway to thy life" (31).Gaunt, however, refuses to take action, saying that the two of them must leave the punishment of the murderers up to God: "Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven" (6). We also learn an important secret that Shakespeare's audiences already knew, and which looms large behind the action of Act I, scene i--and, in fact, behind the entire play: the reason Gaunt cannot take action against Gloucester's murderers is that King Richard himself is widely known to have been involved in the conspiracy to kill his uncle. Gaunt refuses to rise against Richard, not out of fear of the king's power (which, as we are beginning to see, is actually weaker than it seems), but because Gaunt believes that the King of England has been appointed by God. Treason against the king would therefore be blasphemy against God, and those wronged by the king must leave it up to God to wreak vengeance.The Duchess, disappointed, bids Gaunt farewell as he departs to watch Bolingbroke and Mowbray fight it out in the lists. She curses both the younger noblemen--who, she believes, both had a part in the death of her husband Gloucester--and prays that both parties will die in their fight. Finally, as Gaunt leaves, she asks him to send her greetings to his brother, Edmund Duke of York (another of Richard's uncles), and to ask York to visit her at Plashy, her home near London.CommentaryThis scene--a surprisingly small and intimate one after the scene of pomp and royal arbitration that has just ended--gives readers a window onto two major issues that lie behind both the action and the rhetoric of Richard II. First is the murder of Thomas of Gloucester ("Woodstock"), the king's dead uncle, which hangs heavy over the early scenes of this play. Thomas of Gloucester--the uncle in whose murder Richard is implicated--was not a king, but he was descended from royal blood. His death casts a long shadow over the play. When the Duchess of Gloucester tries to spur Gaunt to vengeance, she reminds him, "Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, / Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, / Or seven fair branches springing from one root" (11-13). But now Gloucester's vial has been "crack'd, and the precious liquor spilt... by envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe" (19-21). These are important and recurring metaphors for the seven sons of King Edward III. The king's "sacred blood" is an important idea in medieval and Renaissance thought, and when the Duchess urges Gaunt to take revenge, she bases her demands on the idea that his murder was both a crime against the family honor and a sin against nature and God.John of Gaunt, however, refuses to take action against Richard. His reasoning introduces another very important theme in the play: the idea that the King is divinely appointed by God. He refuses to attack the murderers of his brother, although he, too, would like to be able to have revenge, because the person who is most to blame for Gloucester's murder is Gaunt's nephew, King Richard. Gaunt refuses to raises arms against the King, not out of loyalty to him as a relative, nor out of fear for the power of the king, but rather because he believes, as do many of the play's other characters, that the King of a nation was appointed by God, and that an act of rebellion against the king would therefore be blasphemous. If Richard has caused Gloucester's death, then Heaven must revenge it; for Richard is the Lord's "substitute," and, Gaunt says, "I may never lift / An angry arm against His minister" (40-41). Thus, the Duchess's complaint about the earlier spilling of royal blood is trumped, in Gaunt's eyes, by the fact that the murderer is himself the ultimate royal figure--the King. The question of whether it is blasphemy to mount in arms against the king will continue to be a key issue throughout the play.The poetry of this scene introduces several important metaphors and symbols which will also recur throughout the play. When the Duchess uses the metaphor of a tree's roots and branches, to refer to the sons of the old king Edward III, she is using a very old metaphor which Elizabethans often invoked to describe their ancestral relations (and which we still use today when we talk about "family trees"). But the analogy between the royal family and the tree, with the dead Thomas being a branch "hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded" (20), also introduces the idea that the royal family is linked to the natural world--and, specifically, that it is linked to the cycles of nature. Later, we will see other characters specifically refer to the way in that Richard's bad management of the country has left the crops dying and the plants withering.We are also introduced to another of the play's central themes: the question of how a nobleman, or a king, ought to behave. When the Duchess tells Gaunt, "That which in mean men we intitle patience / Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts" (33-34), she is bringing up the assumed differences between standards of behavior for commoners and the nobilitiy. The question of how a king ought to behave is a crucial issue for Richard throughout the rest of the play.Act I, scene iiiSummaryAt Coventry, the two challengers, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, enter fully armed into the "lists," or the field of ritual combat. Bolingbroke is the accuser, or "appellant," and Mowbray the "defendant." Aided by the traditional officer of the duel (the Lord Marshal), King Richard formally questions them both and has them repeat their accusations against one another. Both Bolingbroke and Mowbray make dramatic speeches restating their own innocence, the criminality of their opponent, their joy in the fight and their certainty of victory; John of Gaunt blesses his son Bolingbroke and King Richard wishes good luck to both. Heralds and trumpets announce the fight's beginning--but then King Richard interrupts it before either can raise a weapon, by ritually throwing down his "warder" (or umpire's baton) and ordering the duel to stop.After consulting with his advisors, King Richard returns and decrees a sentence of banishment upon both noblemen: Bolingbroke (whom Richard here addresses as "Herford," in recognition of his title of nobility) is banished from England, not to return for ten years; Mowbray (here called "Norfolk") is banished for life. Both lament their sentences, but to no avail: Richard refuses to alter their punishment, and then forces them both to swear upon his sword that they will never again have contact with one another, even outside of England, or plan treachery against the English throne. Mowbray departs in grief, but Richard suddenly decides to reduce Bolingbroke's span of exile from ten years to six, saying that he takes pity upon his saddened uncle, Bolingbroke's father John of Gaunt. Gaunt thanks the King, but notes that he is so old that he will be dead before his son returns, whether the sentence is ten years or six. After the King and his retinue depart, Bolingbroke continues to lament his exile, in anger and unhappiness; his father counsels him to be philosophical and bear it like a man, imagining that he has banished the king and not the king him: "For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite / The man that mocks at it and sets it light" (292-3). Bolingbroke, however, answers that misery cannot be vanquished by imagination, and they leave the stage together under a cloud of sadness.CommentaryThe precise logic behind the political events of this scene, like those in Act I, scene i, is somewhat obscure: why exactly does Richard stop the fight, why does he banish Mowbray and Bolingbroke, and why does he banish Mowbray for life and Bolingbroke only for a few years? Richard's speech here is rhetorically powerful, but it does not actually address any of these questions. He seems simply to imply that allowing the men to stay in England would open up the possibility of civil war: "For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd / With that dear blood which it hath fostered; / And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect / Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword... / Therefore we banish you our territories" (125-139).The actual reasoning behind the events seems to have been complicated. The common people were hostile toward both Mowbray and Richard because of the parts that they supposedly played in the death of Thomas of Gloucester, but, more importantly, they felt that Richard had stirred up the controversy himself--he should have kept peace between the two. Therefore, Richard felt he had to prevent the duel in order to reduce resentment among the Londoners. For similar reasons, Bolingbroke, a popular favorite, had to get the lighter sentence.The scene's formal and poetic qualities are interesting. As in Act I, scene i, the characters slip into rhymed couplets at dramatically important moments. For example, when John of Gaunt protests that he will never see his son again, he says that, by the time Bolingbroke returns, "My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light / Shall be extinct with age and endless night, / My inch of taper will be burnt and done, / And blindfold Death not let me see my son" (221-225). Mowbray also makes use of an interesting metaphor when he protests that he will never have the chance to use his native tongue again: "[N]ow my tongue's use is to me no more / Than an unstringed viol or a harp... / What is thy sentence then but speechless death, / Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?"John of Gaunt's advice to his son, by which he tries to show Bolingbroke how to bear his banishment more easily, is an interesting philosophical sermon which contains certain phrases which have since become proverbs: "All places that the eye of heaven visits / Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. / Teach thy necessity to reason thus: / There is no virtue like necessity" (275-79).Gaunt's advice to Bolingbroke consists largely of a kind of metaphysical double-think, in which the idea is that exile will be made easier to bear if the banished party pretends that he has left the country of his own accord: "Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honor, / And not the king exil'd thee" (282-83). Gaunt also suggests that Bolingbroke try to re-shape reality to what would please him, and interpret the objects of the world to be different from what they actually are: "Suppose the singing birds musicians,... / The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more / Than a delightful measure or a dance" (288-291). Bolingbroke, however, refuses to view the world from this idealistic perspective, insisting instead on the realistic: "O, who can hold a fire in his hand / By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?... / Or wallow naked in December snow / By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?" (ll. 294-299). This insistence on the failure of the imagination to alter the real shape of the world is one of key Bolingbroke's key traits, and it puts him in direct contrast with Richard. As the play progresses, Richard becomes increasingly poetic; unable or unwilling to face the harsh realities of the world, he articulates beautiful poetry instead. Bolingbroke, as we see in this scene, is his opposite--pragmatic and hard-headed.Act I, scene ivAfter Bolingbroke has been banished from England, King Richard returns from Coventry to his court, accompanied by two of his friends and allies, the noblemen Bagot and Greene. King Richard's cousin, the Duke of Aumerle (son of Richard's uncle the Duke of York), has just returned from escorting Bolingbroke down to the sea, where the latter has taken ship for Europe. When asked how the two parted, Aumerle reports that, although Bolingbroke bade him farewell, he himself (Aumerle) was cool to Bolingbroke and was glad to see him on his way.Richard then begins to muse, describing in great detail to his allies what he and another nobleman, Bushy, saw when they watched Bolingbroke leaving London: they beheld his "courtship to the common people" (24). The commoners love Bolingbroke; he is courteous and friendly to them, and a popular favorite of the lower classes of London. Richard feels that Bolingbroke was behaving as if he were in line to be the next king of England. Clearly afraid of Bolingbroke's popularity among the people, Richard expresses to his friends an ominous doubt that Bolingbroke will ever return to England again.Greene reminds Richard that, now that Bolingbroke is gone, there is other work to be done: there are rebels against the crown in Ireland, and the king must act quickly to suppress them, for they grow stronger with time. Richard announces that he will himself sail to Ireland to supervise the war there. But, due to the costs of maintaining a court bloated with attendants and the king's wasteful spending habits, the royal treasury is low on funds. To raise money to pay for the Irish war, Richard is going to "rent out" the realm of England; that is, he is going to engage in some complicated methods of medieval taxation. He plans both to demand money from the wealthy and to borrow large sums of money from wealthy people in exchange for a later giving them cut of the royal taxes--taxes that come from the commoners.Bushy suddenly enters with important news: old John of Gaunt, the uncle of the King and the father of Bolingbroke, lies on his deathbed. Richard rejoices to hear the information, saying that as soon as Gaunt is dead, he plans to seize his money and property in order to fund the war in Ireland. Everyone then heads off to visit John of Gaunt at the castle of the Bishop of Ely, where he lies dying.CommentaryThis scene is short, but important--it gives us a look at the contrasts between Richard and Bolingbroke, and also lays the groundwork for Bolingbroke's return later in the play. Richard's account of Bolingbroke's departure from London shows us the difference between the ways he and his now-banished cousin interact with the people of London. We learn that Bolingbroke paid "courtship to the common people" (24); he took off "his bonnet to an oyster-wench" (31), and bowed to a "brace of draymen" (a pair of horse-groomers) who greeted him, saying "'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends' " (33-35). Whether Bolingbroke behaves this way out of a cunning sense of politics or out of an innate humbleness and good nature, we cannot tell. However, we can be sure that Richard thinks himself far above such behavior--"What reverence he did throw away on slaves," he says to his companions (27), implying that Bolingbroke has wasted his courtesy by squandering it on such inferior people.Bolingbroke's popularity among the commoners casts light, in retrospect, on Richard's decision to banish him: if Richard is afraid of his cousin's popularity and ambition, then he has very good reason to want to get him out of England--but, by the same token, he could not make the punishment too severe for fear of angering Bolinbroke's supporters. Richard is aware that Bolingbroke is in a position to potentially supplant him as king of England: he says that Bolingbroke greeted the common folk "[a]s were our England in reversion his, / And he our subjects' next degree in hope" (35-36)--that is, as if he were the heir to the throne. Richard's inability to perceive that Bolingbroke remains a threat to him, even outside of England, gives us a clue to his willingness to turn a blind eye to certain unpleasant realities.Richard's callousness in the remainder of the scene also demonstrates to us his inherent weaknesses as a ruler. His plan to go overseas to Ireland while taxing the English and renting out English land shows us a typical Shakespearean flaw in kings: a willingness to ignore one's duty to the country in favor of one's personal interests. A king who focuses on anything other than the government of his kingdom--be it foreign affairs, scholarship, worldly pleasures, or his own self-aggrandizement--is bound to be overthrown. Richard clearly should not be leaving England at such a turbulent time, but his eagerness to wage war in Ireland and his astounding blindness to the precariousness of his position cause him to depart. Leaving for foreign shores will be his final downfall--by the time Richard returns, he will already have effectively lost England to Bolingbroke.Finally, Richard's callous remarks about John of Gaunt's illness indicate his lack of respect for anyone besides himself--including the elders of his own family. This self-centeredness will help lead to his downfall.Act II, scene iSummaryJohn of Gaunt, ill and dying in his house, talks with the Duke of York while he awaits the arrival of King Richard. Gaunt hopes that, with his dying breath, he will be able to give the foolhardy young King Richard some advice that he will listen to. York says that that is unlikely; the King is too much surrounded by flatterers, and too interested in the follies and fashions of the world. Gaunt replies that, if that is the case, he must prophecy with his last breath that Richard is headed for doom: "His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last. / For violent fires soon burn out themselves" (33-34).He goes on to lament, in the play's most famous speech, that the beautiful, fertile, and divinely favored country of England has been rented out. "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, / This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise... / This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England... / Is now leas'd out--I die pronouncing it-- / Like to a tenement or pelting farm" (40-60).King Richard arrives with a large train of followers--Queen Isabel, Aumerle, Bushy, Bagot, Greene, and more. When Richard inquires casually after Gaunt's health, Gaunt bitterly rebukes Richard for the exile of his son Bolingbroke. He then goes on to admonish Richard, in scalding terms, for the ways in which he has been wasting money, taxing the people too heavily, allowing the country to go to ruin, and letting himself be flattered by his power-hungry and self-interested advisors. Richard, completely infuriated, interrupts his uncle, saying that were Gaunt not of the royal blood, he would destroy him; but Gaunt, raging and made bold by the knowledge that he is dying anyway, points out to Richard that he has not hesitated to shed the blood of royalty before and brings up the king's involvement in the death of his uncle Thomas of Gloucester. He finishes by cursing Richard with his dying breaths and walking out on the king. York tries to make excuses for Gaunt's behavior to Richard, but Richard, understandably enough, is not in a very good mood.The Earl of Northumberland comes in to tell the company that Gaunt has died. Richard promptly announces his intention to seize all of Gaunt's worldly goods in order to finance his war in Ireland. His uncle, the Duke of York, protests vehemently, pointing out that Gaunt was a loyal subject and that his estate should by rights now belong to his son Bolingbroke, who, though currently in exile, will eventually return to England to claim it. But Richard will not listen to him, and York departs. Richard, blithely ignoring his powerful uncle's distress and concern, tells his allies that tomorrow he plans to set sail for Ireland, and that he will make his York Lord Governor of England while he himself is gone.After Richard leaves with his attendants, three lords--the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Ross, and Lord Willoughby--remain behind. Indignant at Richard's latest injustice, the three agree that England is being ruined under Richard's reign. Northumberland confides to the other two that he has secret news: Bolingbroke, with many English allies and with with ships supplied by the King of Brittany, plans to sail for England as soon as Richard leaves for Ireland. Their plan is to invade England's northeast shore and stage a royal coup. The three decide to join him, and they depart together for Ravenspurgh, in the north, where Bolingbroke plans to land.CommentaryThis long scene is a turning point in Richard II, and one of the two or three most important scenes in the play.Gaunt's dying curse upon Richard is an extremely bad omen for his future, since curses in Shakespeare nearly always come to some kind of fruition, and curses issued by the elderly or the dying are especially potent. It is a sign of Richard's foolishness that he chooses to ignore the advice of his dying uncle. When Gaunt says to Richard, "Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! / These words hereafter thy tormentors be!" (135-36), the curse, or "prophecy" (as Gaunt calls it in lines 31-32), apparently begins to come true almost immediately: Richard's earlier decision to seize Gaunt's goods to help fund the Irish war is, as he should have expected, so unpopular that it turns Northumberland, Ross, and Willoughby against him. It also triggers in his devoutly loyal uncle York a process of self-questioning which will eventually drive him, too, to Bolingbroke's side. By the time the scene closes, we have learned of the imminent invasion of England by Bolingbroke's forces--a piece of information which, combined with what we already know about Bolingbroke's popularity and Richard's merited unpopularity with the English commoners, implies already the inevitable outcome: Richard's deposition and defeat at the hands of Bolingbroke.Moreover, Gaunt's curse also suggests the shadow of a dynastic and cross-dynastic curse, laying the first groundwork upon which Shakespeare will build in the sequels to this play: Richard's shame will in fact not die with him, but will hang over the "Henr y" plays which are sequels to this one. This theme will continue to crop up during "Richard II," most notably in the Bishop of Carlisle's prophecy in IV.i.John of Gaunt's speech early in the scene is among the most famous in all of "Richard II," and has been often quoted down through the centuries as a stirring invocation of English patriotism. Certain phrases from it--"this scepter'd isle," "[t]his happy breed of men, this little world," "[t]his blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England" (40-50)--have become cliches. Gaunt's speec h also suggests an organic, natural unity within the country, through his comparison of the nation both to a fertile garden and to a mother: "This other Eden, demi-paradise... This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings" (42, 51). This organic wholeness is apparently being eaten away from within by the leases Richard has issued: with "inky blots and rotten parchment bonds," England "hath made a shameful conquest of itself" (64-66). The idea is that England, safe from harm from the outside world, can on ly be conquered by internal dissension and corruption--and that is the path with Richard is on.This scene has important reverberations both in the remainder of the play, and in scenes which have already passed. The "renting out" of parts of England--what Richard referred to when he said in I.iv, "We are inforc'd to farm our royal realm"(45)--carries an enormous weight of symbolic importance. As the language of organic unity in this scene suggests, the concept of subletting any part of the country seems to be anathema in Shakespeare. The ideal of good kingship put forward in many of Shakespe are's plays seems to be based in an organic, fully integrated relationship between the king, the land, and that which the land produces: its people and its fertile crops. Sub-dividing the kingdom in any way is a very bad idea (and one that the losing si de in a battle for England attempts more than once in other plays, such as Henry IV Part 1).References to a decaying or a rotting land should alert us as readers that something very ominous is being foreshadowed. The metaphor of the decaying land also appears in other Shakespeare plays; consider, for instance, Marcellus's famous line from Hamlet--"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." In ancient, pagan England, the idea of decay and rebirth of the land was linked ot the idea of the sacrifice of the ruling king, and his replacement by another--the "Green Man" myth . In Shakespeare, when a king finds his land decaying around him, it should set off warning bells that the death and replacement of the king may be imminent; this is the case in Hamlet, and it is also the case in Richard II. Act II, scene iiSummaryKing Richard has departed for Ireland to put down the rebels there. Back at Windsor Castle, near London, Queen Isabel mourns his absence. Bushy and Bagot, loyal advisors of the King, try to comfort her, but Isabel says she is haunted by foreboding and despair. She feels as though something terrible is going to happen: "Some unborn sorrow ripe in Fortune's womb / Is coming toward me, and my inward soul / With nothing trembles; at some thing it grieves" (10-12).Greene enters to give them all bad news: Henry Bolingbroke has landed with his army at Ravenspurgh, on the northeast coast of England. Unfortunately, Richard has already departed for Ireland--and taken his army with him--so there is no one to stop him. Moreover, many English lords have defected from Richard and joined Bolingbroke: Northumberland, his young son Henry Percy, Lord Ross, Lord Willoughby, and others. When these lords were declared traitors by Greene, yet another lord departed for Bolingbroke's side--the Earl of Worcester, who is the brother of Lord Northumberland. The loss of Worcester is a particularly bad sign: he was the Lord Steward of the King's household and took all of the king's household servants with him when he left.The Duke of York then enters, obviously upset. He has been left in charge of the government while Richard is away, but a combination of stress, old age, and a moral dilemma as to whether he ought to be supporting Richard or Bolingbroke has left him him uncertain of what to do. We learn that his son, Aumerle, has already left to join Richard in Ireland; moreover, when York sends a servant to ask for financial assistance from his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Gloucester, he discovers that she has died earlier that day. Unable to figure out how to raise money to repel Bolingbroke's attack, York departs, much upset, to go to Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire (in south central England) to try to raise an army. He takes Queen Isabel with him.Left alone, Bushy, Bagot and Greene consult with each other. They all agree that they are now in danger: raising an army large enough to deflect Bolingbroke in the absence of the King seems impossible. As known favorites of Richard, they are now in danger from the common people, who have turned against Richard and his supporters. All three decide to flee Windsor: Bushy and Greene decide to go to Bristol Castle, to the west, while Bagot declares his intention to join Richard in Ireland. They bid each other farewell, troubled by the possibility that they may never meet again.CommentaryIsabel's foreboding fits in with the general sense of doom which has pervaded the play since Act I, scene ii, when John of Gaunt told the Duchess of Gloucester that she would have to leave it to heaven to "rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads" when the time was ripe. We have the sense that Richard is about to get what he deserves--that is, punishment both for his mismanagement of the country and for his part in the Duke of Gloucester's death. The confused metaphors Bushy uses to try to convince Isabel to stop grieving are characteristic of the play's sometimes overly abstract and complex language--his comparison of Isabel's grief-stricken eyes to a picture painted in "perspective" is admirably complex, but difficult to make sense of on a first read-through. We also see, in Isabel's "nameless woe," the kind of melancholy that Richard himself will increasingly display over the course of the play.The torrent of bad news that breaks over the Queen and her allies during the course of this scene is only a taste of what is to follow. After this point, Richard's fall appears to be inevitable. We learn in quick succession of the invasion of Bolingbroke, the defection of the nobility, the departure of the Earl of Worcester, and the death of the Duchess of Gloucester. It is little wonder that the Duke of York feels himself incapable of defending the country that Richard has left in his charge, or that Bushy, Bagot and Greene privately agree that the effort is hopeless: "Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes / Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry" (144-45). It is also no wonder that Isabel, losing hope, seems to take a certain relish in resigning herself to the worst. York himself has begun to face his own moral dilemma: a loyalist to the last, he, like John of Gaunt, has difficulty in imagining himself raising arms against Richard, the divinely appointed king. And yet, he knows that Bolingbroke's complaint is justified--and both Bolingbroke and Richard are his cousins. The seeds of doubt have been planted.Act II, scenes iii-ivSummaryIn the wild highlands of Gloucestershire, in south central England, we find Henry Bolingbroke and Lord Northumberland riding toward Berkeley Castle, where they intend to meet up with the Lord Ross and Lord Willoughby. The two have had a long journey from Ravenspurgh in the northeast, where Bolingbroke landed, but Northumberland says the trip has not been difficult. They are met unexpectedly by Northumberland's young son, Harry Percy. From him they learn what we, as readers, already know--that Northumberland's brother, the Earl of Worcester, has left Richard's court to join Bolingbroke. Percy also tells them that Northumberland and the other defectors have been declared traitors (this was the cause of Worcester's own defection), and that Percy himself was sent by Worcester to scout out Berkeley Castle and learn what sort of army York is raising there. Northumberland introduces Bolingbroke to his young son; Percy swears allegiance to him, and Bolingbroke swears eternal friendship and gratitude to Percy.The party turns out to already be very near Berkeley Castle, and we learn from Percy that York's army is small--only three hundred men--and has very few noblemen in it (only the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour). Lord Ross and Lord Willoughby arrive on horseback to join Bolingbroke, and then the Duke of York himself emerges from the castle.Bolingbroke is highly respectful and affectionate toward his uncle York, but York angrily chides him for disturbing the peace of England through his invasion. Bolingbroke makes an eloquent speech, declaring that Richard has done him wrong, pleading his right to the titles denied him, and arguing that he is unable to seek redress any other way. York, clearly moved, explains that, regardless of his own feeling about the matter, he cannot condone a rebellion against the lawful king. However, he also concedes that he does not presently have the manpower nor the personal strength to repel Bolingbroke and his allies, and declares that he will thus remain completely neutral on the matter. Bolingbroke and his allies are invited to spend the night in Berkeley Castle. Bolingbroke accepts, and he attempts to persuade his uncle to come with him the next day to Bristol Castle, where he intends to find and destroy Bushy and Bagot.Meanwhile, we discover, there is bad news waiting for Richard in Wales: on the coast of Wales--where Richard intends to land upon his return from Ireland--a large Welsh army has been waiting, under the supervision of Richard's ally Lord Salisbury, for Richard to lead it against Bolingbroke when he returns. After ten days of waiting with no news from the King, the army's Welsh captain explains to Salisbury that there are bad omens in the surrounding landscape and in the sky, and that he and his men are convinced Richard is dead. The Welshmen then begin to disperse despite Salisbury's pleas for them to remain. In despair, he declares that he can see Richard's star falling, like one of the Welshmen's bad omens, from the sky down toward the earth.CommentaryBolingbroke's invasion has clearly met with a fair amount of success. By this point, he has ridden most of the way across England in order to reach the highlands of Gloucestershire. The encounter between Bolingbroke and young Harry Percy is far more interesting one than is immediately apparent. Young Percy, who swears allegiance in this scene to Bolingbroke, will (along with his father) become a key player against Bolingbroke in the next two plays of this series (Henry IV Parts 1 & 2). Percy's statement that his youth will be, by "elder days," "ripen[ed] and confirm[ed] / To more approved service and desert" (43-44), and Bolingbroke's promise that "as my fortune ripens with thy love, / It shall be still thy true love's recompense" (48-49), are both laden with irony.York and Bolingbroke's exchange of words outside the castle eloquently demonstrates both the complexity of the political and personal issues involved in this war Shakespeare's artistry in depicting that complexity. It is increasingly unclear which party, if any, has "right" on its side. York condemns Bolingbroke as a traitor and tells Bolingbroke that if he himself were young again, he would give the lad a sound whipping to show him the error of his ways. Bolingbroke, however, pleads his case in very convincing terms: he has been cheated by the king out of his inheritance and his title of nobility, and also blocked by him from appealing that theft through any legal course of action. "What would you have me do?" he asks. "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" (131-35).Bolingbroke also plays the kinship card, telling York that he sees the image of his own father in him--"I see old Gaunt alive" (117)--and pointing out that if York had died instead of Gaunt, and York's son Aumerle had been similarly wronged, Gaunt would have acted as a father to him and helped him defend his rights.York still cannot fully approve of an insurrection that chafes against his sense of values and order: "To find out right with wrong, it may not be" (144). Still, he is clearly swayed by Bolingbroke's arguments; he also realizes that he simply does not have the strength to repel his invasion. His decision to remain "neuter," or neutral (158), is tantamount to defecting to Bolingbroke's side--as he well realizes, particularly when he invites them to sleep in the castle for the night. Bolingbroke's political adeptness has won him, and cost Richard, another ally.Act III, scenes i-iiSummaryAt Bristol Castle in southwestern England, a short distance south of Berkeley Castle, Henry Bolingbroke and his men have apprehended Bushy and Greene, who remain loyal to King Richard. Bolingbroke accuses them of having "misled a prince"(8)--that is, of having given Richard deliberately bad advice--and recites a list of charges against them: he says that they have stirred up trouble between the king and his queen and that their advice was the reason that Richard "misinterpret[ed]" Bolingbroke and subsequently banished him (18). He thus condemns them to be executed. Bushy and Greene are defiant but resigned; Northumberland leads them away to die. Having dispatched this piece of business, Bolingbroke sends greetings to Queen Isabel via the Duke of York, at whose house she is staying, and gathers up his men to fight some rebellious Welsh before heading to the main battle.Meanwhile, King Richard has landed on the coast of Wales, at "Barkloughly" Castle (actually called Harlech), accompanied by the Duke of Aumerle, the Bishop of Carlisle, and some soldiers. Richard greets the earth and air of England in poetic terms. Aumerle points out that, while they delay, Bolingbroke grows stronger in power. (The King and his party seem to be aware that Bolingbroke has landed in England, but do not have up-to-date news on his progress.) Richard responds, in powerful language, that since he is the rightful king, no rebel stands a chance; God is on their side, and they will easily sweep Bolingbroke out of England.Lord Salisbury enters, and, grieving, delivers terrible news to Richard: only the day before, the army of twelve thousand men of Wales, believing Richard to be dead, dispersed from where they had been waiting for him and fled to Bolingbroke. Richard is now without an army. Richard momentarily succumbs to despair, but then recovers his royal self-assurance. Lord Scroope then enters to give Richard the news that, as Bolingbroke made his way through England, all the common people acknowledged him as lord and joined his forces--men, women and children alike. Richard asks Scroope what has happened to his allies--Bagot, Bushy, Greene, and the Earl of Wiltshire. Whe Scroope tells him that they have "made peace with Bolingbroke" (127), Richard curses and damns them in ferocious terms--but then Scroope explains that he means they have been executed.Richard gives a long, eloquent, and despairing monologue, but the Bishop of Carlisle tells him to recover hope: giving in to fear and despair, he say, will do the enemy's work for him. Richard agrees, and declares that he will ride against Bolingbroke despite his losses. But Scroope has yet more bad news: the Duke of York has defected to Bolingbroke, too, and all the King's castles in the north and his allies in the south are in Bolingbroke's possession or on his side. Richard, hearing this and realizing that he has no hope left, announces his final intention to give in to despair and declares that he will go to Flint Castle, in northeastern Wales, to "pine away" (209).CommentaryAct III, scene i, in which Bushy and Greene are executed, is brief but serves two important purposes. First, it shows us the escalation of events that is building towards the inevitable outcome of the war: King Richard's capitulation to Bolingbroke at Flint Castle in Act III, scene iii. Richard's supporters have defected from, him one by one--or have been executed. From here, there is no turning back.Second, the way in which Bolingbroke justifies his execution of Richard's two friends points to an important issue surrounding Bolingbroke's invasion of England--the issue of hypocrisy, and the importance of that which is never stated aloud. Note that Bolingbroke arrests and executes Bushy and Greene in the name of the king. He continues to claim loyalty to the king and refers to him only in terms of respect. "You have misled," he says to the men, "... a royal king, / A happy gentlemen in blood and lineaments, / By you unhappied and disfigured clean" (8-10). He implies that Richard is a good kind who has been led astray, and that he (Bolingbroke) is actually attempting to protect the king by disposing of his corrupt and wicked advisors.However, everyone involved--Bolingbroke, his followers, Bushy and Greene, and the play's readers--know that Bolingbroke's intentions are not nearly so pure: his real motivation for executing Bushy and Greene is to weaken Richard so that Bolingbroke himself can take the crown. As in the scenes of political challenge in Act I, scene i, and of duel and banishment in Act I, scene iii, the real political maneuverings here are never openly acknowledged. Instead, they are masked by a wall of words.Act III, scene ii, which shows us Richard's return from Ireland and his discovery that he has lost England in his absence, is one of the most crucial scenes in the play. It marks a transformation for Richard: from here on in, the king who has spoken so carelessly and rudely, and who has ignored the words of so many of his advisors, will metamorphose into a brilliant and effective poet, often considered one of Shakespeare's most eloquent characters. From here until the end of the play Richard's poetry will become increasingly exalted, and his wordplay obviously superior to that of anyone around him. At the same time, however, he will become increasingly self-absorbed and abstracted from the realities around him.Richard's speeches in this scene address one of the play's central themes: What is a king? Is he divinely anointed and invulnerable, or merely a human being like any other? At the beginning of the scene, Richard is secure in his divine power as King--the same power that John of Gaunt respected in Act I, scene ii, when he refused to rise against him. Richard tells Aumerle, "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" (54-57). This is a thoroughly medieval way of thinking about kingship--the king as a direct deputy of God, immortal and invulnerable. But, as Richard learns that he has already lost his kingdom, his rhetoric changes rapidly: "Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's... / [T]hrow away respect, / Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; / For you have but mistook me all this while. / I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends" (151-2; 172-76).Act III, scene iiiSummaryBolingbroke, along with the Duke of York, Lord Northumberland, and their attendants, rides toward Flint Castle (in northeastern Wales), to which King Richard has fled. York, although he has now joined forces with Bolingbroke, is deeply disturbed about the possibility of divine retribution for the impending overthrow of the king, and Bolingbroke acknowledges his concerns. Young Harry Percy brings the party the news that King Richard is holed up inside the castle with several allies--Aumerle, Lord Salisbury, Sir Stephen Scroope, and the Bishop of Carlisle. Bolingbroke sends Northumberland to Richard with a message: that he, Bolingbroke, has come as a loyal subject to his King, and is prepared to surrender his army if< the lands and title which Richard seized from John of Gaunt at his death are returned to Bolingbroke, who is Gaunt's rightful heir. Otherwise, Bolingbroke will wage war against the King.However, before Northumberland can enter the castle, King Richard and his allies appear upon the high walls of the castle. Richard proudly, with all the authority of a king, thunderingly tells Northumberland to relay a message to Bolingbroke: if Bolingbroke dares try to usurp the throne, the heavens and the King will rain vengeance upon him. He also says that Bolingbroke will not possess the crown in peace until the fields of England have been stained with blood.Bolingbroke quickly denies that he has come to seize the throne, claiming that he is there simply to demand that his rights as Gaunt's heir be restored to him. Richard agrees to Bolingbroke's demands, but he realizes--as he says, in highly dramatic and despairing language, to his attendants--that his reign as king has ended; Bolingbroke will certainly not let him retain the crown. Bolingbroke calls upon Richard to come down from the castle and parley with him, and Richard and his attendants obediently descend. Bolingbroke never says aloud that his intention is to take the crown, but Richard asks whether he must go with Bolingbroke and his army to London, and Bolingbroke says yes. Richard, saying that it is clear he has no choice, agrees.CommentaryThis scene marks a turning point for the balance of power in the play, but it is haunted throughout by an unstated fear: that the overthrow of a rightful king is blasphemous. All the characters inwardly debate the question of whether Bolingbroke has the right to take the crown from the politically incompetent Richard, or whether he is committing a grievous sin for which he must eventually be punished. York, who is still conflicted about whether he has done the right thing in joining Bolingbroke, sharply warns his nephew not to presume too far when he disdains the power of the still-reigning king: "Take not, good cousin, farther than you should, / Lest you mistake: the heavens are o'er our heads" (16-17). He is clearly suggesting that God is watching closely to see what Bolingbroke does next.Both Richard and Bolingbroke invoke powerful metaphors of kingship in this, their first meeting since Bolingbroke's banishment. Bolingbroke muses, "Methinks King Richard and myself should meet / With no less terror than the elements / Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock / At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven" (54-57). Richard does, indeed, seem positively elemental when he appears on the castle's ramparts to challenge Bolingbroke and his party. Bolingbroke, upon seeing him appear, invokes the ubiquitous metaphor of the king as the sun: "See, see, King Richard doth himself appear, / As doth the blushing discontented sun / From out the fiery portal of the East, / When he perceives the envious clouds are bent / To dim his glory and to stain the track / Of his bright passage to the occident" (62-67).Bolingbroke's words recall Richard's own description of himself in Act III, scene ii: Richard claimed that when Bolingbroke "[s]hall see us rising in our throne the east, / His treasons will sit blushing in his face, / Not able to endure the sight of day" (II.ii.50-53). Richard's anticipated "rising" has come to pass, but it does not work out exactly as he had predicted. Far from being unable to endure the brilliant shining of the rightful king, Bolingbroke realizes that he is quite capable of putting out Richard's sun.The events of this scene also point to the hypocrisy of politics, since much of the underlying political maneuvering is masked by half-truths. Bolingbroke, and his ally Northumberland, still claim that they have come to face Richard for no other reason than to restore to Bolingbroke his ancestral titles; yet everyone present is fully aware that Bolingbroke will not be satisfied until he sits on the throne of England. Richard, realizing this, invokes the traditional concept of the divine sanction conferred upon a king: "[W]ell we know no hand of blood and bone / Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre, / Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp" (79-81).Richard follows this up with another dark prophecy: if Bolingbroke insists upon treasonously opening "[t]he purple testament of bleeding war" (94), then he will never possess the crown until that war has wracked the land, staining "[h]er pastures' grass with faithful English blood" (100). Shakespeare's audience would have recognized this as a foreshadowing of the civil wars that lay ahead in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V. Northumberland does not help matters when he speaks up on Bolingbroke's behalf and swears, by the royal blood and the dead bodies of Richard and Bolingbroke's ancestors, that his leader has only come to reclaim his inheritance and has no thought of becoming king. This claim, clearly an equivocation at best and an outright lie at worst, sets the stage for the horrors that follow when Bolingbroke breaks that vow.Knowing his reign is at an end, Richard indulges again in the elaborate language of despair that first appeared at Act III, scene ii, and to which we saw Isabel succumbing in Act III, scene i. "O that I were as great / As I have been, or lesser than my name! / O that I could forget what I have been!" laments the king. The famous image he invokes of himself and Aumerle digging their own graves with their tears (160-169) marks a new level of fanciful thought. Although Richard's despair has been transformed into extraordinary poetry, he no longer seems capable of taking much action in the real world. As Northumberland says, he speaks "fondly like a frantic man" (that is, a madman).Act III, scene ivSummaryWhile Richard, Bolingbroke, and their respective allies have been having their fateful encounters in the west of England and in Wales, Queen Isabel has been staying at the house of the Duke of York (at Langley, not far from London). Although she has not yet heard the news of Richard's capture by Bolingbroke, sadness and foreboding weigh very heavily upon he. As she walks in the Duke's garden with her waiting-women, they try to cheer her up by suggesting of games, singing, dancing, and storytelling. The Queen rejects all these ideas, saying that making any attempt to forget her grief would only add to it.An aged gardener and his assistant enter the garden to tend to some of the plants. At the Queen's suggestion, she and her ladies conceal themselves in the shadow of a grove to overhear what the men will discuss. She has noticed that the common folk have been discussing affairs of state, as if expecting an imminent change in the government.The older gardener tells his assistant to bind an apricot tree against a wall, and the two then begin to talk about the state of the country, using the garden as a metaphor. Why, the assistant asks, should the two of them bother to maintain order within their garden, when the country surrounding it has been allowed to sprout weeds and be infested by insects (a reference to Richard's mismanagement and his unpopular advisors)? The elder gardener tells him to keep quiet, since the person who caused the country's disorder has "met with the fall of leaf" (49)--that is, King Richard has been overthrown. He informs the assistant that letters came last night to a friend of the Duke of York's, bearing the news that the King's allies-- Bushy, Greene, and the Earl of Wiltshire--are dead, and that King Richard himself has been caputed by Bolingbroke. It seems almost certain that the king will soon be removed from power.Queen Isabel, no longer able to contain herself, bursts from her hiding place to ask the gardner if what he says is true. The gardener apologetically confirms that it is: King Richard is in Bolingbroke's custody, and, in comparing the resources of the two sides, it has become apparent, while Richard has nothing left, Bolingbroke holds the loyalty of all the English noblemen. He adds that if Isabel will go to London, she will discover that what he says is true.Isabel, lamenting her misfortune and the sorrow that lies in her future, summons her ladies to come with her to London to meet the captured Richard. She casts upon the gardener a half-hearted, grief-stricken curse as she departs: "[F]or telling me these news of woe, / Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow" (100-101). But the good-natured gardener takes pity upon the queen instead of getting angry; he decides to plant a bed of rue, the herb of sorrow, in the place where he saw her tears fall.CommentaryThis apparently small and insignificant scene carries great metaphorical importance and has interested critics for a long time. Critic Marjorie Garber refers to scenes like this as "window scenes" that give us a glimpse, as through a half-opened window in the street, into the minds and thoughts of everyday people. Commoners usually get short shrift in plays about kings and noblemen; here, we see into the minds of the skilled laborers who maintain the grounds of the Duke of York's palace--a far cry from the aristocracy of the vast majority of the play's characters. While other, contemporary plays in the "high style" certainly had scenes involving commoners, they were usually presented as comic relief, not as the sober and perceptive people Shakespeare gives us. This mixing of the "low" classes with the high is developed in much fuller and more interesting ways in the "Henry" plays which follow (Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V).The metaphor of England as a garden, and of Richard as a bad gardener, has come up before--most notably in Act II, scene i, in John of Gaunt's speech. Indeed, some of the same figures and images are used: for instance, the king's advisors Bushy and Greene are called "caterpillars" here (47), the same word Bolingbroke uses to refer to them in Act III, scene iii.Moreover, we see once again the metaphors which associate the king with the land: the description of Richard defeat as "the fall of leaf" (49) reminds us not only of John of Gaunt's rich garden analogies in Act II, scene i, but also of the metaphor the Duchess of Gloucester used to refer to the death of her husband Thomas of Gloucester: "One flourishing branch of [Edward III's] most royal root... / Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded / By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe" (I.ii.18-21). The verbal echo seems to be loaded with ominous foreboding: if Gloucester died violently and mysteriously, what does it mean that Richard's leaves now are falling too? Already the king's assassination in Act V, scene v--the groundwork for which has been laid nearly from the play's beginning--is starting to look inevitable.

Act IV, scene iSummaryHenry Bolingbroke, his allies, and the captured party of King Richard have returned from Wales to London. There, in Westminster Hall, they call on Bagot to give testimony, asking him who conspired with Richard to kill Thomas, Duke of Gloucester. Bagot claims that the Duke of Aumerle was central in the conspiracy. Aumerle heatedly denies it, setting off a gage-throwing chain reaction which eventually involves six people: Aumerle begins by declaring that Bagot is a liar and throwing down his gage (a glove or a hood) to challenge him to single combat. Immediately thereafter, Lord Fitzwater, Lord Percy, and another unnamed lord all throw down gages against Aumerle; then Lord Surrey throws down his gage on Aumerle's side, and the trigger-happy Fitzwater throws down his gage again--and Aumerle, who is out of gages, is forced to borrow someone else's so that he, too, can throw down his gage again.As the gage-throwing grows to ludicrous proportions, Bolingbroke cuts them all off, saying that the challenges will have to wait. He plans to bring Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, back from the exile to which Richard condemned him, and Mowbray will help settle the truth of the matter. However, the Bishop of Carlisle tells them all that Mowbray has died while fighting valiantly in the Crusades.The Duke of York abruptly enters to inform the company that King Richard has capitulated, agreeing to "adopt" Bolingbroke as his "heir" (109) and to yield the throne to him immediately. Bolingbroke agrees, but the Bishop of Carlisle interrupts him, breaking into a long speech in which he condemns Bolingbroke for his insurrection against the rightful king. He tells Bolingbroke that if he takes the crown now from the true king of England, generations yet to come will suffer and the ground will be soaked in English blood. Northumberland promptly arrests Carlisle on charges of high treason.Bolingbroke summons Richard so that he may abdicate the crown to him in full view of the nobles. Helpless and despairing, Richard enters; he delays giving Bolingbroke the crown with a long, grief-stricken monologue in which he surrenders land, crown, and kingship. Northumberland asks him to read aloud a statement confessing his crimes against the kingdom, so that the people "may deem that you are worthily depos'd" (227), but Richard resists the order. He then calls for a looking-glass, and, after staring into it and wondering aloud about his own identity now that he is no longer king, he dashes it to the floor.Richard asks Bolingbroke one final favor: that he be allowed to go away freely from the court. Bolingbroke, without explicitly answering no, commands that Richard be taken to the Tower of London (the traditional place for holding political prisoners). Richard departs under guard. Bolingbroke sets the date of his coronation as the following Wednesday. After he leaves, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and Aumerle begin to speak together, apparently conspiring against Bolingbroke.CommentaryThis extraordinarily long scene makes up all of Act IV. The effect of this prolonged, uninterrupted staging is to create a sense of headlong action.The exchange of thrown gages at the beginning of the scene hearkens back to Act I, scene i, when Bolingbroke and Mowbray challenged each other to the duel that resulted in Richard banishing them both. In reflecting this earlier scene, however, Act IV, scene i also alters it. For the unacknowledged secret that lay behind Bolingbroke's accusation and banishment--the fact that King Richard himself was behind Gloucester's murder--has now been brought into the light. Now that Richard has been deposed, his past sin can be brought back as a crime with which to charge him. This scene also foreshadows the way in which Bolingbroke himself will re-enact Richard's crime and his fall, when he, as King Henry IV, becomes partly responsible for Richard's murder in Act V, scene v.The Bishop of Carlisle's speech is placed centrally in the scene (between Bagot and Aumerle's challenges and Richard's abdication), and is one of the play's key monologues. This speech is the final culmination and most eloquent example of the series of warnings, curses and dark prophecies that have been accumulating since the play's beginning--but the darkness that was, at first, foretold for Richard is now being prophesied for Bolingbroke.Carlisle starts out by invoking a familiar theme: a king's divine sanction and God's anger at the usurpation of his throne. Carlisle calls the king "the figure of God's majesty, / His captain, steward, deputy elect, / Anointed, crowned, planted many years" (125-27), and says that no subject has the right to overthrow his king. We hear echoes here of earlier speeches, such as Gaunt's reference to the king as God's "deputy anointed in His sight" in Act I, scene ii, York's defense of the king's rights in Act II, scene iii, and Richard's own claim that "Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king" (III.ii.54-55). Carlisle then follows this by prophesying destruction for the usurper--a curse similar to that which John of Gaunt laid on Richard in Act II, scene i, and which Richard himself delivered to Bolingbroke in Act III, scene iii. If Bolingbroke is crowned king, Carlisle prophesies, civil war will tear the realm apart: "Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny / Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd / The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls" (142-44). Although Bolingbroke and his men ignore the prophecy and arrest Carlisle on charges of treason, his dark prophecy hangs over the rest of the play.King Richard's several extraordinary speeches during the scene of his abdication are among the most famous passages in the play and are worth reading carefully. The first is built around one of Richard's theatrical gestures: Richard, even as he proffers the crown to Bolingbroke, is not quite ready to let go of it. As the two stand staring at each other, each with one hand resting upon the crown, Richard compares the crown to a well which balances the two princes like a pair of buckets, full of water: as Bolingbroke pours out his water into Richard, causing him to sink, Bolingbroke himself rises higher.When Bolingbroke asks him straightforwardly if he is willing to turn over the crown, Richard enters into a long soliloquy in which he formally strips himself of his kingship: "With mine own hands I give away my crown, / With mine own tongue deny my sacred state" (208-9).Finally, comparing himself to a snowman who stands before the sun (since Bolingbroke, now king, has the right to refer to himself as the sun), Richard wonders aloud whether he has melted away and whether he has any identity any more. He calls for a looking-glass (a mirror) so that he may behold whether he still exists. Staring at the face which is no longer the face of a king, he is overcome. He dramatically smashes the mirror upon the floor, shattering his reflection into shards. His meaning is that Bolingbroke's usurpation of his kingship has symbolically, and perhaps literally, destroyed him: "Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport--How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face" (290-91).Richard's wordiness and theatricality in this scene contrast notably with Bolingbroke's quiet stoicism. As Richard's ability to affect the course of events is reduced, he gets more poetic; nowhere is the contrast between Bolingbroke, the man of action, and Richard, the ineffectual man of words, more obvious than it is here.Act V, scene iSummaryQueen Isabel and her attendants have arrived in London, where they have stationed themselves on a street leading to the Tower of London so that they may meet the deposed King Richard when he passes by on his way to the Tower. Richard and his guard ride into view, and Isabel laments to see her lord so changed: "[B]ut see, or rather do not see, / My fair rose wither" (7-8). Richard sees her and tries to comfort her, telling her she must now learn to live with grief. He bids her imagine that her life has always been as it is now, tells her to think about the afterlife instead of this one, and instructs her to return to France (her native country) and enter a religious convent.Isabel, angry and despairing, asks Richard what has happened to his courage and righteous indignation: has Bolingbroke taken that from him, as well as his crown? Richard replies that it is no longer of any use to try to fight: his fate is settled and Isabel should think of him as dead. He orders her again to go to France, and asks her to tell his tragic tale as a fireside story on long winter evenings--a tale to make its hearers weep.Northumberland enters and tells Richard that Bolingbroke has changed his mind about what is to be done with him: Richard is not to go to the Tower of London, but is instead to be taken to Pomfret Castle in the north of England. Richard tells him--in something that sounds half like a curse, half like an ominous prophecy--that the peace between him and Bolingbroke will not last long: Northumberland and the new king will be at each other's throats soon enough. Northumberland replies curtly and orders him to take leave of Isabel: she is to be sent back to France immediately, and he must go to Pomfret. Richard and Isabel bid each other a long, touching farewell, in highly stylized language, and part to go their separate ways.CommentaryThe formal and stylized language of the farewell scene hearkens back to some of the play's earlier passages of challenge and sorrow. The complex poetry of their leave-taking strikes some readers as very beautiful, though others find it to be stiff and affected. The final farewell between the two, written in a long passage of rhymed couplets, uses the conventional Renaissance language of doomed lovers--groans, sighs, kisses, and weeping--to signal the grief of the pair at being forced to separate. Richard tells Isabel, "Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; / Better far off than, near, be ne'er the near. / Go count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans." Isabel replies, "So longest way shall have the longest moans" (87-90).Here, we see Richard as fully resigned to the loss of his kingship--not even Isabel's indignation can rouse him from his comfortable despair. He has even given up the poetic metaphors that he so often used as king; just as he has acknowledged Bolingbroke to be the sun in the preceding scene, Richard no longer claims to be, for instance, the lion--the traditional king of beasts. "[W]ilt thou, pupil-like, / Take correction mildly, kiss the rod . . . / Which art a lion and the king of beasts?" asks Isabel angrily (31-34). Richard will not rise to the bait, but prefers to picture himself instead as the doomed hero of a tragic story (40-50).The curse--or perhaps it is better called a prophecy--that Richard gives to Northumberland before he is taken to Pomfret is, by now, a familiar one: the sins of the past will come back to haunt the current rulers. "The time shall not be many hours of age / More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head / Shall break into corruption," says Richard (57-59). Northumberland and Bolingbroke, he prophecies, will have a falling-out, and the one will rise in arms against the other. For "[t]he love of wicked men converts to fear, / That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both / To worthy danger and deserved death" (66-69). Northumberland, who ignore Richard now, will remember his words when the truth of this prophecy unfolds during the course of Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2. Act V, scene ii-iiiSummaryAt the Duke of York's house at Langley, the aged Duke greets his wife, the Duchess of York, and tells her about the long day he has had: when Bolingbroke rode into London in triumph for his coronation, leading Richard in captivity, the people scowled upon Richard and dumped rubbish onto his head, but cheered wildly for Bolingbroke. Throwing open the windows to watch him pass, they cried out, "God save thee, Bolingbroke! / . . . Welcome, Bolingbroke!" (11-17). York is upset by the bad treatment given to the former King Richard, but he vows to be loyal to the new king.Aumerle, the son of the Duke and Duchess of York, enters; he is now called "Rutland," apparently having lost his more noble title due to Bolingbroke's judgment on the "trial" of Act IV, scene i. As he listlessly discusses the triumphal celebrations being held at Oxford in honor of the new King Henry IV, his father, York, notices a letter that he is concealing within his shirt. Aumerle tries to prevent his father from seeing it, but York seizes and reads it. He immediately becomes highly agitated, calling his son "Villain! Traitor! Slave!" (72). The letter, it turns out, reveals that Aumerle has joined in a conspiracy of a dozen noblemen who plan to assassinate King Henry at Oxford.The Duchess tries to reason with York, pleading with him to keep Aumerle's involvement a secret since he is their only son and she is too old to bear more children. York, however, will not listen, and he mounts his horse to ride to King Henry and tell him everything. The Duchess instructs Aumerle to ride after his father and try to reach the King first to beg his forgiveness. She herself will follow as swiftly as she can so that she can plead for Aumerle's life.At Windsor Castle, near London, we find Bolingbroke complaining to young Harry Percy about the wild ways of Bolingbroke's son, whom he has not seen for a full three months. The young prince has apparently been spending his time in taverns and whorehouses and associating with robbers and highwaymen. Bolingbroke is concerned, but still sees signs of hope in the boy.Aumerle enters and begs his cousin Bolingbroke for a private audience. The new king dismisses his companions, and Aumerle falls to his knees and says he will not rise until the king has agreed to forgive him for the crime he has committed--nor will he name the crime until he has the king's pardon. He also begs the king to lock the door until their conference is done. Bolingbroke complies, but suddenly the Duke of York is heard banging at the door. He cries out that Aumerle is a traitor; Bolingbroke draws his sword, but Aumerle swears that the king has nothing to fear from him. York then enters and shows Bolingbroke the traitorous letter. The voice of the Duchess is heard from outside, and she, too, enters the chamber; she has ridden from her home to plead with the king to spare her son's life. A strange three-way conversation, in highly formal language, ensues between the Duchess of York, the Duke of York, and the king: York pleads with the king to execute his son as a traitor, while the Duchess begs him to spare Aumerle's life. At last, the king decides to pardon Aumerle, but adds that all the rest of the conspirators will be arrested and executed immediately.CommentaryThe action of this scene seems oddly distant from the downfall of King Richard, which has preoccupied the play until now. However, the subplot actually does serve to tie up some loose ends and show us that the transition of power has not been altogether smooth. It also lays the groundwork for new themes and plot lines that will come to fruition in the later "Henry" plays. For instance, we hear in this scene the first mention of Bolingbroke's son. The prince, who is never named in this play, is in fact Prince Hal, a major figure in Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, and the title character of Henry V. In addition, we see that, despite the change in kings, some aspects of court life never change. When Aumerle enters, returning from the king's company, his mother asks him, "Who are the violets now / That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?" (45-46). She means that, since Richard's former allies (including Aumerle), have fallen from grace, there must now be new favorites in the court. Aumerle may no longer be a "violet," but someone will have sprung up to replace him. And, only half-jokingly, Aumerle's father York warns him: "[B]ear you well in this new spring of time, / Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime" (50-51).The rather bizarre scene at the climax of Act V, scene iii, in which the Duke and Duchess of York argue with King Henry over Aumerle's fate, seems to beg explanation, but it is difficult to know quite what to make of it. The ritualistic spectacle of Aumerle and the Duchess formally pleading (in rhymed couplets) for the king's forgiveness is placed against the counterpoint of York's insistence that Aumerle be executed as a traitor.What are we to make of York's almost fanatical insistence that the king execute his son? One possibility is that the conflicts of loyalty which have been tearing at York since the beginning of the play--the enormous burden of responsibility left to him when Richard made him Lord Governor of England during the Irish war, his failure to defend Richard's kingdom against the invading Bolingbroke, the painfully difficult decision to abandon Richard's cause and leave the kingdom open to Bolingbroke's invasion--have left York with the sense that his value systems have been overturned. All he has left to cling to, perhaps, is his firm conviction that he must remain loyal to the King of England--who now is Bolingbroke. As York says in Act V, scene ii, "To Bolingbroke we are sworn subjects now, / Whose state and honour I for aye allow" (39-40). Even if it requires turning in his own son as a traitor, York seems to be obsssed with the idea of maintaining his loyalty to the king.Act V, scenes iv-viSummaryIn Windsor Castle, where the new King Henry IV (a.k.a. Bolingbroke) now resides, a nobleman called Sir Piers Exton is talking with his servants. He tells them that King Henry has asked his audience of courtiers, "Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?" Exton reasonably interprets the "living fear" as a reference to the still-living King Richard, who is currently imprisoned at Pomfret Castle in the north of England. Exton thinks that he saw King Henry specifically look at him when he asked the question. He decides that, as the "king's friend" (11)--motivated either by loyalty or by hope of reward, or perhaps both--he will be the man to go and kill Richard.We now move to Richard in Pomfret, who is soliloquizing to himself. Still trying to come to terms with his isolation from the world, he tries various metaphorical and metaphysical tricks to convince himself that he is not alone, but is still part of a populated world. A groom who has remained faithful to Richard comes in unexpectedly to wish Richard well and tell him how grieved he is to behold the former king's fall, but he cannot cheer the grieving king.Then the castle's keeper enters with food for the former king. Richard, wary, bids the keeper taste of it first as he usually does (to prove it is not poisoned), but the keeper says that he cannot--one Sir Pierce of Exton, who has come to see him, has forbidden it. Angrily, Richard strikes the keeper, who cries out. Exton and his accomplices rush in. After a brief scuffle in which Richard apparently kills several of the accomplices, Exton succeeds in striking him down, and Richard, condemning Exton to burn in hell for his sin, dies. Troubled by doubt and guilt, Exton resolves to bury his slain accomplices at Pomfret and convey Richard's body to King Henry at Windsor.Back at Windsor, we find Bolingbroke, the king, discussing the state of affairs with his advisors: the bad news is that there are rebels setting fire to towns in Gloucestershire in the northwest, but the good news is that the main conspirators against King Henry's life--Lord Salisbury, the Abbot of Westminster, and others--have been executed and their heads sent to London (presumably for public display as a warning to others). The Bishop of Carlisle has been left alive and is now presented to the king for his sentence; Bolingbroke shows the Bishop mercy and commands him to find a "secret place" (25), keep a low profile, and live out his life in peace.Suddenly, Exton enters with the coffin containing Richard's body and tells Bolingbroke that he has taken the cue from his own mouth and murdered the former king. Bolingbroke, in some of the most highly loaded, double-edged, and ambiguous language in the play, says that while he admits he is very glad that Richard is dead, he denies that he actually ordered the former king's murder and declares that he now loathes and repudiates Exton. He orders Exton to leave the court and wander miserably in his guilt. Bolingbroke himself vows to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land--Jerusalem--to wash the guilt of this murder from his soul. He orders a sad funeral for Richard and he and his retinue depart the stage in mourning.CommentaryRichard's final speeches, which he makes in Act V, scene v, are among his most interesting. As we have seen throughout the play, the more Richard's ability to actually get anything done is compromised, the more extraordinary his poetry becomes. Now, at last, Richard is literally imprisoned--he cannot go anywhere or do anything, and can only wait for his fate to come to him--and his poetry soars.In his opening speech, we find Richard playing psychological games to try to convince himself that he is not alone. (He appears to be courting insanity when he does this, but that is apparently not of great concern to him.) Richard considers his isolation and tries to find ways to re-think its emptiness: "I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world; / And, for because the world is populous / And here is not a creature but myself / I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out . . ." (1-5). This speech--along with much else that Richard says in this scene--can been read as a foreshadowing of the monologues Shakespeare will later write for Hamlet, another imprisoned intellect wandering in a gloomy castle and speculating on the nature of life, death, and identity. Hamlet, to whom Denmark seems as much a prison as Richard's literal jail cell, laments to his friends, "O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space -- were it not that I have bad dreams" (Hamlet, II.iii