Richard II is comparatively a less well-known play by Shakespeare. I’ve been reading and thinking about this play for a few weeks now, what I want to talk about most is the character, the person of Richard and his incredible speeches.
Before I go on, I always feel like I need to say this, especially when I talk about Shakespeare. Everything that follows is my personal opinion as an amateur reader. I’ll try to share how I feel about it and explain why I think so. Please don’t quote me and please feel free to disagree.
Summary
The story in one sentence is about the fall of Richard II. Borrowing a biblical image which Shakespeare makes use of in the play, it’s about the exile of Richard. If you’ve seen or read the play, you’d know that Richard is never exiled. Mowbray and Bullingbroke are at the beginning of the play, but not Richard. That’s right. He is not. Not in the same way as Mowbray and Bullingbroke are. But think about it. We see Richard sitting on the throne in Windsor Castle in Act 1 Scene 1 and briefly in Scene 4, after that, do you notice, we never see him return to Windsor Castle nor sit on his throne again. He’s exiled from his throne physically and figuratively. Let’s see how Richard moves from place to place in relation to the plot line.
A1S1 Richard hears a dispute between Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk and Henry Bullingbroke at Windsor Castle. They are determined to settle the dispute by combat even though King Richard tries to persuade them not to. Skipping A1S2 which doesn’t involve Richard. A1S3 Richard watches the tournament in Coventry. The two contestants are both exiled as a result. A1S4 Richard talks to his close friends in court briefly commenting on the departure of Bullingbroke and the financing of the Irish war. A2S1 Richard visits John of Gaunt and Gaunt dies. Richard seizes the property of Gaunt there and then, thinking that would solve the money problem for the Irish War. He goes to Ireland the day after. While Richard is in Ireland for the rest of A2, Bullingbroke arrives back in England unannounced with an enormous army and all of Richard’s men go to support Bullingbroke. Richard’s close friends are executed by Bullingbroke. When Richard appears on stage again in A3S2, he’s only a king by name and not by power. For the rest of the play, we see not only how Richard loses his power, but more importantly, how he tries to reconcile with the reality of losing his kingly name. Losing his name, his identity as a king, and coming to terms with that, proves way more traumatic than losing the power, glory and even his life.
The Opening Scene
That’s a summary up to A3. Let’s go back to the beginning. I haven’t read all of Shakespeare’s plays but, not sure if you noticed this, having the title character opening the play is quite unusual. If you think of the plays that are named after its main characters: Coriolanus starts with a riot, the title character doesn’t appear until line 150 something in Act 1 Scene 1. Titus Andronicus line 70 ish in Act 1 Scene 1. Julius Caesar starts with common people getting told off for celebrating in the streets and Caesar as well as Brutus appear in Act 1 Scene 2. Hamlet Act 1 Scene 2. Macbeth starts with the witches and doesn’t appear until Act 1 Scene 3. Romeo and Juliet starts with a street fight that doesn’t involve either of them. Antony and Cleopatra start talking the earliest among this lot, but still after an under-the-breath complaint from two soldiers behind their backs. Othello appears in A1S2. I haven’t read King Lear or Cymbeline. But I had a quick look, I don’t think any of them speak at the opening of the play. So generally speaking, we usually hear from other characters first. When we meet the protagonist, we have some impressions about the situation and the protagonist already.
The notable exception is of course the massive soliloquy of Richard III. And here, A1S1 Richard II is the one to open the play. I think there are similarities between the two Richards. Obviously, they’re two very different people and play completely different roles in their own story, but they have something in common: they’re both actors twice over.
Richard III breaks the fourth wall right from the start and talks to the audience directly. All the Richard III shows and film adaptations that I watched have the actor for Richard look straight into the camera, into my eyes. He says I’m Richard III, I know I’m a character in this story, but I know you, who are outside this story, are watching, and I’m saying these things and doing these things knowing you’re watching. He’s both inside AND outside his story.
Richard II is an actor twice in a very different way. He performs plays within the play. If the actor is good, the stage should look like that is his entire world. He certainly doesn’t break the fourth wall, he doesn’t realise there IS a fourth wall. The actors on stage around him are real dukes and lords to him. He does not know we’re watching. That shouldn’t be anything unusual in theatre. But I say Richard is an actor twice because, he puts on shows within this world, he turns people in his world into fellow actors and audiences in plays of his own making. There are a lot of examples of this. I’ll give you a quick one here.
In the fabulous deposition scene, he is sent into the presence of the new court and the new king.
RICHARD
To do what service am I sent for hither?
YORK
To do that office of thine own good will
Which tired majesty did make thee offer,
The resignation of thy state and crown
To Henry Bullingbrook.
RICHARD
Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown,
On this side my hand and on that side thine.
(Act 4 Scene 1)
He gives stage instructions, first to York, ‘give me the crown’. When he takes it in his hand, I see in my head he holds it out to Bullingbrook like a bait and a trap, or like a sweet to a child, and he says, here it is, cousin, come take it. ‘You want the world to see I officially resign the crown to you? Then come seize it.’ Like Richard seizes Bullingbrook’s property early on in the play, Shakespeare uses the same word. ‘You want the world to see I willingly give it to you? The world will see how you take it from me.’ Bullingbrook asks Richard to come and do this in front of everyone so his claim is legit and no one can dispute it. But now it turns into an embarrassing show that puts under the spotlight the fact that Bullingbrook is a rebel and usurper, he seizes the crown illegitimately. It’s a triumph on Richard’s part through forcing Bullingbrook to join in his acting.
I scanned through an essay by Charles Lamb on Shakespeare’s tragedies. The gist of the essay is that Lamb doesn’t think acting on stage can do justice to Shakespeare’s characters. You can’t appreciate them when the lines are recited so fast and you are watching from a spot so far away. All you can see and hear is actors waving their arms and shouting at the top of their voices in order to be heard. That’s heavily paraphrased by me by the way. Lamb believes you can only fully appreciate the subtlety and complexity of the characters and Shakespeare’s genius by reading the plays. I see his point and especially agree when Lamb uses Romeo and Juliet as an example. But Lamb doesn’t mention Richard II. I think Richard II can be an exception, especially if you can have Richard II played on screen with close-up shots showing, as Judi Dench says about the art of acting, ‘shrug with your eyebrows’, captured by various camera angles. It could work so well! Because Richard is so over-the-top theatrical! He’s absolutely pathetic, as a man and especially a king, I’m not sure if I feel sorry for him or if I feel despair by seeing his actions and reaction to the events around him. But feelings aside, I cannot help watching him!
The fall, the theatricality and the poetry of Richard II
As Richard II falls lower, his theatricality comes out more and his speeches and poetry rise gloriously. My attention span is usually too short for long speeches but I LOVE the speeches in Richard II. A few more examples of the theatricality of Richard.
We see that Richard goes to Ireland and comes back discovering that his kingdom has been taken. In A3S2 he lands in Wales with a couple of followers and nothing awaits and welcomes him except bad news. He gets off the boat and says,
RICHARD
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hooves.
As a long-parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favours with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies,
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
(Act 3 Scene 2)
He lovingly speaks to the earth with tears and smiles. He stoops down and touches her like a lover, and asks her to send out spiders, toads, stingy nettles and snakes to his enemies. He doesn’t ask for information on the progress of the rebellion, he doesn’t encourage the few soldiers that still follow him, he doesn’t plan a strategy as a response. Antony and Cleopatra is about the fall of a great man as well. Antony the old lion fought on desperately. But Richard gives in without a fight. He practically yields to the rebels at the end of this very same scene. He hasn’t even met Bullingbrook yet, there’s no fighting, nothing has happened yet. But he has already given up. I don’t know about you but I don’t associate this with a kingly behaviour. Richard’s fall comes with no resistance, there’s zero struggle against Bullingbroke in terms of army, fighting and power.
When I read this passage, Richard repeats ‘dear earth’, ‘my earth’, ‘my gentle earth’ three times, so lovingly it reminds me of Romeo and a specific line he says:
ROMEO
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.
The dull earth here refers to Romeo himself. Romeo and Juliet is written at the same time as Richard II. I imagine Shakespeare holding Romeo and Juliet and Richard II in his mind side by side. Richard is the king of England, he is England. On the first read, it looks like he’s talking senselessly to an inanimate object, but he’s conjuring up the power of nature and the earth, of England itself to defend her rightful king. It shows his sense of ownership over England. He absolutely believes England belongs to him, he is England. I said giving up so easily is not very kingly. It’s kingly but ordinary if he commands human soldiers (which he doesn’t), but it’s extraordinary he feels like he has power and authority to command nature and the earth.
RICHARD
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
This earth shall have a feeling and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.
(Act 3 Scene 2)
Earth and stones will cry out and fight for him. These lines quickly brought to my mind the Bible when Jesus enters Jerusalem as the King and the crowd shouts praises. When someone questions it, Jesus says
‘I tell you,’ he [Jesus] replied, ‘if they [the crowd] keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’ (Luke 19.40)
The stones will come alive for the king and Richard is God’s anointed king. He absolutely believes it:
RICHARD
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.
For every man that Bullingbrook hath press’d
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown
God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then if angels fight
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
(Act 3 Scene 2)
Another example. Go back to Richard’s resistance-less fall. In response to the bad news one after another Aumerle says:
AUMERLE
Where is the duke my father with his power?
RICHARD
No matter where. Of comfort no man speak!
Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bullingbrook’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings,
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d,
Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
All murder’d…
(Act 3 Scene 2)
A few things to notice in this speech. Firstly, he says ‘let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings’. Again we see he gives directions for everyone to sit down and join in his performance. He has this drama going on in his head and he plays it out. Secondly, this drama in his head, about himself, the deposing of the king, has passed on to become a part of the legend and one with the history of all the previous murdered kings. Remember he has just arrived back from Ireland, we’re only in A3S2, so much can happen in a Shakespeare play before the end. But he has not only given up fighting, in his head, he has classed himself as one of the old kings and he has become a story. It happens again when his Queen challenges him for giving up so easily a few scenes later.
RICHARD
Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest
As from my deathbed, thy last living leave.
In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid,
And ere thou bid good night, to ‘quite their griefs
Tell thou the lamentable tale of me
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why! The senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out,
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.
(Act 5 Scene 1)
Tell people about me, like one of those woeful stories from a long time ago. Even before his end comes, he has already passed on to history. Telling stories about him seems to be his way of processing and coming to terms with the fact that he’s losing his name and identity. He’s not a king anymore, but he was and in stories, he could be a king once again.
Let me end with one of my favourite speeches in Richard II and the ultimate performance of Richard, the disposing of a king, himself.
BULLINGBROOK
Are you contented to resign the crown?
RICHARD
Aye—no. No—aye, for I must nothing be,
Therefore no ‘no’, for I resign to thee.
Now, mark me how I will undo myself.
I give this heavy weight from off my head
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.
With mine own tears I wash away my balm;
With mine own hands I give away my crown;
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state;
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths.
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
My manors, rents, revenues I forgo;
My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.
God pardon all oaths that are broke to me;
God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee.
Make me, that nothing have with nothing griev’d,
And thou with all pleas’d that hast all achiev’d.
Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit.
God save King Henry, unking’d Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days.
(Act 4 Scene 1)
A Day of Small Things 