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Richard II
The
Play in Perspective
By
Clifford Williams
THE
HISTORY
Richard II is one of the eight
plays written during the 1590s in which Shakespeare dramatized the rise and fall
of the house of Lancaster from the usurpation of Richard II’s throne by Henry
Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, to the death of Richard III and the uniting of
the white rose with the red—the houses of York and Lancaster—in the person
of the Earl of Richmond, who, as Henry VII, founded the Tudor dynasty.
Shakespeare wrote the plays in the wrong order.
After those concerned with Henry VI and Richard III he turned to the
beginning of the story, following his play on the strong but villainous Richard
III with that on the weak but sympathetic Richard II.
Both plays have a tragic framework, and they provide two great but
strongly contrasted central roles which have rarely been essayed by a single
actor.
Richard II, born in 1367, succeeded to the throne on the death of his
grandfather, Edward III, in 1377, and reigned until his death in 1400.
Drawing on chronicle sources but shaping them freely to his own artistic
ends, Shakespeare dramatizes only the last two or three years of Richard’s
reign. Shortly before the play
opens Richard had been implicated in the murder of his uncle, the Duke of
Gloucester, brother of John of Gaunt. Though
Richard’s guilt is not directly stated it hovers behind the opening scene in
which his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s son, accuses the Earl of
Mowbray of Gloucester’s murder. Richard
orders a trial by combat, but, motivated perhaps by consciousness of his own
guilt, stops the trial at the last moment, takes the law into his own hands, and
exiles Mowbray and Bolingbroke. He
behaves callously to the dying Gaunt, a stern upholder of the old order to whose
warnings against his irresponsibly extravagant behavior he pays no heed, and
when Gaunt dies confiscates his property, with no regard for Bolingbroke’s
rights, to provide funds for his campaign in Ireland.
In Richard’s absence there, Bolingbroke breaks exile and returns to
England, gaining support—notably that of the Earl of Northumberland—in his
efforts to claim first his inheritance, then the throne.
Richard is dismayed to hear how his own troops are deserting him in favor
of Bolingbroke. When the two
confront each other at Flint Castle, Bolingbroke insists that he comes only to
claim his own, but shortly afterwards the Duke of York (another of Richard’s
uncles) announces Richard’s abdication. The
transference of power is bloodlessly effected; Richard, consigned to Pomfret
(Pontefract) Castle, bids a
sad farewell to his former Queen, banished to France.
York, who has shifted his loyalty to the new king, discovers that his
son, Aumerle, has been plotting against Bolingbroke, and rushes to inform on
him, but Aumerle gets there first ad pleads for pardon which Bolingbroke grants
at the urging of Aumerle’s mother, the Duchess of York.
In the play’s closing sequence Richard is murdered by Piers Exton, who
has overheard Bolingbroke wishing for his death.
Bolingbroke, anxious and guilt laden, disclaims responsibility and plans
an expiatory pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
TOPICALITY
Though to us Richard II may seem to be concerned purely with the fourteenth
century, the Elizabethans found it highly relevant to the contemporary political
scene. Shakespeare was writing in
about 1595. Elizabeth had been on
the throne since 1558, and had never married. She had done much to unify England and to increase the
country’s prosperity; it was important that the next monarch should not throw
away what she had won. She was
often criticized for being over influenced by favorites, as Richard had been.
There was a real danger that, like Richard, she might be deposed.
Plays could be used as instruments of political propaganda; and they
could be censored by sensitive governments.
It is significant that when Richard
II was first printed, in 1597, the episode of Richard’s abdication was
omitted; it is absent from the two later editions printed in Elizabeth’s
lifetime, but present in the first to appear after her death.
If Elizabeth was often compared to Richard, her rebellious favorite the
Earl of Essex was an obvious
candidate for identification with Bolingbroke.
On the night before Essex’s ill-fated rebellion on 8 February, 1601,
his supporters commissioned a performance of Richard
II by Shakespeare’s company at the Globe Theatre, apparently as a gesture
of encouragement and defiance. Before
the month was out, Essex had been tried and executed.
RESEARCHING
RICHARD II
Granted good performances and staging, an historical play generally
contains within itself all that the audience requires in order to enjoy and
evaluate the piece. This is true
whether the play is about some well known figure or event, such as Winston
Churchill or the French Revolution (where audiences have some of the subject
knowledge), or about an apparent by way of history, say the reign of Maximilian
and Carlotta (where knowledge may be minimal except in Mexico).
But preparing to produce an historical play is a different matter.
The play encapsulates the dramatist’s imaginative response to actual
events and persons. These have been
transformed by the dramatist, but some understanding of what
has been transformed helps understanding why.
Research, where Shakespeare is concerned, starts with the choice of text.
Five quarto (single) editions of Richard
II were published between 1597 and 1615, and the First Folio (collected)
appeared in 1623. There are
considerable textual variations between the various editions.
Editors generally follow the first quarto or the Folio, occasionally
leaning on readings found in the other texts.
Recent editors such as Andrew Gurr (New Cambridge), Pete Ure (Arden) and
Stanley Wells (New Penguin) favor the first quarto. This production used the New Penguin as a basis for work,
supplemented by Matthew W. Black’s new Variorum edition which relies on the
First Folio and is a treasure trove of commentary. I noted in rehearsal that several of my colleagues preferred
to use the Arden edition. Whenever
I had to give a reference e.g. “What do you think of Act II, Scene I, line
115?”, the Ardenites took some time to find the place in their copies.
I inquired why they needed Ardens and was answered, very sensibly, that
the print was more readable than in the New Penguin. Two actors clung to
miniature Temple editions and found difficulty in reading the text at all.
Sentimental attachment, I suppose, to old, much-loved copies.
All editors discuss the historical sources which Shakespeare consulted in
writing Richard II nearly a hundred
years after Richard’s death. His primary source was Ralph Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (second edition 1587).
He probably read the anonymous play Woodstock.
Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, Richard’s severest uncle and
opponent, was murdered in Calais in 1397, and his death is the trigger for the
accusations and counter-accusations which underpin the first scenes of Richard
II.
He must have read Samuel Daniel’s epic poem The
Civil Wars which portrays the grieving Queen Isabel much as Shakespeare
does, whereas the historical Isabella was barely 10 at the time of Richard’s
fatal trip to Pomfret. He had
married her in Calais when she was seven, a move calculated to restore peace
between England and France. Isabella,
by all accounts, was beautiful, intelligent, and precocious.
Richard idolized her. There
is a charming picture in Jean Froissart’s Chronicle
(Froissart was a friend of Richard) of the kneeling king embracing his
child-bride with exquisite delicacy. Clearly,
it would be disastrous to invite a child of ten to play queen Isabel.
The content of the poetic form of her speeches preclude such a notion.
Yet there is an element of virgin innocence and inexperience in her
portrayal by Shakespeare which history underlines. Anne of Bohemia, Richard’s
first queen, had died at the age of 27, two years before Richard’s second
marriage. She had supported him
through many crises in his reign, and her death seemed to plunge Richard into
violence and despair. I fancy
Shakespeare has fused Anne and Isabella into Isabel, an example of the dramatic
license which he permitted himself: a
license which the chroniclers often took themselves for they were not without
motives for reshaping history.
It is interesting to dip into E. M. W. Tillyard’s Shakespeare’s
History Plays for insights on the Tudor view of history, and other writers
for differing arguments. One is
reminded of Richard’s handling of the Peasants Revolt in 1381.
He had been king for four years, and then—at the age of fourteen—he
faced thousands of insurgents at Smithfield.
The leader of the rebels, Wat Tyler, was killed.
The peasants capitulated. Was
this, as some say, a needless revolt? Was
it the first socialist revolution? Was
it a proof of the boy king’s courage, or did he sit on his horse rigid with
fear? (The young monarch had been
anointed with oils poured through crevices in his clothing, and had been
sensible of the marks of the cross made on his breast, his back, his forearms.
But he was also the boy who, at the age of five, had enjoyed the company
of the six year old Bolingbroke as his favorite cousin and courtier.)
Much delightful material is to be found in The
Compact Edition of the Dictionary of National Biography (OUP) but my edition
is reproduced ‘micrographically’ and needs a powerful magnifying glass.
And you have to be careful that you are getting the right Earl of
Northumberland, or whatever you are looking for.
Ultimately, one must put aside research and return to the play, hopefully
with one or two discoveries which will help the business of production.
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